27th Canadian Infantry Brigade

Incidentally when my wife and I returned to her village in 2003 which she hadn't been to since 1948. We had made arrangements (good old Google) to meet with a gentleman who had been her friend as a child way back then. He met us at the train station and I'm sure that we were checked out before being invited to his home. (Crazy Canadians you know). We obviously passed muster and have since formed a wonderful friend ship, but I still don't think the word du has come into use yet. As BobG says, " I will wait for an invite to use that form of address". Which as he says "I had arrived at a defining moment in a relationship". I know in my fourth year in Germany (1967) I was invited to do this at Christmas Eve party at my local Gasthof. It was a good feeling.

Bob G & Hydrations,
Thank you both for your interest and support of statements which I made about the proper use of what most would regard as an insignificant pronoun. Both of you used interesting personal stories in North and South Germany to illustrate that "du" is still very significant depending on when, where, and how it is used.
With friendly regards,
Bob

I am married to a German lass. I have never lived in Germany apart from my service years. My German is not fantastic, but I can conversate with the relatives.

There has been discussed on this thread about the 'Du and Sie'. However, when I am in the presence of mixed company, the problem arrives, for me anyway, is composition of the remainder of the sentance, as non native German speakers are aware, can be a real trap. How often does one read about squaddies falling into the trap when asking someone on a cold day, whether they are 'cold'?

alan8376 wrote:

How often does one read about squaddies falling into the trap when asking someone on a cold day, whether they are 'cold'?

Canadian answer to your question alan

Shiver and say," Cold eh!"...

Hardrations I like it.

BobG

Hardrations, BobG, Alan8376, et al,

I don't want to pursue this pronoun thing adnauseam but I will relate one further story and then I promise that I will let it go. All of you have very significant relationships with Germans and this is why I feel comfortable in telling it. As I have mentioned before, my wife and I made a trip to Germany in 1976 to research our family trees; we are both 4th generation German heritage; I am, without doubt, south German, my ancestor having come from a small village (Duhren)about 40km SE of Heidelberg, Baden. My wife's situation is not so clear cut, her ancestor was from Arnshain a small village in Hesse-Darmstadt a bit NE of Frankfurt. It's in the middle of Germany. However, I think she was south German background. I thought that she didn't know any German but once in a moment of great exasperation with me, she called me an 'orschloch' which I knew was south German for 'asshole'; we laughed and I shrugged it off as a term of endearment.LOL I think we drove first to Duhren and found a small Gasthof which seemed to be a favorite watering hole for the locals. Every sentence contained a 'du', so no problem. Found out that there were no Ritters any longer in the immediate area. Also no problem meeting the minister of the local Lutheran Church where I got significant information on my family tree. He put us on the church mailing list and we regularly got a monthly mail out for about three years. Somewhere along the way a bulletin arrived with a history of the church and the village. With the help of my daughter-in-law who majored in French with a minor in German, we were able ,between us, to translate the history. The part about the arrival of the American army in 1944 in the area of the village was very interesting. The Americans sent out a couple of spies dressed as Germans to mix with the villagers in their Sunday morning church service to see if German troops were there. There were no troops, only a stockpile of artillery shells by the side of the road. The story went on to say that the villagers suspected something was amiss because their German was too formal and polished, obviously text book stuff. They left but before their advance into the village their artillery fired some phosphorous shells into the stone church knocking down the tower and gutting the interior. The account seemed to blame the unfriendly response from the villagers and no mention was made of the military threat of the tower. Perhaps part of it was an absence of 'du'?
Bob

If I had some phosphorous rounds into my tower I'd be a bit unfriendly to Bob

Any how a question. I worked with a pair of Ritter brothers out here in Winnipeg. They hail from up around Selkirk. Any relatives out here?

alan8376 wrote:

I am married to a German lass. I have never lived in Germany apart from my service years. My German is not fantastic, but I can conversate with the relatives.

