Jack A. Poolton - Destined to Survive: A Dieppe Veterans Story

This story is dedicated to the men of the United States 9th Army who liberated my comrades and me on April 12, 1945, and to the International Red Cross, which kept us alive.

Jack A. Poolton
and Jayne Poolton-Turvey

Copyright Jack Poolton 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective.

Editor: Barry Jowett

Design: Scott Reid

Printer:Transcontinental Printing Inc.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Destined to survive

Poolton, Jack A., 1918

ISBN 1-55002-311-X

1. Poolton, Jack A., 1918- . 2. World War, 1939-1945Personal narratives, Canadian. 3. Dieppe Raid, 1942Personal narratives. I. Poolton-Turvey, Jayne, 1958- . II. Title

2 3 4 5 02 01 00 99

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on recycled paper.

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Jack A. Poolton was a private in D Company of the Royal Regiment, Canadian Second Division, in World War II. After the war he worked as a mechanic until retirement at age 65. He and his wife, Colette, have three children and nine grandchildren.

It was fifty years before my father was able to put his story into words. After having gone through all the traumatic events during his time overseas, he discovered that settling down and fitting back into regular society was somewhat of a challenge. He knew during his time as a POW that when and if he returned home, the occupation he chose would have to be something that would hold his interest and not be boring.

Certain people in his life thought they knew better than he what direction his life should take. This added to the stress he was experiencing. He tried his hand at several things that did not work out, including applying to rejoin the army. Veterans Affairs was offering a mechanics course, and he decided that was what he would do. Apparently this was a good decision as the work never seemed to be boring, and he was working on something different each day.

Jacks dog tag.

However, he suffered from a duodenal ulcer, constant headaches, and bouts of depression. He realized he was living with a terrible handicap. Not known until recently, when a study was done on Dieppe POWs and their return home, most ex-prisoners of war were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a serious mental illness that none of these men were ever treated for. This would include nightmares, flashbacks, and various other stress symptoms. However, in spite of all these drawbacks, as well as surviving a fractured neck in 1971 in a terrible car accident, he worked as a mechanic until his retirement at 65.

Jack married Colette Desrosiers after the war and raised three children, Janet, Jack Jr., and Jayne, and has nine grandchildren.

Jacks Combined Operation insignia.

Destined to Survive is a factual book written not by a journalist, war correspondent, or ghost writer, but by a private soldier who lived the experience for almost three years, lived with the memory for the next fifty-three years, and has now told his story. Jack Poolton was captured during the ill-fated Dieppe raid and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of the Germans in a number of camps under the most deplorable conditions. This is not a fanciful tale, but rather an account of the day-to-day experiences of a brave young soldier as he remembers them now. I believe you will enjoy this true saga and perhaps, as I did, feel the pain, the bitterness, the anxiety, the hope, and the exhilaration this man felt while in his early twenties. His story exemplifies the human spirit and demonstrates the determination one needs to survive the appalling circumstances. One must salute this soldier, and all others who sacrificed so much to preserve the freedom we take for granted. This book should be required reading in our classrooms.

William C. Stark, CD, LCol (retd)

48th Highlanders of Canada

23 September 1998

It was 1939. Due to the Depression, employment was extremely scarce. Twenty-one-year-old Jack Poolton, a native of Kapuskasing, Ontario, had travelled to Watson, Saskatchewan, where he had found work on a farm harvesting wheat. After working there for a few months, rumours of war had penetrated this small prairie town. And finally, on September 3, 1939, official reports marked the beginning of the Second World War. Jack had always wanted to be a soldier, and finally the chance had come.

When war broke out, I had conflicting thoughts. My father, who had been in the Great War, had told us terrible stories that gave us nightmares as children. But thoughts of adventure kept entering my mind, and I felt a tremendous amount of loyalty to my King and country. Also, there were few jobs available as a result of the Depression.

My decision to join up was confirmed the night I heard radio reports of the sinking of the British passenger ship Athenia by a German submarine. As there were few radios in the area, and we were anxious to hear any news of the war, I happened to be sitting in a German home listening to the radio. The German woman was smiling and ringing her hands with glee as she heard the report. I was shocked to see her reaction and decided that the submarine service had to be the most cowardly. And now with Canada at war, I had to join up as soon as possible.