Memoirs re Combined Ops, "Peter Neuman - Boy Soldier" Part 1

An Outline of the WW II Exploits of Peter Alfred Neuman, 
a Fifteen Year Old Canadian Boy 

In the Royal Canadian Navy’s Combined Operations ‘Commandos’

Written and Submitted by Peter's son, Michael Neuman

My Dad’s World War II Combined Operations ‘Beach Commandos’ Patch

Part 1 - A Few Stories of That Time that My Dad Told Me
This is a picture of my Dad, Peter Neuman taken at some point during his WW II naval career, which commenced on June 16, 1942 when he was fifteen years old and ended upon his demobilisation on November 2, 1945 at eighteen years of age.

My father passed away in 2001 after a relatively short but miserable battle with lung cancer. He was 73. He had smoked his entire life from about 13 years of age and as far back as I can recall consumed about two packs a day, starting from the moment his feet hit the floor in the early morning. Even now, after so many years of enjoying non-smoking environments everywhere, the smell of cigarette smoke provides a fleeting reminder of my Dad. Smoking did not define him but until a few years prior to his death, it was a part of his life for several decades.

I was born in 1955, about ten years after the end of World War II. As difficult as it is to know what the world was really like then, sixty years ago, it is very clear that it was a much simpler time and a more wholesome place. Post-war thinking and issues still dominated as soldiers and families were a scant ten years from having experienced the worst period of their lives in many cases. Those first ten years were about repairing damage of all kinds associated with a global conflagration. For many people, those years were a time to forget, move on and make up for lost time.

As it turned out, my Dad had a lot of lost time to make up for but because he had not let on, we spent most of our lives only vaguely aware of his pre-war and wartime life experiences, until now. His first ten years after WWII were dominated by the pursuit of a better life; getting married; starting a family and improving his work prospects – he was forward looking and had little time or patience with those who felt the need to reminisce.

For many years he avoided the Legion and he never participated in Remembrance Day. He once told me that he thought the some vets were actually missing what had probably been the most exciting part of their lives and after that, they lived forever in those memories, failing to move on. That was not for him. The result of his attitude was that his four children were aware of an outline of his past and adopted his perspective on it while focussing on the all-important present and future.

I was the Executor of my father’s estate. Following the distribution of his assets and wrap up of the files associated with that, I boxed everything and put it away into storage thinking I would later go through it all and destroy that which would no longer be important with the passage of time. This year, with the increased focus on remembrance largely due to media coverage of the unfortunate loss of life of Canadian military personnel at home and abroad, I was motivated to open my Dad’s files and look for some papers I recalled having seen over the years but had not examined, regarding his war service. Among my Dad’s papers were many documents and keepsakes from the war – mostly official documents that were instrumental in helping me piece together his story in detail.

Before I move on, let me say that a central theme in my Father’s childhood was established well before the war broke out – he came from a broken home. In the absence of that central issue, he would certainly have had no wartime experiences at all save a vague recollection of the changed circumstances at home that all Canadian families endured during the war.

My Dad grew up in Verdun, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal. By today’s standards, until the age of ten he would have enjoyed a middle class existence. His father was a fire investigator and his mother stayed home raising my Dad and his younger brother, Michael, and taking care of her retired mother who also lived with the family. When my father was ten in 1937, his father announced to the family that he was leaving the household, and summarily did so. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Vancouver where he took up residence with a woman from Montreal, leaving his ‘Montreal’ family to fend for themselves.

With her mother and two sons in tow, my grandmother went out to work at any job she could find, but the family’s standard of living diminished drastically. Two years later, she put my Dad into an orphanage run by the church, on the basis that she could no longer care and feed them all and, at twelve years old, he was the strongest and most able to stand on his own. Thus, at twelve years of age, my Dad found himself in the hands of the church and hated it. He ran away constantly and prior to his father’s move to British Columbia, sought him out and begged him for money and fatherly support, unsuccessfully.

It is noteworthy that at the age of twelve, my Dad was about 5’ 9” tall. I can relate well to that as my own grade six class photo (below) shows me as being the same height as my teacher (far right).

Michael Neuman (far left), Gr. 6, is the only boy not standing on a bench

So in 1940, by the time he was thirteen years old, my Dad had already spent a couple of years in and out of school and a home for boys in Montreal. He looked more like a teenager than a child and was as tall as his wayward father. My father had pestered his own father enough by that time that he was becoming a nuisance in terms of his father’s plans of making a clean break with his new wife.

On the streets in Montreal, my Dad had learned that he could lie about his age and become as old as he needed to be in order to get by at any point, so he sought his father’s help to ‘formalise’ the age lie, so that he could get a job on a merchant ship.

