www.nb.legion.ca 141 NEWBRUNSWICKCOMMANDThe Royal Canadian Legion LégionRoyale CanadienneDIRECTIONNOUVEAU-BRUNSWICK MacWILLIAM,Thomas Cail WWII/Deuxième guerre mondiale Thomas Cail MacWilliam, known as Cail, was born in Cails Mills, Kent County, New Brunswick, on February 16, 1915, to Ernest MacWilliam and Laura Jane Cail, who lived on a farm in nearby Fords Mills. Cail attended the community school in Fords Mills from grades one to eight. In 1930, he entered the Mount Allison Boys’ Academy in Sackville, New Brunswick. The Yearbook for 1932 had this to say about him on his matriculation from the Academy: “From the beginning Cail has exhibited marked ability as a student and as an athlete. He has had a place on both the Academy football and basketball teams. He was the President of the C. S. M. (Christian Student Movement) in 1931 and was chosen to represent the Academy at the Convention in Buffalo. Cail possesses a personality that makes him well liked by all with whom he comes in contact. We wish you the best of luck Cail in the profession that you chose to follow.” In 1933, Cail obtained his First Class Teaching License from the Provincial Normal School in Fredericton, New Brunswick. After graduation from Normal School, Cail taught for a year at the one-room Mundleville Schoolhouse in Kent County. His Mundleville School Ledger, dated September 1934 to June 1935, was donated to the Lutz Mountain Heritage Museum by Faye Murray Cail, grand-daughter of Cavan and Emma Murray, at whose home Cail boarded during the school year. Cail MacWilliam entered Mount Allison University in Sackville in 1935, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1939. He excelled at track and rugby, helping the Mount Allison Rugby Team to win the Provincial Intercollegiate Championship in 1937, and the Maritime Intercollegiate Championship in 1938. Cail taught at the Mount Allison Boys’ Academy for the four years he was at the University and for a year after he graduated. Cail MacWilliam joined the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps at Mount Allison University in 1939, earning a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Canadian Army Reserve. He signed up for active duty with New Brunswick Rangers on July 16, 1940, in Saint John, New Brunswick, and served in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a year on coastal watch duty. While attending a training course at the Royal Military College the following year in Kingston, Ontario, Captain MacWilliam applied for, and was accepted into, a joint Canadian-American commando unit being raised in 1942 at Fort William Henry Harrison in Helena, Montana. Known as the First Special Service Force, its mission was to conduct raids on military targets behind enemy lines. MacWilliam was put in command of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment. On July 10, 1943, the Force was sent to the Aleutian Islands but the Japanese had withdrawn prior to their arrival on July 25. Following the successful landing of Allied troops on the southern tip of the Italian mainland on September 3, 1943, the First Special Service Force, stationed on the East Coast of the United States, were ordered to embark for North Africa. The three Regiments of the First Special Service Force disembarked in Casablanca, Morocco, and then travelled by train to Oran, Algeria. They were transported from Oran to Naples, Italy, by ship arriving on November 19, 1943. The commando force’s assignment in Italy was to support the Allied Regular Army’s advance up the Tyrrhenian Coast toward Rome by driving the Germans from their formidable fortifications positioned strategically on inland mountain peaks. The First Special Service Force’s first combat role in Italy took place on Monte la Difensa, located about 60 kilometres north of Naples. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Cail MacWilliam’s 1st Battalion was given the task of clearing the German stronghold on its summit. Supported by artillery barrages, MacWilliam led the advance platoon of 1st Company on its arduous climb up the mountain beginning at dusk on December 2, 1943. The lead detachments reached the summit just prior to daybreak on December 3. After a fierce, two-hour firefight, resistance from the surprised German defenders ceased and Difensa was in Allied hands. It was through such aggressive action that the Germans began to refer to the Force’s commandos with their blackened faces as the ‘Black Devils’. Later on the day of December 3, Lieutenant-Colonel MacWilliam was killed by a mortar salvo in a ravine below the summit of Monte la Difensa, while organizing an assault on nearby Monte la Rametanea. He is buried in the Cassino War Cemetery (B.A. IV. F.3), located 140 kilometres southeast of Rome. Harriet MacWilliam received news of her husband’s death in a telegram sent to her parents’ home in Moncton, New Brunswick, on December 14, 1943. Their son, Thomas A. MacWilliam, was born there in 1944. In honour of the exemplary conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Cail MacWilliam during the assault on Monte la Difensa, the Third Special Forces Group of the United States Army, named its headquarters building at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, ‘MacWilliam Hall’. The dedication ceremony, held on November 6, 1992, was attended by Mrs. Thomas Griffith, who was married to MacWilliam at the time of his death, and by their son, Thomas Cail. In 2013, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded, collectively, to the First Special Service Force in recognition of its service during World War II. continued/a continué
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