Pvt. JAMES A. Logan
D-Day Veteran.
My Father.
James Alexander ("Jimmy") Logan was born in 1923 into a poor homesteading farming family in northern Ontario, Canada. His family farm was located in the old "French Settlement" section of the Markstay community, and he grew up as a child during the Great Depression. At the young age of thirteen, with only a sixth grade education, he left his struggling family in search of work. He "rode the rails" across Canada in search of employment, picking up odd manual labor jobs here and there.
In September 1939, war broke out between Britain and Germany. Canada, as a British Commonwealth county, immediately went to the military aid of England. Jimmy was living in Winnipeg, Manitoba at the time, and quickly enlisted in the Canadian Army. He entered service at the young age of 17 (lying about his age), and he had to fill his pockets with stones to meet the minimum weight requirement. He joined the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, and was shipped to England sometime around 1942. He served with Royal Winnipeg rifles until Sept 1944.
In Britain, he was trained as a Bren Gun Carrier driver. On Sept 22, 1944, he was reassigned to the Lincoln and Welland Regiment during Operation Market Garden.
June 6, 1944.
Day of Days.
D-Day.
The greatest amphibious assault in history.
Jimmy also did a lot of truck driving when he was sationed in England. He prepared
for invasion of Fortress Europe with the Canadian, British and American armed forces.
Having been on a boat and landing craft for several days, with bagpipes wailing and machine guns firing at the landing troops, he stormed ashore on Juno beach with the Canadian Army.
He often told stories about what it was like on the ships waiting for orders to disembark. He mentioned that Field Marshal Montgomery ordered bagpipers to play rousing pipe music non-stop, and the men were wound up tight as clocksprings. Upon landing, he drove his armored vehicle to the front line which had been pushed back
just a mile or so. From that hour forward, he was in combat until the end of the war.
The initial assault on Juno Beach was carried out by:
North Shore Regiment on the left at St. Aubin (Nan Red beach)
Queen's Own Rifles in the centre at Bernières (Nan White beach)
Regina Rifles at Courseulles (Nan Green beach)
Royal Winnipeg Rifles on the western edge of Courseulles (Mike Red and Mike Green beaches)
Canadian air, land and sea forces suffered approximately 950 casualties on D-Day, the majority being soldiers of the 3rd Canadian Division. By noon, the entire division was ashore and leading elements had pushed several kilometres inland to seize bridges over the Seulles River. By 6:00 pm they had captured the town of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer. A 1st Hussars armoured troop reached its objective along with men of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada before nightfall, when both units moved 15 km inland and crossed the Caen-Bayeux highway. However, this troop was forced to pull back because they had passed the supporting infantry. By the end of D-Day the division had penetrated farther into France than any other Allied force.
The Royal Winnipeg Rifles started action on the beaches in Normandy, and moved through France to Belgium. He joined the Lincoln and Welland Regiment participating in Operation Market Garden, and charged into Holland. He fought in and liberated many Dutch towns, and had a great fondness for the Dutch people. (I often wonder if he had a war-time romance with a Dutch girl. He wouldn't admit to it, but he sure smiled a lot when the subject came up!) It should be noted that the Dutch have a unique fondness for Canadians. The Dutch Royal Family took refuge in Canada during the war, and it was the Canadians who brought the joy of Sinterklaas back to the children of war torn Holland in early December 1944.
While in Holland, his division was quickly redeployed to Belgium during Battle of the Bulge.
He often told stories about how cold and miserable that time was. It seems that just like the Americans at Bastogne, the Canadians and Brits in Belgium and Holland were ill prepared for the early and severe winter weather. He always blamed frostbite from his miserable time during this campaign for his later arthritis problems.
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While in France, the troops used to often sleep anywhere they could find shelter - such as in local farmhouses. One night, after a very tough fighting day, a group of battle weary and some wounded Canadian troops took shelter in a nearby farmhouse. As luck would have it, a German artillery shell crashed through their farmhouse but did not explode. Seeing that the wounded troops were too exhausted to leave shelter, at great personal risk, Jimmy grabbed the unexploded shell and carried it safely out of the farmhouse. He never received any medals or
honors for his selfless act of bravery.
