Jack Callowhill, 98, remembers his time at war
He enlisted straight out of high school at 18 years old.
His father served in the First World War with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders and his brother joined the Navy.
A notice on a board at his training base in Valcartier, Quebec led Jack Callowhill to become one of the members of the First Special Service Force, an 1,800-man force with three regiments. He was assigned to the second, and a support battalion would become the predecessor of special operation forces such as the Green Berets, the Seals and Canada's Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2).
The force was a combination of half American and half Canadian volunteers, specifically men with experience in the outdoors such as lumber jacks and climbers.
The 1960s movie Devil's Brigade" starring William Holden was loosely based on the commando force's first major exploit, the capture of Monte la Difensa.
Callowhill said the force's commander took two mountain climbers from the force and found a weakness on the eastern front under cover of darkness. Between Dec. 3 and 9, 1943 the force climbed the undefended side of the mountain to capture the ground after three other forces had failed. It opened the way for the American advancement further into Italy.
Callowhill was not a huge fan of the movie. In it, the Canadians come marching into Fort William Henry Harrison, in Montana behind the pipes. He said in reality it was a miserable multiday trip by train from Ottawa.
The force got its Devil's Brigade name from an entry in a German soldier's diary calling them devils. Callowhill said they would blacken their faces with boot polish and sneak around in the night causing havoc, blowing things up and leaving notes such as, This is only the beginning."
The force officially stood down in 1945 and the Americans shipped home. Callowhill had already been out of the fight by that time after a German bomb, referred to as a screaming mimi," peppered him with more than 100 pieces of shrapnel, not all of which was removed. The injury caused him problems with the use of his arms for some time. The man standing next to him was less lucky and lost an arm.
The force would go one to secure the seven bridges leading into Rome for the advancing allies. The bridges had been rigged to blow.
Callowhill would return to England eventually and return to Canada with members of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on the last crossing of the Queen Elizabeth II for 1946.
He had been speaking in schools in advance pandemic started. This year, the 98-year-old will speak and read a poem at the seniors' building where he lives in Stoney Creek.
John Rennison is a Hamilton-based photojournalist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: jrennison@thespec.com