Vets captured by Germans reunite after 66 years

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COLIN MCCONNELL/torSTAR new service

Toronto natives Ron Beal, 90, right, and Howard Mills, 93, were unexpectedly reunited after 66 years this week at Sunnybrook Hospital. They were German captives for nearly two years after Dieppe. They remembered each other.

This time, Toronto natives Ron Beal and Howard Mills would not be confined within Stalag VIII-B’s barbed-wire compound, a watch-tower sniper at the ready.

Nor would their hands be bound at the wrists, day and night, for 17 months as POWs in Lamsdorf, Germany.

The Canadian soldiers, who survived the 1942 Dieppe slaughter and two-and-a-half years in a stalag, were unexpectedly reunited 66 years later in the cheery comfort of Sunnybrook’s veterans residence. Their first words to each other after seven decades?

“Hello, Howard.”

“Hello, Ron.”

Four words. A friendship renewed.

Veterans’ recreational therapist Leslie Stephens had noted that Beal, a new Sunnybrook arrival in September, and Mills, a long-time resident in the 500-person facility, were both Royal Regiment of Canada vets. A meeting was quickly arranged, the men eager to catch up on old memories.

“When I knew Howard was alive, I wanted to meet him again,” said Beal, 90.

“I had no idea he was alive. I don’t think he knew I was alive.”

Mills, 93, said of seeing Beal, “I knew him right away.”

The two first met in 1940 after Mills had enlisted at the old Exhibition grounds garrison. Beal had been a reservist since age 15.

That the pair had survived one of the worst battlefield chapters of the Second World War was impressive. But what are the odds that two Central Tech high school grads would storm the same French beach, be sent to the same POW camp, not see each other for nearly seven decades, and then one day end up in the same retirement residence?

Beal, ever the soldier, barked an answer.

“Ten thousand to one!” he exclaimed, his wife of 65 years, Marjorie, smiling at him fondly.
Those odds may be modest.

On Aug. 19, 1942, 913 Canadians were killed during the disastrous allied landing at the port of Dieppe, which was heavily defended by German troops. Some personnel made it back to England.

Many, like Beal — a 21-year-old private at the time — were captured when surrender was ordered amid the carnage. In all, 1,946 Canadian prisoners were taken that day.