Lost to history no more

Native WW2 soldier excelled in a life abroad that at home he was denied

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Since the death of Lillian Morris' uncle, it’s been a 34-year wait for the envelope to arrive. Before her, it lays torn open on the kitchen table. Against hope, it's contents — John Morris' military records once thought lost forever — will fail to explain his time in the Second World War. They will, however, expose him as a contradiction to what the military expected of a Native Canadian soldier.

“My dad used to tell me how close his [five] brothers were, but my uncle never did say much about the war,” said Lillian. “So after his death, my father wanted to know where he’d been and what he did. But then my dad passed away in 1993. I started thinking: he didn’t get any of the information he always wanted. So I picked it up. It’s been 14 years. I finally have it.”

The first documents in Lillian’s record cache reveal only elemental facts about John’s life: He had a grade two education. He had a swarthy complexion. He spoke Indian.

John Morris was born in 1907 and was conscripted into the Canadian Army in 1943. The events leading up to this, as told to Lillian by her father, were that all the young men in the Two Mile Reserve were taken to Vancouver against their will for recruitment. For medical reasons — mostly hearing impairments — her father and a majority of the others were returned to their homes. But John was not among them.

Compulsory overseas service had been introduced in Canada the year before, with the government declaring around the time of John’s enrollment that, as British subjects, all able Indian men of military age could be called up for training and service overseas.

But it’s doubtful John resisted the draft into what many in his community callously, but justifiably, referred to as "a white man's war". His records show he actually tried to enlist three years prior on his own free will, but was turned away for flat feet.

At the relatively old age of 36, John was sent to Belgium as a heavy transport driver with the combat engineers, or sappers.

As his military career progressed, his records show that somewhere within the theatre of combat he excelled in aspects of life, which at home on the reserve he could not.

He learned to read and write, devouring newspapers and magazines. He learned to play the violin by ear. He learned how to dance and earned a reputation for doing it well.

These were all qualities of John unknown to those at home. Not surprisingly to Lillian, the military also thought John to possess an excellent attitude and proven reliability in his military duties. In his file the Army noted there was nothing to prevent John from overcoming his education handicap to excel in a military career.  

But for all these individual gems of information, the papers stay quiet on the details of his experiences — the places he went and why he went there.

All that’s known is that in 1944 he was sent to Belgium. There, Canada led an international force to liberate the country after five years of German occupation. Over 800 Canadian soldiers died in three months of fierce combat. As the Allies pushed on to Germany, the Canadian Army dug in to hold key port facilities.

Mission accomplished, John was awarded his service medals and recommended for advanced training.

But in March 1946 he headed for home with an honourable discharge. He went back to his job with the Canadian National Railway, with whom he had worked for 23 years prior to the war. Soon his brother would have children. With none of his own, John would spend the rest of his life devoted to their care.

“There’s only one story we have of him in the war,” said Lillian. “One night, my dad told me, [John] was spending the night in an old barn, playing cards with other soldiers. His buddy asked him: ‘Let’s go to church.’ There was a church nearby. When they came back they [discovered] one of their friends had stepped on a booby trap and all of them were burned. They all died. He said the church saved his life. That's kind of neat.”

It’s a starting point. Although cryptic and blunt, the military records have renewed the memory of John Morris.

Every year on Remembrance Day Lillian and her siblings come together for the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Smithers. John’s medals are then passed to the next in line for a year of safe keeping.

“He looked after us — six brothers and two sisters — when Mom and Dad didn’t have enough to get by. He stepped in to help us with his small war veteran’s pension. He was always there to help with the children, because he knew we had nothing. Nothing much at all.”

When Lillian’s mother passed away in 1963 John stepped up his involvement to help finish raising the three youngest children.

“He was always there, but we were just kids so we didn’t get to know who he was. Just how well he treated us.”

John developed diabetes and in 1973 slipped into a coma. He died one day later. He was 66.