Peril of repeated war not lost on locals

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/11/2014 (3955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 1939, Remembrance Day was cancelled.

Not in Brandon, but in London, where the gathering of large crowds was deemed to be too risky, too tempting a target for Germany.

But the decision drove home to Brandon residents the seriousness of the situation in Europe.

Unlike a quarter-century earlier, the ramp-up to the Second World War had been slow in Brandon, almost sedate.

Certainly, there were civic discussions about getting the city ready for war. There were many who still remembered what would be needed, and the city knew that it would have to provide for masses of soldiers.

Artillerymen were already moving into one downtown block, and the city bought another to house the legion.

Meanwhile, with eyes on plans that were being floated to train Allied flyers at bases in Canada and Australia, city aldermen were trying to secure the Brandon airport in their own hands.

Mostly, news 75 years ago in Brandon revolved around exactly that sort of municipal minutiae.

If it weren’t for the air training plan, the city was still going to pursue federal money to expand its terminal and the flying field — a brand-new national airline, Trans-Canada Air Lines, had just been launched.

They were flying 10-passenger Lockheed 14s and they had 15 of them, linking most of the nation together in a line from Montreal to Vancouver, a trip that took 17 hours, with stops in Toronto, North Bay, Kapuskasing, Winnipeg, Regina and Lethbridge.

The plan was for “feeder lines” connecting Calgary to Lethbridge and Ottawa to Toronto — and Brandon wanted to be a stop on the Flin Flon feeder line to Winnipeg.

But Brandon’s city fathers also wanted to spend money on upgraded Assiniboine River dams — including one near Third Street to help create a beach at First Street.

Fears that the city would be liable for any future floods (the back-to-back floods of 1922 and ’23 were still relatively fresh in peoples’ minds) put that scheme on the back burner.

Not put to the side — at least, until winter forced them to — were the extensive road works being done through the city and in the region.

Rosser Avenue had been completely redone, and hardsurfacing was being completed on Highway 10 nearly to Riding Mountain and on Highway 1 west of Brandon.

It was said that Brandon would soon be the home of a regional office for the Manitoba Good Roads Association.

The city and businessmen were united in pressing for more, faster, better roads next year, and they said the war would only make it more necessary — as fewer people would be taking vacations to Europe, they’d be looking closer to home.

Riding Mountain was already coming off a record-setting year — 122,880 visitors — and improvements were planned for the golf course and for Lake Audy.

Not everything was rosy. There were still concerns about city finances, but there was a building boom, and the books were gradually getting better after the worst of the 1930s.

A municipal election was coming later in the month, with voters to get five ballots — one for mayor, andother for alderman and three for school board candidates. At least two people were planning to run for mayor.

The city was in a position to open its public library for the first time — there were 2,000 volumes in a room at City Hall, and they’d be available to borrow at no charge every afternoon and evening except Sunday.

Meanwhile, despite the war, and despite rumours, planning for the Winter Fair was well underway. It wouldn’t be cancelled, no matter what the “other paper” reported, said the Sun. It would just be trimmed back a little bit, since some of its space would be needed by the military.

More military concerns came to the forefront again for Nov. 11.

Poppy Day — a week prior to Remembrance Day itself — was the best-ever in Brandon, as news of the war tugged Brandon hearts and pocketbooks.

Schools observed their remembrance ceremonies on Friday, Nov. 10, with the rest of the city coming together on Saturday.

Like this year, there was discussion in 1939 about how much of a holiday it should be, but in the end, stores in Brandon were allowed to open for a half day.

Too much: The “holiday” should be more of a “holy day,” opined the editorialists of the Sun.

Some others, however, questioned whether Remembrance Day should continue at all, given that the post-war peace that was supposed to be honoured had failed.

But in the end, Nov. 11 was marked with gusto.

With newly signed-up soliders joining Great War veterans in uniform, the crowds were larger than ever before in Brandon.

“The auditorium was far too small to accommodate the citizens who wanted to attend,” the Sun reported, but they wrote of the scene.

“A large graned scene of France, battle-scarred by showing a profusion of poppies growing in the foreground, provided the main setting. A flag at hald-mast droped until the Reveille was sounded, when it went to the top and flutter in the breeze. During the two minutes of silence, poppies fell from above, while for the sounding of both the Last Post and Reveille, the figure of the bugler could be seen through the entire background under a most effective lighting plan.”

Attendees were solemnly reminded to “put right what is wrong in (their) own lives and so help free our country from greed, fear and hate.”

» ghamilton@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @Gramiq