Moonlight ad in Winnipeg Tribune, 1939
As we all look forward to the last weekend of September, we might remember what September and more specifically, the Labour Day weekend looked like 85 years ago.
Labour Day Weekend 1939: In Winnipeg, the weather is fairly nice, but people are definitely talking about much more than that. On Friday, Germany invades Poland, war is looming, and mobilization is underway.
While some Winnipeggers look forward to taking the Moonlight train to Winnipeg Beach, leaving the Canadian Pacific station at 6:55 pm – for 50 cents return fare, others begin a different journey.
Enthusiastic recruits line up and sign up to volunteer for military service. Earl Dickie, one of the DICKIES FROM GUNTON: CANADIAN BROTHERS IN TWO WORLD WARS, and his friends are among the first to enlist. They join the Winnipeg Grenadiers.
For Earl’s brother, Percy, the situation is unsettling. Percy remembers the horrors of the First World War, and now, only about 20 years later, here we go again. Many including his younger brother, Earl, are ready to answer the call, to serve for one year or the duration of the war. They want to give Nazi leader Adolph Hitler the raspberry and help save the world. But no one yet knows what that will take, and what it will cost.
On Saturday, Poland’s allies, Britain and France, provide a final warning to Hitler to remove his troops from Poland. Everyone has their ear to the radio, awaiting the latest news.
On Sunday morning, it’s war. The British Prime Minister proclaims it. Canada stands beside Britain and Canadians prepare for what lies ahead. Britain’s King George VI speaks in a radio broadcast, noting that for many of us, we are now at war for the second time in our lives.
A local reporter speaks to a young constable who reacts to the news. “Isn’t it a terrible thing that civilization should have to come down to this?”
By the time it is over, in September 1945, the surviving Winnipeg Grenadiers will be liberated from a POW camp in Japan.