Second World War memoirs: The Day That War Was Declared, 1939, by Elizabeth McGillivray

Date: 1939

I well remember the day the Second World War was declared. I was very young - just nine - and did not understand the significance of what I overheard at my friend's house. Her parents were from England, and they kept saying, "Surely Canada will declare war now that England is in."


My visions of the glamour and excitement of war were provided by my older cousins. Each of them had a set of lead soldiers, and they played with them by the hour, moving their armies back and forth according to the patterns on their living-room carpet. These soldiers were painted brilliant colours, and the boys informed me that in real life those black blobs on their heads were real fur from black bears.


I had seen the Edmonton Exhibition parades and heard the bands playing their wonderful marching music as they passed by, their brass instruments glittering in the summer sun. I just knew that soldiers had to have a band as they marched off to war.



I ran home to tell my maiden aunt, who lived with us, the exciting news. I found her sitting on the edge of her bed.


"Auntie, Auntie," I cried. "There's going to be a war. There'll be marching bands with big drums and soldiers with hats made of bear fur marching by and..."


Then I noticed that my aunt was crying. She was holding her face in her hands; a limp handkerchief lay on her lap.


"Auntie, why are you crying? There's going to be a war and we'll be able to see the soldiers marching out there, right on our street." I ran to the window, fully expecting to see brightly uniformed soldiers marching by to the beat of a drum.


My aunt spoke slowly and softly.


"Sit down beside me, dear, and I'll tell you what wars are really about." She wiped her eyes, and told me the sad story of her personal grief.


My aunt had a cousin her own age who was also her friend and confidant. She was closer to him than to her own brothers. When the First World War was declared, her cousin immediately joined the army. She waved farewell to him and his many comrades as they boarded the troop train in Edmonton that would take them to Halifax, where their ship waited to ferry them to an uncertain future..


Tender letters were exchanged; the two became even closer, as their letters flowed back and forth across the sea.


In the final months of the conflict, he was sent to the front in France.


Finally the war ended. The returning soldiers were being welcomed home at the at the same railway station where they had been cheered on their way to war. But my aunt's cousin was not among them. The sad tale of his death came later.


At 11:00 A.M. on November the 11th, 1918, the Armistice was signed. Soldiers of the Canadian Army were notified immediately. A young soldier was ordered by an officer to climb the nearest tree and install a telephone wire. Now that the war was over, there was no need to worry about the Germans intercepting their communications.


The German Army at the front had not been told of the signing of the Armistice at eleven that morning. As my aunt's cousin confidently attached a telephone wire to the top of the tree, a German sniper took careful aim and shot the young soldier. He did not know that he had killed a former enemy, now the first casualty of the peace.


"And so you see, little girl, war is not all about marching bands and soldiers in brightly coloured uniforms, " my aunt said.


"War is mostly about death."