“My Dearest,
I miss you terribly …If you send a letter once a week it will be fine, but I won’t object if you write oftener.”—Letter from Len Warman to Vi Warman
Letters of pain, sorrow, hope and longing, penned by men and women all over Canada, give us a quiet glimpse into the depths of their sacrifice.
Among those who served from the Kindersley area during WW II was Len Warman, son of Edwin and Florence Warman. Warman’s military adventure began when he and his new wife, Vi, arrived home from their honeymoon in March 1942, to find a letter in the mailbox calling Warman to join the Canadian army.
During his training in Ottawa, Warman caught the attention of a local artist, who offered Warman 75 cents an hour to pose for war posters. Warman was happy to make extra cash, so he readily agreed. The finished product landed on the front of the McLean Magazine and on posters all over Canada to urge the purchasing of war bonds.
Realizing that it would be some time before he would leave Canada, Warman arranged for Vi to come and stay in Ottawa with family friends. After almost 6 six weeks of bittersweet moments, Vi had to travel back home to prepare for the birth of their first child. Years later, Vi’s eyes again filled with tears as she recalled the pain of leaving her husband in Ottawa, not knowing if she would ever see him again.
In late autumn of 1942, Warman’s unit arrived in England and underwent more training. They also had war duties, such as rescue and rebuilding efforts after the nights of shelling, and guarding German prisoners. In between his duties, Warman signed up for a camp cooking class and earned such high marks that he joined the unit’s team of cooks.
January 28, 1943
“Well, I just received the news of you being a mother and me a daddy… I went all by myself to open the telegram, and I cried with joy and thanked the Lord for his goodness… I’m sure anxious to know what [our son’s] full name is, and how much he weighed and whether he has blue eyes and curly hair and whether he has dimples… that will be the day when we three can all be together.”
Warman’s unit was among the chosen Canadian units to land on Juno Beach as a part of the reinforcement waves after D-Day, in 1944. Surviving attacks from enemy bombers and fighter planes, Warman’s unit steadily pushed across France, through Belgium, into Northern Holland, and eventually into Germany itself.
In a memoir to his children and grandchildren, Warman told of a few close calls during his service. One time, a shell landed on the roof of a factory he was in, shaking the building and sending everyone running for cover. The shell, however, somehow never exploded, saving the lives of several dozen. Another time, Warman was sleeping under a truck between two other soldiers, when a German plane swooped down from the skies. Warman dove for cover in a nearby trench, urging his companions to follow him. They scoffed at the sight of a single plane, and remained where they were. After the plane roared away, Warman found them, one dead and another severely wounded.
“When I heard the news on the radio that the war was over, I remember grabbing Gerald and rushing next door to see our neighbor, who also was a war bride, we were terribly excited.” – Vi Warman, excerpted from her memoir book
After the war officially ended, Warman still remained overseas as a cook for cleanup crews and surveyors. Finally, in February 1946, Warman was given an honourable discharge. Steaming across the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth, the same ship that bore him to England, Warman saw his homeland for the first time in over two years. Jumping aboard a train, Warman arrived at the Saskatoon station.
“Finally the time came to go to the station to meet the train. We were among crowds of other war brides and families who were also meetings their husbands, fiancés, sons, or brothers, all ‘War Hero’s’…I had no trouble picking Len out of the crowd… he must have sensed where I was because he looked up, and I waved.”
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