A brother remembered: Meecham mentioned in WWII despatches

For Helen Krouse, every Nov. 11 is a solemn and personally significant occasion.

The Fergus resident says each Remembrance Day she can’t help but think of her father, who fought in the Boer War and the First World War, and her brother, who fought in the Second World War.

“You never forget them,” she said of both men, now deceased, who shared the name Alfred Albert Meecham.

Krouse said her brother, who was well known to many in the Fergus area simply as “Alf”, volunteered for the army on Oct. 24, 1941. He was one of many young men in town who decided to enlist after war broke out in Europe in 1939.

“He was my only brother, so I was sad to see him go,” Krouse said, noting her parents also had four girls, including herself.

A craftsman with the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Alf formed part of the 1st Division tank recovery unit.

“I think his job was pretty dangerous,” said Krouse, who explained her brother was tasked with fixing tanks and other equipment on or near the front lines.

She noted Alf managed to escape serious injury throughout the war, which for him included stops in Italy, France and Germany.

“He did go through hell … But he was one who never talked about it,” Krouse said before pausing momentarily.

Then, echoing the sentiments of countless others who had a loved one in the war, she added, “I wish I had of asked more questions, but you don’t think about it when you’re young.”

Krouse herself was part of the war effort at home, leaving high school in Grade 10 or 11 to work “in munitions” at the local Beatty Brothers plant.

“There was a lot of us that quit school and went off to work,” she said. “[It was] not very nice, but at the time you don’t realize how bad it is.”

She regularly wrote letters back and forth with Alf while he was overseas, but she said months would often pass without a word from her brother.

“It was exciting to get his letters,” said Krouse, who still has a collection of the wartime correspondence that she keeps in a keepsake box made by fellow veteran Mac Aitken, who passed away four years ago.

The letters are enthralling and remarkably upbeat, never offering too much information about personal experiences or the campaign – instead always inquiring about life back home. In one letter dated Sept. 25, 1944, Alf hints at the possible end of the war.

“Things sure look good now and I hope it’ll all be over before long and I can get back to civilization,” he wrote.

Krouse noted some of her brother’s war experiences were relayed in a series of historical books by Aitken.

“Those books were something else,” she said. “I wish people would pay more attention to them.”

Alf received the usual commendations for his contributions to the war effort, but he was also awarded a bronze oak leaf emblem (as seen in top left medal photo) for being mentioned in dispatches during the campaign in Italy.

Krouse explained the honour was related to Alf’s role in helping to rescue a number of soldiers pinned down by gunfire in a church.

“I think they asked for someone to do it, and of course, my brother did it,” she recalled.

An army superior wrote that Alf was “an excellent and efficient driver, always willing and cheerful, and I consider he is the best we have had.”

Alf was officially discharged on April 30, 1946. Krouse vividly remembers travelling with her father to pick up her brother in London, Ontario – and how much Alf had changed in five years.

“None of us really recognized him,” she recalled. “He was just a kid when he left … I guess they went through so much.”

Alf returned to the Fergus area and married Veva Giles in 1950. Sadly, he died of a heart attack 17 years later, at the age of 44.

Krouse said despite Alf’s reticence, her brother was always proud of his role in the war – and perhaps more so of fellow Fergus natives who decided to enlist.

“A lot of them are forgotten,” she said of local veterans.

That is why she takes time out every Nov. 11 to pay tribute to those brave men and women, many of whom never had the chance to return home.

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