From France, he moved through Belgium, Holland, and
then into Germany, fighting until the very end of the war.
He was preparing to be re-deployed to the Pacific, when
the atomic bomb suddenly ended the war with Japan.
Jimmy came back to Canada as a hero, and got his first civilian job working at the Nielsen Chocolate factory in Toronto. After a year or so, he moved to Northern Ontario where he worked about a year as a Forrestry Service Fire Ranger in a lookout tower. He then moved to Sudbury, Ontario where he worked as a delivery driver for a local bakery.
In 1948, he met and within six weeks married Miss Elsie Mislinski - a young divorcee from nearbyConiston. They soon made their home in Coniston, Ontario, and eventually built a new home there in 1963.
Jimmy started his career as a stationary engineer in 1949 with Falconbridge Nickel Mines. A stationary
engineer is a skilled technician who operates boilers,
furnaces, and compressors. It is a licensed trade and
requires lengthy study, apprenticeship, and continuing examinations. In 1956, Jimmy started employment at the International Nickel Company (INCO), where he worked until he retired in 1982. He worked in both the Coniston and Copper Cliff smelters.
Jim had many talents. He was quite interested in electronics, and knew how to repair tube radios and televisions. He was the proud owner of one of the first television sets in Sudbury in 1953, and was one of the early adopters of color television in 1966. He had a well equipped work bench down in the basement, and was often busy with projects.
In 1962, Jim decided to learn to play the Scottish Bagpipes - undoubtedly because of his exposure to pipe music while in the Canadian Army. He was an early member of the Sudbury and District Pipe Band, and was also a member of the Ontario Legion Massed Pipes and Drums. He and his wife traveled all over Canada and to Candian military gaveyards all over Europe with the pipe bands. Jimmy even had the honor of playing to the Queen Mother in 1984 at the Edinburgh Royal Tattoo.
In early June 1987, he and his wife were touring with the Ontario Royal Canadian Legion Massed Pipe and Drum Band playing in Normandy France. Some representatives of the French Government paid an unscheduled visit to the group, and inquired if any of the band members were also D-Day veterans. Jimmy told them that he was, so Jim and Elsie were then asked if they would like to leave the tour for a couple of days to attend a special commemorative event in Paris. They were flown on a French government private jet from Normandy to Paris, given a luxury room in one of the best Hotels in the city, and assigned VIP seats of honor at a formal French Government dinner celebrating the June 6th anniversary of D-Day.
Jim and Elsie were seated at the head table - right next to François Mitterrand, the President of France, and several foreign government dignitaries. Jimmy was honored and toasted as a hero of the Republic of France. They were flown back to Normandy by private jet the next day, and re-joined their group.
I like to think that this great honor was a long overdue reward for Jimmy's forgotten heroism in that French farmhouse many years earlier.
During their happy retirement years,
Jim and Elsie traveled extensively in their beautiful new Winnebago, (Jimmy's pride and joy!) and frequently visited me - their grown son who was busy raising a family of his own in Texas.
True Canadian "snow birds", they made many friends and had wonderful vacation adventures across the USA and Canada.
Jimmy Logan quietly passed away on December 1, 1994.
His funeral service was packed to the walls with family and countless friends that he had made over the years. With "Amazing Grace" playing, he was escorted, with full Military honors, to his final place of rest by his fellow members of the Royal Canadian Legion Pipe band who knew him so well. He and his wife Elsie, who followed him in 2007, are now burried together in a special section of the Sudbury Municipal Grave Yard which is reserved for World War 2 Veterans.
Jimmy is now resting in his rightful place of honor- right beside his brother Russell (also a Canadian Army WW2 Veteran), Russell's wife Doreen, and many of his personal friends and fellow Consiton veterans from "The Greatest Generation".
The image of a lamenting bagpipe player is etched on his headstone.
Even now, after more than 25 years, not a day goes by without me missing him.
In Oct. 1944, Jimmy fought in a famous battle for control of the Dutch city of Bergen op Zoom. He mentioned the fierce fighting to me many times. He re-visited the city with the Royal Canadian Legion in the 1980s.
Here is a 2014 video that honors the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen op Zoom by allied forces. I know that Jimmy would be proud to participate if he were here today.