Family of Albert "Bert" MENDELSOHN and Susanne Perfitt SAVILLE

My name is Albert Mendelsohn. I was born in the Royal Victoria

Hospital in Montreal in 1917, March 21st to be exact. The rabbi

registered me as Abraham. This caused me problems no end for the rest

of my days. He also misspelled my fatherʼs name and this too caused me

troubles no end. My parents were living in Ste. Agathe des Monts at

the time so I went up there at the age of two weeks and stayed there

for some years. I stayed there until 1932 when I went to The High

School of Montreal because the Ste. Agathe Protestant School had only

grades one to nine. After high school I went to McGill and graduated

in ʼ39.

In ʼ39 I got a job at Algoma Steel in Sault St. Marie, Ontario and I

stayed there until I was called into the military. I spent most of the

Second World War, mainly in England but partially in Northwest Europe.

On my return in 1946 I was give a chance to stay in what they called

the interim forces at my wartime rank, the rank of Major. Since I

didnʼt like the jobs I was being offered in Civvies Street I took this

as an opportunity to stay in the military while I hunted for a better

civilian job.

The military, very smartly in my opinion, sent me off to staff

college, The Canadian Army Staff College in Kingston and coming out of

that I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, one of the two

who graduated in the upper levels of the School. At that stage as a

Lieutenant Colonel at the age of about 30, it was pretty hard to say

that I could find a better job. Besides, I liked the military so I

stayed until I retired in 1972. I have been living in Ottawa ever

since.

I entered McGill in 1934 during the period of the depression and the

period of the rise to power of Hitler in Germany. As well, youʼve got

the period, certainly where I lived, of the blaming of the Jews for

the depression and for everything else bad that occurred in the

country. Further than that, my dad had told me that without doubt the

world couldnʼt tolerate a Germany the way it was going and that there

would be war at some stage. He suggested to me that if there was going

to be war Iʼd better learn something about it. So immediately on

getting into McGill, thatʼs in September 1934, when I was seventeen, I

applied to the McGill COTC.

The McGill COTC is the Canadian Officer Training Corps. It was an

activity that appeared in every one of the Universities where chaps

could join and were generally trained to be officers. Usually they

were in infantry training so I was trained initially as an infantry

individual.

When you first join you were a private in what is called the

non-permanent active militia. That is, the two nights a week soldier

as opposed to the permanent active militia who were the regular forces

of the Canadian army. So, I started as a private and I was promoted to

rank after rank. I think I was practically every rank in the system,

corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, and warrant officer. In 1937 I was

commissioned as an infantry officer. My commission made me a second

lieutenant in the active militia. Lord Tweedsmuir who was the Governor

General at the time signed my commission. When I graduated from McGill

in ʼ39 I progressed one rank to lieutenant. That was May ʼ39 and when

I went off to work I quit the McGill COTC and they put me in what they

called the reserve of officers.

The reserve of officers is just a list of people on call should the

country ever need them. My training was primarily as an infantry

officer, primarily in the area of signals because I was an engineering

student and signals was so called technical. When I came out I

remember signing a list somewhere saying that if they ever needed me

Iʼd be glad to join and off I went to Sault St Marie and I worked

there.

One day I received a telephone call and later a wire telling me to

report in 48 hours. The war was on. I went to my boss who was the

works manager of the Sault steel plant and said ʻgee, I canʼt leave in

48 hours, its too short. He said, ?you donʼt have to go at all, this

is a steel plant and weʼre making shell steel, itʼs a preferred

industry, if you donʼt want to go just tell me and Iʼll tell them to

forget you.? ʻI said, no I have no objection to going, but I want 8 or

10 days. I had a girl friend, I had a car, and I had personal things.

So he said, ʻTell them when you want to go.ʼ I sent back a wire saying

Iʼll be there in 8-10 days. Nobody said anything to me and I showed up

in 8-10 days

I had to report to Toronto, because I was working in Ontario as

opposed to where I had been originally trained in the Province of

Quebec. I showed up in an old place called Stanley Barracks in the

south end of Toronto down near the water. They housed us in the CNE

grounds and because I was an officer I was given preferred space,

space to myself as opposed to being in a large pen. I was given a

horse stall in the horse palace and I can tell you it stunk to high

heaven. However, at least I had walls to my little cubicle and

somebody had cleaned out the straw and the muck which was a good idea.

The men as far as I could gather, were in what they called the sheep

palace where there were no dividers; they were just in great big rows.

Anyway, after a week of that I went down to Kingston and I discovered

that they had put me into what was the engineering part of the

military. So my infantry training was by the by and I joined what was

the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Training Center (E). (Brackets E for

engineering.) In those days Ordnance was a supply organization with an

engineering component. Later, during the war, first in the British

Army and later in the Canadian Army they were changed to what was

called REME, Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I

have been in the Engineering system ever since. The Branch to which I

belonged then, its current title is LEME, land electrical mechanical

engineering. I have retained my affiliation to it ever since. In fact,

I just noticed when I put this jacket on Iʼve got a little emblem

which represents the cap badge of LEME. I was wearing this jacket at

some do here in town where the military were represented. Anyway that

in general is how I got into the military and what part of the

military I got into.