There has been discussed on this thread about the 'Du and Sie'. However, when I am in the presence of mixed company, the problem arrives, for me anyway, is composition of the remainder of the sentance, as non native German speakers are aware, can be a real trap. How often does one read about squaddies falling into the trap when asking someone on a cold day, whether they are 'cold'?

Hi all,
In Osnabruck 1951/1952 there was downtown a pub/club/eating place, with a large German singer, he played piano accordian, and was always singing "Du bis meine kartoffle".
He looked as if he had eaten plenty of them

Amazing how such things stick in the mind, after all these years
Anyone remember him and where was the place, a favourite on a Saturday evening

Regards
Tony RE

Hi Hardrations
re : Ritter relatives in Winnipeg or Selkirk
I don't think that I have any Ritter relatives in either place. However, my grandfather's brother, my Great Uncle, split from his wife and children and went West to Manitoba ca 1910. He was way ahead of his time. There was always a gut feeling in the family that he had a second family out there. One on my second cousins from that family told me that when his father died the children were notified of his death. There was a great discussion whether to go out to bring back his body and they did not want to have him buried beside his wife. My cousin went West, brought the body back at considerable expense and had him buried beside his wife because they did not want to pay for another grave site. LOL Whether there were other children out there has never been established.
I do have some relatives in Winnipeg; my nephew , Paul Conrad, was the manager of Winnipeg Airport for many years but is now retired.
Take care
Bob

Now you got me curious. Next time I see Bob at a one of the dinners (for retired employees of Stony Mt. ) I'll ask him.

Nice one Jerry

Jerry,
I am pleased that you shared that story in this forum.
Thanks,
Bob

Bob, An Ideal place to share it Mate

Baor(CIB) surfers,
Installment No. 17 Company Exercise in the Teutoburger Wald
This was my first company exercise in the field after arriving at the Hannover garrison which took place in early Jul 52. What the mission was exactly was not clearly defined but it seemed to have something to do with the response strategy to a push West by Russian Forces in the DDR. It called for all NATO troops to make a hurried withdrawal to the West to a previously defined defensive line in order to give NATO time to deploy its nuclear response weapons. Company exercises at Hannover were scheduled in such a way that companies took turns being away from the garrison. This exercise involved Bravo Coy RHLI , 1st Cdn Rifle Bn. Following the release of the movement order, the Coy rapidly loaded their equipment onto previously arranged transport and proceeded West from Hannover to their deployment area in the Teutoburger Wald (TW) near Detmold. TW refers to the root 'teuton' German tribe and Wald =forrest. The TW is a large tract of of very low forested mountains located in the states of Lower Saxony and North-Rhine Westphalia and more specifically to an area between the Ems and Weser Rivers. Bravo Coy disembarked near the Hermannsdenkmal (HD) in the TW near the site of a very important battle in 9AD between the Roman army and an alliance of Germanic tribes. A large denkmal(memorial)was erected on the site to commemorate the German Chieftain, Arminius who had been trained by the Romans. When the monument was first erected in 1875 the name Arminius was changed to Hermann, a more recognizable German name. The Roman army consisted of three legions, XVII, XVIII, and XIX as well as six cohorts and three squadrons of cavalry with a total force estimated around 20,000. The number of of the combined German tribes exceeded that of the Roman army which was commanded by Publius Varus who had been appointed by the Emperor Augustus Caesar. The war was a series of engagements lasting for over a month and ranging over a wide area from Osnabroek in the East, to Paderborn in the South, and Kalkriese in the North. The outcome was the total annihilation of the Roman army, the loss of their Eagles, and the suicides of Varus and many of his commanders. Historians attribute this enormous victory to the beginnings of German nationalism as well as the ending of Roman expansion in Northern Europe. Readers still interested in this slaughter should Google Hermannsdenkmal. The memorial which is a huge annual tourist draw is shown below.

