Hamilton's own Armoured Car

[Jordan Baker]

This was in todays Hamilton Spectator.

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/237306

August 22, 2007
Paul Legall
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 22, 2007)
It was built of plate steel and paranoia and designed to crush any domestic group from commies to fascists who might try to undermine the war effort.

The Hamilton-built vehicle was a forerunner of today's light-armoured vehicle (LAV) and was trotted out with great fanfare during a public rally at the old Hamilton Civic Stadium in the fall of 1940.

It wasn't just an armoured car. It was also a symbol of the xenophobic attitude of many in this city to immigrants and anyone else who posed a perceived threat to the wartime status quo.

Mounted on a standard truck chassis with rubber tires, it was riveted together with boiler-gauge steel and had several gun slots in the hull as well as a turret on top.

By today's high-tech military standard, it was almost like a Tonka toy on steroids. But in 1940, it was the only vehicle of its kind in Canada and the pride and joy of a group of volunteer soldiers called the Hamilton Auxiliary Defence Corps or Home Guard.

A raft of old documents, including minutes of defence corps meetings, that have recently surfaced reveal a telling story about attitudes of the time.

Consisting mostly of veterans of the Great War, the founders of the auxiliary were obsessed with rooting out disloyal citizens whom they described as "enemy aliens" or "fifth columnists."

They feared non-British immigrants would side with the Axis powers and commit acts of sabotage in Hamilton. During the war, the auxiliary co-operated with the RCMP in drawing up lists of suspected Italian fascists, many of whom were interned in camps without due process.

After the unveiling ceremony, the vehicle was kept under 24-hour guard in a fire station on Sanford Avenue. It disappeared after the war and its fate remains a mystery.

As the war progressed, the ranks of the volunteer corps swelled to the thousands. The guardsmen identified themselves with arm bands and berets and were issued a variety of weapons, including 800 shotguns and six gangster-style Tommy guns like the ones used in the Valentine's Day Massacre.

Hamilton police Sergeant Gary Ostofi, who is also a Navy Captain and president of the Royal Hamilton Military Institute, recently discovered a stack of musty old documents that have cast new light on the history of the auxiliary corps.

The materials, which will be turned over to the archives at the Hamilton Public Library, reveal an almost pathological paranoia of immigrants and suspected dissidents.

In the minutes, the auxiliary leaders suggested pre-emptive measures to lessen the threat of a domestic uprising. They were confident there were no longer any weapons in "the hands of local enemy aliens," after a five-year police roundup of guns.

But the guardsmen were concerned they still owned cars that could be used to form a flying hit squad. As a preventive measure, they suggested their licence plates be revoked and that no foreigners be granted citizenship until the end of the war.

They also expressed concern that alien enemies were running in the municipal elections and recommended taking out newspaper ads to denounce them.

J.F. Cauley urged his colleagues to prevent persons linked with "organizations disloyal to the Empire ... from getting a foothold in municipal candidates."

"This organization is unalterably opposed to the election to city council, or any of the elective body, any person who has been at any time connected with any Nazi, Fascist or Communist party," Cauley stated in a motion.

Members of the auxiliary also discussed how they could arm themselves and got weekly reports on the construction of the armoured car, which was a joint project involving the Hamilton Bridge Company, Dominion Foundries and Turnbull Elevator.

On Aug. 26, 1940, the armoured car committee reported the prototype, which was to be the first of three vehicles, had passed all the tests with "flying colours", including withstanding machine-gun fire at point blank range. It would soon be in the hands of the home guard and ready for action.

To forestall any suggestions they were building a private army, the auxiliary corps members had Hamilton city hall pick up the $9,000 bill for the armoured car. The other cars were never built.

A police officer for more than 40 years, Ostofi has no idea what happened to the vehicle after the war.

By the time he joined the officers' club in the 1970s, all the old veterans who'd promoted the project were gone.

But the Tommy guns did surface again at the old Hamilton police station in the 1970s. Now considered antiques, the machine guns were sold back to the American company that built them and the proceeds were used to buy assault rifles for the newly formed police tactical team.

"It was a different time, I guess," Ostofi mused when asked about the attitudes of the day. "We were at war. It was a little different than today when we debate whether we should be in Afghanistan.

"There was no debate in this. You were either for us or against us."

plegall@thespec.com

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