Family Legends

It seems that every family has someone who stood out from the crowd, whose name is talked about long after they are gone.  In my branch of the Halls family that person is Philip Ashley Patrick Halls, but I think mostly he was called Pip.

Why is Pip a legend?  I think some of it has to do with his personality, part of it has to do with the fact that he was not yet thirty when he died, and part of it is how he died, far from home on battlefield in Italy, fighting against one of the worst tyrannies the world has yet seen.

Pip was born on April 2, 1915 in Toronto, Ontario.  He was the son of Fred Halls, a locally well know paper magnate and philanthropist, and Kate McGill, a girl from Gravenhurst.

Pip enlisted in the Canadian Army on Sep 8, 1940 and was assigned to the Victoria Rifles for his training, some of which took place in British Columbia.  After his training he was sent to Newfoundland from December of 1940 to August of 1941 acting, with the rest of the Victoria Rifles, as garrison troops against any threat from the Nazis.  After August he was transferred back to Canada for more training, and then in October of 1942 he arrived in Sussex in England.

We can see from his pictures that he was good looking.  From what little I know, he was charismatic and made a good impression on people.  During an interview some time after he enlisted the interviewing officer stated that Pip was a, "Bright, intelligent, good looking N.C.O.¹  Thinks R.C.A.² would be more interesting.  If sent to the field unit he will quickly adapt himself and become interested in his platoon, or section."  The final line was typewritten and stated "Recommended as possible officer candidate - 52/Off Sel/1 - 20 May 43"

I should point out that much as Pip impressed people around him, he was by no means a saint.  He was docked pay for barracks damage the day after he was discharged from the Esquimalt Military Hospital.  There are two incidents of his being AWOL as well.  One of them was while he was stationed in BC on Oct 13th, 1941, and he was only gone for 8 hours.  The second time was in the UK, when he was absent from Jan 28th to 31st, 1943.

In July of 1943 he was with the Carleton and York Regiment.  I have been unable to determine at this point whether he landed on the beaches of Sicily with the first wave of Canadian troops in Operation Husky or if he came ashore the day after the main landings.  In October of 1943 he was transferred to the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR).

In January of 1944 the family was given a scare when it was reported that Pip was a casualty due to the collapse of a tower on December 31st/Jan 1st, which had been hit by artillery fire.  The telegram received by the family on Jan 28th did not indicate whether Pip was killed or injured.  However, the family had already received a cable (on Jan 13th) from Pip stating that he was fine.  At this point Fred pulled some strings by contacting Mrs. H. P. Plumptre and set off a small storm in the Red Cross and the Army trying to find out what had happened to his son.  It turn out Pip had been slightly injured, and might have had an intestinal upset into the bargain.

Pip remained with the RCR until the end, which for him came on September 16th, 1944, during the fighting to secure the Rimini airfield.  He is buried in the Coriano Ridge War Cemetery, grave 11, row E, plot 1.

After the war his sister, Frances Catherine Gorman wrote to inquire about the location of his grave.  I find it a bit odd as one assumes her parents. Fred and Kate would have known.  Perhaps she was planning a trip to Italy and wished to be sure she knew where to find the grave.

Pip's memory continued to be passed around in the Halls family.  My father received his medals.  Pip's dog tags were sent to his father, Fred, so someone probably has them even now.  The same can be said for the Memorial Cross (Silver Cross) that Kate, his mother, should have received after Pip died.

I read a letter to the editor written by Susan Riggs in November of 2010³.  As with me, he was her great-uncle, someone we never knew.  He simply would have been a name and a face, and yet, for many of us, he is remembered in an idyllic, idealistic sort of way.  The young man who gave his life to defeat the Nazi tyranny.  The young man, sitting on a stone wall, grinning, while waiting to go out and maybe shoot some squirrels or ducks at Pleasant Point, the family cottage.

1. N.C.O. - Non-Commissioned Officer, i.e., sergeants and below
2. R.C.A. - Royal Canadian Artillery.  Pip wanted to be an anti-aircraft gunner.
3. The article her letter was written in response to can be found here.

Small Victories

Sorry for the long silence since my last post.  I started full time as a college instructor in August of 2012, and the work load was just nasty this past fall/winter.  Next fall/winter should be much better, so more frequent posts.  The post you are about to read was started back in October of 2012.

A few days ago I found a picture of James Reginald Halls.  He was the only child of Philip Thomas Halls and Agnes Wood, and a grandchild of James Halls of Merton, Devon, and latterly of Elimville, Ontario.

Reg, as he was called, worked at a factory producing war equipment for the Allies in the small town of Whitby, Ontario.  I found the picture in the factory newspaper, The Commando, which has been digitized and placed online by the Pickering Ajax Digital Archive (PADA).

In another issue of The Commando I found a note of condolence to Reg and his wife Mary on the death of their daughter, Marilyn Phyllis Halls.  She was only 17.

It seems appropriate to finish this post on VE Day, the day we remember the Allied victory over the Nazis, which Reg, along with millions of others throughout the world, helped to bring about.  Theirs was a great victory.

Surprises in Old Records

I was looking at the Canadian military service records of my great uncle recently. In it you found the sorts of things you would expect. Copies of telegrams, medical records, information about what units he was with and where he was posted.

Sadly, my great uncle died in WWII in Italy, near Rimini, on Sept 16, 1944. When a soldier dies large amounts of paperwork are generated, letters of condolence, telegrams, death benefits, and multiple lists of personal effects. In the case of Pip (my great-uncle) there must have been at least 5 copies of Pip's personal effects, both typed and handwritten. There were telegrams letting his family know that the box was coming, there were records tracking where they were sent, and there was a packing slip for the box of personal effects, and this is where I found my surprise.

Amongst Pip's personal effects were letters. By itself that is no surprise. There were two or three to his mother, and two from girlfriends in England. Once again, no surprise.

The letters from the girlfriends in England were destroyed.

For me, that was a surprise. Why were they destroyed? What was in them? I have had a few relatives suggest that they contained place and unit information and that the letters were destroyed by censors. But the letters were apparently from his girlfriends, not to, so they already passed the censors, so why destroy them? The only thing I can think of is that one or both of them may have revealed that the girlfriend(s) were pregnant, or that she had a child of his.

Pip's father (Frederick William Halls) was a socially prominent figure in Toronto in the 1930's and 40's. Anyone who new anything about Toronto society would have known that he was religious, in all the right clubs, and heavily involved in charitable work. The revelation of a grandchild born out of wedlock would have been quite damaging to his reputation. It is quite possible that whoever destroyed the letters (or ordered them destroyed) knew Fred, and decided to spare him the scandal. Even if my scandal hypothesis is incorrect, given the general attitudes towards children out of wedlock in the 40's, and the military views towards children out of wedlock, perhaps it was simply decided to destroy the letters to spare the family and the military the inconvenience of dealing with a child born out of wedlock.

By now, any child would be about 67 years old. Most likely the child was born in Sussex, because that was where most Canadian troops were based while in England. Given that Pip arrived in England in late Spetember of 1942 and shipped out of England in June of 1943, any child would have been born no later than March of 1944.

There were pictures included in Pip's personal effects. The packing slip did not indicate that any of them were destroyed. I wonder if Fred and Kate were surprised to find an unknown young woman, posssibly holding an infant, amongst the pictures they received?