Remembering: The Soldier's Story

Photo from: Maple Lake Ontario blog

             Private Alan Sheldon returns to his hometown of Stonewall, Manitoba, where he was born in 1925, to remember the soldiers that have served his country at the Royal Canadian Legion.

            Sheldon left to join the Second World War in 1941 after turning 18 to fight as part of the Allies, which were lead by the British Empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States of America.

            The Allies fought and won against the Axis power, lead by Germany, Italy, and Japan in a global military conflict that took place in Europe and lasted from 1939-1945.

            For his service in the Second World War, his uniform is decorated with nine different medals, including the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp, the France and Germany Star, the Italian Star, and the Defence Medal. Sheldon keeps these medals in pristine condition, much like he keeps all of his mementos from the war.

            After spending two years in North Africa, Sheldon traveled over to Italy for a year and a half. Opening his bag of keepsakes, he removes a white dinner plate found in 1944 in the rubble of a bombed hotel in the town of Cesenatico on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

            “The entire hotel was demolished from bombs, but I saw something sticking out of the stones. It was a dinner plate without a scratch or crack. I threw out my mess tins and ate off the plate until the war was over,” recalls Sheldon of his discovery.

             Sheldon did not always have the luxury of having food on his plate, though. He and his fellow soldiers were often given no food, just hard cookies and tea bags. When water became hard to get, they resorted to hot water from the engine of a train for their tea.

            “Those cookies were the hardest and blandest things I have ever eaten,” said Sheldon, while pulling a box of them from his bag of keepsakes. As he opens the lid to the box, he muses, “Not a speck of mould after 66 years.”

            From his bag, Sheldon continues to pull out a leather zipped case that held many letters to him from countries giving thanks for his aide in the war, papers of his discharge when leaving the army, and a letter from future President Dwight Eisenhower upon his deployment into Europe, wishing him good luck.

            Sheldon also brought along many of the letters he and Vivian, his late wife of 68 years, had sent back and forth during the war.

            “We started numbering our letters to each other while I was away. At the end, we were at number 408,” he says, smiling.

            Sheldon replaces each of his mementos into his bag with care, trying to keep each token from his time overseas in perfect condition to pass on to his children or grandchildren one day.

            “I will never forget but for many young people, it probably doesn’t seem real to them. I show these memories to my grandkids to make it real for them,” says Sheldon.