Back to the Company Exercise:
Weapons did not play a significant part in the exercise as there was not a live firing range in the area nor was there any digging of trenches. Cutting down trees for camp fires was not permitted but when the vehicles left for the vehicle park some small trees and branches got knocked down. Something strange happened about an hour later when an old lady came to our site and proceeded to gather up the branches into bundles and lug them off. I asked her in German if she wanted some help but I remembered not to use the pronoun 'du' LOL. My Sgt detailed a couple of my pl riflemen to help her. The strange part of the incident was that no one knew where she had come from nor had anyone noticed any farm buildings. It was my feeling that the purpose of the exercise had much to do with an acclimatization to the forest, and living under canvas in the two man tents. It reminded me of my earlier boy scout training. Before I left Hannover my
friend and mentor , Capt Vic, provided me with his safari bed as he was going on vacation. It
consisted of several telescoping steel rods with a heavy canvas cover. When assembled it was
about 30cms off the ground. It was part of our ongoing commodity exchange; he said it would
keep the lizards from crawling over me at night. What lizards??? Apparently there are two
species of lizards native to Germany and they are on the endangered species list. The pictures at the end of this account shows the Sand Lizard which grows to a length of about 30cms and the Blind Worm lizard which can grow to about 40cms. They are both harmless and I never saw any. The week was spent doing short route marches combined with many map reading exercises using the compass. Map reading was difficult in the area because of very few identifiable features.
Two pictures below show No 2 Pl sitting on the steps of the HD; yours truly with Sgt Cox and the second picture with me on the left, an unknown in the middle, and my good friend 2/Lt Andre Desjardine. Look for my next installment about Orderly Officer Duties
Bob

Bob

Have run out of superlatives to describe your anecdotes

30 years later I still was attempting to sleep on exercises n those xxx collapsible canvas beds (with my height/weight I always ended up on the ground, blow up rubber beds were a dodgy alternative)

Your Exercise on the Teutoburg Wald was a rehearsal of the last ditch stand of 1st British Corps (including the Canadian Brigade) should the Soviet 4 Guards Shock Army ever crossed the border at Helmstedt

Finally good to see that the Canadian Army maintained the British tradition that no two officers should be dressed exactly the same

JPW
Nice to hear from you again and thank you for explaining further the purpose of our hasty move West to the Teutoburger Wald in our exercise. You are right on about the very tippy safari bed; got dumped out a couple of times before mastering it. As I said in one of my earlier posts, I thought that we had been outfitted from the Sally Ann thrift shop.LOL
With friendly regards as usual,
Bob

Hermannsdenkmal..... Herman the German as we knew him. Did a few exercises up there to, but we didn't have the luxury of 2 man tents. It was hoochies made from ponchoes, WD 2 Cable and boot laces. No lizards but some big fat slugs (snails with no shell) about 3 inches from your face in the morning, with British Compo's for meals. Much better than Yank hard rations. ( Could explain why they lost in Vietnam).

Hardrations,
Nice to hear from someone who was on exercises at or near the Denkmal. I am sure that we were not on hard rations of any kind. I think part of the exercise was for the company cooks to prepare hot food in the field. I found another picture taken on the exercise which I am almost embarrassed to show you. There was a beer garden set up near the denkmal for tourists with tables, tablecloths, the whole nine yards. Don't remember what was on tap. LOL
I'm there with my pa,l Desjardins and a 3rd person taking the picture who will remain anonymous. Don't think we were supposed to be there. Also no frauleins serving. Pity
Good to hear from you,
Bob

Hi Bob,

This is in Rheinselen in 1965. About 80 KM south of Hamburg. It's the RC Sigs Sec. 1 SSM Bty RCA. The 4th fellow from the left in the very back row is Bill ? he was a 27 Bde fella way back then. Can't remember his last name now. He enjoyed telling us about it. Me? I'm second from the right kneeling in the front row.

