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Two-wheeled `white knights' of WWII
Motorcycles pressed into military service
Many bikers served in armoured regiments
ALLAN JOHNSON
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
It has long been fashionable in our society to rank bikers as undesirables on par with Attila the Hun. Noisy and disruptive, vulgar and crude, bikers have often been tagged by our politicians as menaces to decent society.
Not too long ago, the Ontario Provincial Police changed what was once discreetly called the "Special Squad" into the "Biker Enforcement Unit," thus perpetuating the old stereotype that when motorcyclists gather together in some form of organization or club, they need the heavy hand of the law around, or trouble is bound to follow.
It was not that way, though, in Canada during World War II.
When this country declared war on Sept. 10, 1939, it was almost laughably ill-prepared. Our army possessed only 14 obsolete tanks and small numbers of mostly obsolete military vehicles. And yet it was obvious from the first days of the German invasion of Poland that the days of the horse cavalry were over. It would be a mechanized war of rapid movement: the blitzkrieg.
In order to provide Canadian volunteer soldiers with some training in modern war, six traditional cavalry units across the country were quickly designated as Canadian Motorcycle Regiments. The Royal Canadian Dragoons, the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), the Governor General's Horse Guards, the 17th Duke of York Royal Canadian Hussars, the 8th (Princess Louise) New Brunswick Hussars and the British Columbia Dragoons all put away their horses and switched to motorcycles.
There were, however, only a handful of motorcycles in the whole Canadian military, a small number of Triumphs having been purchased to use in a motorcycle escort for King George and Queen Elizabeth's Royal visit earlier in the year.
The solution was simple: the recruits to these new regiments were encouraged to bring and use their own motorcycles. This was not as outlandish as it might first seem, since goodly numbers of the volunteers were already members of local motorcycle clubs. The 3rd Motorcycle Regiment (the 17th Duke of York Royal Canadian Hussars) enlisted a number of members of the Sports Motorcycle Club of Montreal. In Toronto, the 2nd Motorcycle Regiment (Governor-General's Horse Guards, known locally as the "Gee-Gees") was populated with motorcyclists from the British Empire Motor Club. It was the same in other parts of the country.
One of the main army recruiting posters — widely circulated in both English and French — showed Canadian military motorcyclists leaping their mounts into action while in the background hovered a stylized white knight on horseback. "Canada's New Army Needs You" read the slogan.
The Canadian army also received loans of motorcycles from individual riders who were not volunteering for the services for various reasons. One rider, Frank Bastien of Montreal, loaned his 1934 Brough Superior to the 3rd Motorcycle Regiment in 1940. He then enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
When he got back after the war, he found that the army had scrapped his motorcycle in 1943, even though it was probably worth $400 at the time. He received no compensation for it. (Today, a 1934 Brough motorcycle would probably sell for a hundred times that amount.)
For almost a year, these units trained and rode solely on civilian bikes, before a trickle of American-made military motorcycles became available after France (which had contracted for a large number of Indian motorcycles) surrendered in June, 1940. Some of these France-bound Indian Chief motorcycles, complete with sidecars, were on board the French luxury liner that entered Halifax harbour just as France capitulated. These machines were quickly "liberated," becoming spoils of war and being distributed to a number of Canadian Corps of Signals units across the country.
But such was the shortage that many of the volunteered motorcycles were still in service for three or four more years as training vehicles before being replaced by military ones. By then, their owners were usually on active service overseas.
As tanks and armoured vehicles began to roll out of Canadian factories, five of the six Canadian Motorcycle Regiments were gradually converted to armoured units. The 3rd Motorcycle Regiment, for example, became the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment. A great many motorcyclists subsequently became crewmen on tanks, fighting their way up the length of Italy and across Northern Europe.
A good number of volunteer motorcyclists did stay as riders for most of the war. Ross Rehill was one who did, jokingly calling it "an all-expenses paid six-year tour of Europe by motorcycle."
Once, in a more serious moment, he told me a chilling tale of an encounter in the spring of 1945. He and another motorcycle-mounted rider were scouting ahead, when they stumbled on to a camp. "The gates were open, the German guards gone," he remembered. "Hundreds of starving, living, pleading, skeleton-like human creatures were there. I never felt so helpless. We had no food, not even a chocolate bar between us to give them."
The two headed back for their troops and asked them to radio for help. "I will never forget what we saw."
Like all the returning veterans, the motorcyclists who came home had been changed by what they saw and did. The emblem of the military despatch motorcyclist was a winged wheel arm badge. Thanks to all the bikers, the white knights of Canada's new army, who wore the badge into battle.
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Allan Johnson can be reached at
afjohnson@sympatico.ca.