12/03/2021
THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE
Today is the day made famous by the movie, The Devil's Brigade.
Hollywood can make things a bit hokey at times, and they have certainly shown that they can take away credit from what Canada has accomplished. But in this movie, the way they did a positive spin on the Canadians' arrival at the training camp in Montana was beautiful. I love the pipes!
Within sight of my office in Harriston is a house where the youngest member of the Brigade lived for a year with his sister. He had tried once to get in the army when he had just turned 15. No luck. Then a bit later, he tried again by going to London. That recruiting office accepted him.
Victor INNANEN grew up on a farm just a few kilometres from Harriston. When he left/finished, however far he wanted to go in elementary school, he moved to Harriston. There was a war on and he wanted to fight. Victor was a big kid.
Almost immediately after joining the army, he was sent for special ops training. He turned 17 in April 1943 and by July was boarding a ship in San Francisco bound for an attack on a Japanese stronghold that had taken over a couple of American owned islands in the Aleutians.
Immediately after that adventure, the First Special Service Force as it was known then, was shipped half way around the world to Italy where they landed in November 1943. Their task? Capture the mountains that guarded Cassino, and thereby open the way to Rome.
The first task was to throw the Germans off two of the highest peaks, Monte la Difensa and Monte la Remetanea. And on the night of December 2/3, 1943, they made history by scaling the cliffs at the rear of la Difensa.
Watch the movie.
Wow, I love those pipes!
(Victor was killed by a sniper a month later while conquering yet another hill on the way to Rome. He was 3 months shy of his 18th birthday.)