Hardrations,
Thanks for sharing that picture of your outfit (RC Sigs Sec. 1 SSM Bty RCA) going back to 1965 in Germany. Like you I am able to put names to only a very few of my RHLI company in 1952. Having trouble doing that on a day to day basis now LOL Occasionally I will wear a tie going out to an event and someone will ask me why I'm wearing a tie and I will say to them that i do this periodically because I'm afraid that I might forget how to do it. The dress that your outfit are wearing is somewhat similar to the summer dress that we were wearing in the militia RCA during that era. We referred to it as 'bush'; Have I got that right?
Good to hear from you,
Bob

ritter wrote:

Hardrations,
The dress that your outfit are wearing is somewhat similar to the summer dress that we were wearing in the militia RCA during that era. We referred to it as 'bush'; Have I got that right?
Good to hear from you,
Bob

You've got it partially right Bob. In 63 4 CIBG received the the new combat dress. The combat pants were very heavy and uncomfortable and the hat was a bit silly. SO... bush hat and bush pants were back in wear year round with combats. The medical unit was interesting to see RCN medics in combats and white sailors hats. Looked like a group of soldiers wearing see gulls for a hat from a distance. You'll notice we have combat jackets, combat shirt and combat boots on. Incidentally Rheinselen was a former night fighter base for the Luftwaffe so we were told. It had cement practise bombs as road fencing. The camp commander was WO 1 British Army. It flooded very nicely in rainy weather.

I've got a lot of catching up to do here by looks of things. Have been up to my neck helping my wife who is up to her neck in running for school trustee here in BC where we have elections for mayors and councils as well as school boards tomorrow (Saturday). The weather chaps are celebrating the event by dumping loads of snow on us which pleases skiers/boarders and resort operators but no one else.

Anyway, that's my whine for the day. On the subject of the combat clothing Hardrations mentions: I well remember wearing the trousers once and once only. They were actually the winter issue and had rubber lining in the seat, crotch and knees which caused a lot of clammy sweatiness in warm weather. So back to bush pants we went.

We were warned repeatedly not to expose the uniform to bleach. But, as ever, there were a few bent on rapid promotion who disregarded the sound advice in an effort to get noticed. Get noticed they did! The bleach turned the khaki jackets and pants to a rather sickly pink colour. Result: a visit to the QM and the dreaded: "Press heavy, there's five copies".

Then there were the boots. They were touted as being completely waterproof once the owner had diligently followed the instruction on applying coats of silicone waterproofing. We soon found out that they were indeed waterproof. Once the water leaked inside it naever came out. Our CO, then L/Col Duncan McAlpine, remarked that he thought "we had been sold a bill of goods".

Hardrations,
Thanks for setting me straight on that 'bush' dress issue which I raised. The bush clothing which we were using in the 60's was strictly light weight summer wear with web belt which was comfortable. No combat boots of course, too costly for the Canadian militia. LOL Was never near the former Luftwaffe base at Rheinselen which you describe. As I remember the only other base which the 27CIB was at while I was with the Bde was the Putlos base up north on the Baltic Sea near the former German naval base. Was ist los auf Putlos? Nichts!! LOL
And a south German machts gut to you,
Bob

Recce83,
We also got nailed here with our 2nd snowfall on Thursday. My neighbour told me she was driving on the highway (the notorious 21) running north along Huron and ran in and out of a couple of whiteouts off the lake. Everyone is looking forward to an Indian Summer now and it was sunny and cold here today. Thanks for your further information on the bush dress issue but please explain 'Press heavy there's five copies', a repayment charge??
It's a very small world in the Canadian military; you mentioned your former CO, L/Col Duncan McAlpine. When I was taking my basic training in Valcartier in 1950, Duncan McAlpine was a Capt in charge of the instructional cadre. I read somewhere that he became a Major General.
Good luck to your wife and her coach in the school board election,
Bob