Garnet Wilson was only 19 years old when he enlisted in the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion.
He was among the first in Canada to be part of the airborne regiments, which gained an international reputation for courage and tenacity.
This is his story.
Wilson was born on May 19, 1923 in West Luther Township, now Wellington North. He was one of 15 children.
Wilson was working as a truck driver when he and his cousin Doug Wilson signed up for service in September of 1942. He applied for the new parachute recruiting campaign. He was accepted after rigorous fitness and endurance testing.
He, along with 550 other recruits, travelled by train to Georgia for training, as there was no Canadian facility for the new battalion.
In Georgia, he endured gruelling physical exercise, daily runs, parachute drills and many practice jumps, first from a tower and then an aircraft, to qualify as a paratrooper.
By March 1943, Canada had established its own training center at CFB Shilo, Manitoba. By the end of June, the Canadian government decided the paratroopers would travel overseas to join the British Airborne.
On July 20, Wilson and the other paratroopers left for Halifax before crossing the Atlantic to England on the Queen Elizabeth.
Paratrooper training wasn’t easy. After joining the 3rd British Parachute Brigade, the paratroopers started on a program of extreme physical and mental training. This included a 10 mile run in under two hours, carrying 60 pounds of gear; compass and map reading; navigating for night movement behind enemy lines; learning to fight in the woods; and more.
In September 1944, the Canadians had to take the British parachute conversion training. This included jumping with one parachute and no spare. They jumped first from a tower, then a moored training balloon, and lastly, from a Whitley Bomber.
The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion adopted the British Pegasus symbol and maroon berets.
During his time in England, Wilson experiences the blackouts in London, air raids and bombings.
After a year of training, Wilson and the rest of the battalion were to be deployed as part of Operation Overlord, which would be known as D-Day. The paratroopers’ mission would be to land on June 5, 1944, one day prior to the full scale invasion.
The Canadians’ mission was to secure the drop zone, then destroy bridges over the Dives River and neutralize strong points at Le Mesnil crossroads.
Wilson never made it to that deployment. During a training jump, Wilson broke his ankle and was hospitalized just months before the battalion was to leave. He was not cleared to parachute, so instead, on the morning of June 7, in complete darkness, Wilson crossed the English Channel.
He told his family he remembered the ear piercing sounds of guns and the noise of the planes overhead. Upon reaching the shore, he and the others used their compasses to locate the meeting place of the battalion, at the German-controlled Le Mesnil crossroads.
They secured the area for three months, when the Germans began to withdraw from the area.
Of the 516 men who took part, only 173 returned.
Wilson also took part in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, Operation Varsity in the Rhine area of Germany and the final push operation to Wismer.
He took many photographs of his time in the army. His last roll of film was taken for development, but he never saw it again.
On June 21, 1945, Wilson was back on Canadian soil. The paratroopers were the first to be repatriated, but were disbanded in September of that year.
In 2004, 60 years after the battle on D-Day, Wilson returned to Normandy with his family.
Wilson passed away peacefully at the family farm on Aug. 18, 2013 at the age of 90.
Wilson’s story was taken from a 2015 collection compiled by Barbara Jones.