My Dad’s father was an accomplished artist in oils and water colour. I still have one of his paintings in my home, probably the only family heirloom that came down through my father’s side of the family. His artistic work is museum quality. To get the Able Seaman’s job, my grandfather ‘doctored’ my Dad’s birth papers expertly, to change his birthdate from February 2, 1927 to February 2, 1923, thus turning a thirteen year old boy into a fuzzy-chinned seventeen year old.

I found my Dad’s Civil Status Certificate, certifying his birth on February 2, 1927 and Baptism in May of 1928 in Montreal. I located this document through the Quebec government many years ago when I had need to trace my lineage back to my Grandmother’s birth in the U.K., in order to facilitate my own immigration to England in 1984.

Fake ID in hand, my Dad got a job on a merchant ship and his father got rid of the nuisance my Dad had become, with the stroke of a pen. With that, at the actual age of thirteen and professed age of seventeen, my Dad became a sailor aboard ships that traded between Montreal, the eastern seaboard of the U.S., the Caribbean and South America.

I can recall only a few stories of that time that my Dad told me.

In one instance, he recalled being attacked on his way back to the ship in Port of Spain and only narrowly avoiding disaster when an older shipmate happened along in the midst of the assault, beating the perpetrator unconscious and saving my Dad’s life. My father said that the mugging was probably just an attempt to steal his shoes and money. To me the story completed a picture of how vulnerable a young kid would be in those circumstances – and how fast you would grow up as a result.

By 1942 my Dad had already experienced life at sea and had travelled back and forth to South America. Life aboard ship was boring hard work interspersed by interesting and exciting events. Beyond the less savoury anecdotes my Dad related to me, he recalled swimming in the Caribbean waters and learning from local kids at the docks, the difference between Nurse Sharks and the more dangerous varieties. I recall that he also had a nasty run in with a Man-O-War – a stinging jelly fish, which he sat on when he hoisted himself up onto a pier while swimming. For a kid who found himself ‘afloat’ on the streets of Montreal as a pre-teen, life as a merchant mariner was a step up. He had a place to sleep, food to eat and they paid him. His education stopped summarily at thirteen but he was seeing the world.

In 1941, Dad developed a disease called Pellagra, which is caused by a vitamin deficiency. Left untreated it can result in death within a few years. Pellagra creates open sores on parts of the body and leaves scars. In early 1942, his Pellagra was so bad with sores on his hands and legs that he could not work and the shipping company let him go on the dock in Georgetown, British Guiana.

My Dad’s ship was called the S.S. Cartierdoc, owned by the Paterson Line. I found this short history of the boat online:

The first Cartierdoc was a canal sized bulk carrier built for the Paterson fleet in 1928 by the shipyards of Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend-on-Tyne, England. She was powered by a small triple expansion steam engine with 2 coal-fired Scotch boilers. Her final dimensions were 259' length x 43' 03" beam x 24' depth; 3,144 dwt. The vessel was sold to Marine Salvage of Port Colborne, ON in 1961; who, in turn, sold the hull to Tank Truck Transports Ltd., Sarnia, ON. The hull was modified to a liquid chemical carrying barge and was renamed Chembarge No.3. After being sold again for use as a sunken temporary break wall, she was raised and scrapped in 1970.

Among my Dad’s papers is a British Guiana Crew Landing Card which names the ship and shipping line, his name, rank or rating and his nationality as “British”. On the back there is a hand written certification that says; “have taken no letters ashore or on board”. There are also two notations showing dates ashore: 6/1/42 and 9/1/42. He was 14 years old.

Sick and deserted in South America, my Dad contacted his father, who in turn contacted a judge, who forced the shipping company with assets in Canada, to fly my Dad home, by means of a writ of Habeas Corpus. I assume even his father could not imagine leaving his fourteen year old son in Guiana to die. Not as much can be said for the Paterson Company, owned by a Canadian family in Winnipeg.

Among Dad’s papers is an aged Pan Am ticket stamped for departure on February 12, 1942, ten days after Dad’s 15th birthday. The itinerary called for a flight from Georgetown via Port of Spain (Trinidad) and San Juan to a final destination, Miami. The front of the ticket says; “Passage Must Be Completed By 15 Feb 1943”, however the exit stamp from Georgetown, British Guiana, upside down on the lower back of the ticket says Feb 12 1942.

My father’s onward journey took him to Montreal where he recovered over several months, staying with a family. I do not know why he did not stay with his Mother at that point and did not ask.

At fifteen and fully recovered, as the war raged in Europe, like so many teenagers my father responded to the call.

More to follow.

Link to Memoirs re Combined Ops, "Answers to a Questionnaire"

Photos with permission of Michael Neuman