199 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca RUDY, John Daniel “Jack” WWII Jack, born in 1912, married Mary Klisko in Yorkton on February 15, 1938. He then enlisted in the Royal Canadian Artillery in October 1939, at the age of 27, while working for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He worked as a cook in theYorkton Armouries for three months before being posted to Dundurn, Saskatchewan.There he worked in the Officer’s mess for about six months. Jack’s next posting was to New Westminster, BC and then onto Nanaimo. From there, he went to Petawawa, Ontario still as a cook. While in Petawawa, he trained for overseas duty. In July 1942, Jack received embarkation leave and disembarked from Halifax on the Empress of Japan. Halfway across the Atlantic, the announcement came over the PA system that they were being sunk. What happened, really, is that the name of the boat was changed to Empress of Scotland. They landed at Greenock, Scotland as a convoy of one battleship, three cruisers, and an aircraft carrier as escorts. While crossing the Atlantic, they spent a lot of time dodging German U-boats, resulting in the trip taking eight days. When reaching Greenock, they went by train to Aldershot, Scotland. Jack took a six-month course in cooking and afterwards became a cook instructor in Aldershot. In due course, he was transferred to the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Regiment where he continued his trade. Other postings included Foxton, Caterham Valley, Seher, and Brighton, England, where he got ready to go to the Continent. On D-Day plus six, their outfit left Southampton for France, landing at Calais. As Jack said, “It was pretty rough for the boys ahead of us.We headed for Caen. This place was a mess – bombed flat, all but about five houses.We had to have a road bulldozed through the city before we could go on.” When they got to Goch, Germany, just over the German border, his unit shelled Emerich very heavily.They then advanced up through Holland. They guarded Dutch Prisoners of War there, both men and women, German collaborators, with their heads shaven close. There were about 5,000 in a big, barbed wire enclosure. At six in the morning, the Dutch soldiers would take out about twenty prisoners at a time to execute them. One day, they cleaned out the whole camp. At 8:00am on the day the war ended, their guns were all loaded and ready to fire, and they had to unload them all. That was ticklish work as the guns had sensitive fuses. Jack was then posted to Nijmegen, Holland where he cooked for six months in an English repatriation station, “Just imagine – six months with mutton every day of the week.We could smell the wool. I never ate it. I had sardines instead.” After this he returned to England and was soon repatriated back to Canada on the Queen Elizabeth.There were 25,000 troops on board. The grub was good; only two meals a day, though. The trip took four days, from Southampton to New York. In New York, they were loaded onto barges and then herded onto a train headed for Toronto where they went to the Royal York Hotel, with $5 in their pockets. They couldn’t get into much trouble. Those soldiers bound for the west took a train to Winnipeg, and Jack eventually landed back in Bredenbury, home at last, on January 19, 1946. After his leave, Jack was discharged in Regina on February 20, 1946, with the rank of Corporal. He then returned to his job with the CPR in Bredenbury. Jack’s entire railroad career also included Brandon, and finally retirement in Minnedosa. He married Bertha Ritchie in 1971 and retired in 1974. Jack worked for Agristeel, doing lathe work for 1.5 years, then caretaker at the Bank of Commerce and the Royal Bank, before retiring completely. Jack was a life member of The Royal Canadian Legion General Hugh Dyer Branch 138 in Minnedosa. He passed away on September 2, 1994, and is buried in Minnedosa Cemetery. He received the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp, Defence Medal, France and Germany Star, 1939-1945 Star and War Medal 1939-1945.
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