Nicholas Salomone
Sergeant
33rd Field Company - Royal Canadian Engineers
Engineers in England
Lovely quaint towns inhabited by a friendly populace made the Royal Canadian Engineers stay in England most pleasant and helped ease their feelings of homesickness. Years spent drilling and living among each other helping to forge bonds between the youthful sappers and their English hosts, some of which were destined to last beyond their stay. For those clean-cut and rather sharp featured lads of the engineers, there was ample opportunity to capture the attention of a local gal, Sheila Foster of Surrey, falling for the clean-cut and wiry Ontario native Nicholas Salomone. His wonderful personality and intriguing trilingualism developed from his Italian father and French-Canadian mother, making the youthful sapper quite the charmer. In April 1943, the happy couple tied the knot, the years spent training in England having at least proved fruitful for a relationship which otherwise would never have been.
Despite many being happy in the United Kingdom, especially those who had found their better half in the nation, the engineers overall remained anxious to get into the fight, particularly following the Normandy landings in June. For the 241 men of the 33rd Field Company, it felt unfair to be left in Britain, the days passing as June turned to July (1). For Lance-Corporal Salamone, it had been an especially long wait since enlisting in Timmins in 1940, 4-years of preparation having grown monotonous. Yet their groaning due to their impatience was quickly replaced with excitement when beloved Major McDougall announced the company’s planned departure for France on July 24th (1). Enthusiasm abounded and the sappers proved efficient in loading their vehicles and equipment aboard an American ship in the Thames river (1). Packing themselves aboard the cramped vessel soon after, their spirits remaining high as they serenaded the crew with song as the vessel departed for the Channel (1). Their slow cruise to Normandy providing a brief dose of reality as they passed a friendly ship in flames, which had likely struck a mine (1).
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Roads of Normandy
A large net was slung over the side of the American transport, a smaller landing vessel positioning itself parallel, the sailors beckoning the Canadians to swing themselves onto the net to scramble into the smaller boat (1). Eventually, even Nicholas threw his slim frame over the metal edge, making an unforgettable descent into the beach bound craft as all did in the company. Greeting his blue-eyes upon landing were the ruins of the French town of Coursvilles-Sur-Mere or Juno Beach as it had been dubbed (1). Empty bunkers and the heavily damaged ruins of houses paying homage to the struggle that had occurred a month earlier, though the distant rumbling of artillery helped remind them that this front was still very much active (1). Eagerly the men trudged onward, securing their vehicles and slowly regrouping inland to bivouac. Major McDougall giving the lads their first conflict zone mission, ordering them to dig slit trenches and latrines, a typically easy task made arduous on account of the chalky soil (1). It soon became apparent that the subsurface conditions were not ideal,being laborious to dig in and creating an immense amount of dust. This knowledge making their following briefing on their intended role here less exciting, the good Major relaying the 33rd had been assigned to road repair duties (1).
Narrow, heavily worn, and dotted with potholes, the Allied controlled roads in Normandy were in poor shape and needed the attention of the engineers badly, the 33rd beginning their battle to maintain them on August 2nd (1). It was quickly discovered that this task would be incredibly difficult with an inability to stop traffic on account of the constant required combat vehicle activity, which was responsible for the damage to the rural lanes. The sappers also quickly began to understand the unpleasant realities of the combat zone, 3 platoons of the company working near a house with a distinct unpleasant odor, the curious Canadians discovering the culprit, a long-deceased German on the second floor (1). It was the first report of many dead German bodies found that day (1).
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The work itself proved labor intensive and difficult, Nicholas having it easier than most given he had qualified as surveyor, utilizing a transit station and mathematics to ensure the road was repaired at the correct elevation and sloped to shed water. Yet it was as frustrating to him as the men compacting the chalky base when tanks consistently came rumbling along, destroying a stretch of road they had only just mended (1). It seemed a constant frustrating battle with long 12-hour days spent in the sweltering heat of the summer (1). As the sweaty and chalk coated men progressed closer to the still contested city of Caen, German artillery began to strike dangerously close to the road crews (1). The sappers knew the sporadic enemy shell fire endured palled in comparison to the hell unleashed by the waves of friendly bombers who they cheered on as they pounded German positions (1).
Negotiating for a steam roller from the road construction company and discovering an abandoned cement mixer proved to be small victories for the engineers who truly hadn’t the appropriate tools for the job (1). Yet the hours Nicholas spent on his transit coupled with the hard work of the crews, ensured they moved rapidly, repairing large stretches of road. Such work helped at least put a piece of the devastated communities back together, the 33rd having the tragic task of demolishing what was left of houses near Caen (1). Their distressed owners returning to find their lives in ruin, the kind Canadians aiding as best they could to help salvage personal possession (1). There was no doubt Normandy had been changed forever.
Northwest Europe
Nicholas and the road crews moved continually from place to place, keeping up with the swift advance of the infantry. Following work on the roadways around Caen, the 33rd relocated to Falaise, trailing just behind the front and clearing the roadways of the destruction leftover from the violent encirclement (1). On August 26th, the entire company, with the exception of a portion of 1st platoon, was mobilized with the intention of helping to ferry advancing Canadian forces across the Seine River (1). The extensive convoy of eager signalers being halted by intense traffic at Brionne before finally arriving at their designated bivouac area (1). Unfortunately for the frustrated and weary men, they would be forced to immediately pack up and relocate, their camp being directly in the way of the infantry’s advance and not far from the enemy (1). Following a brief withdraw, they returned and assisted the infantry in crossing the river with little interference from the enemy (1).
In September, Major McDougall proudly reported the 33rd Company would be participating in Operation Market Garden by providing a ferry detail via storm boats in the city of Nijmegen (1). The ensuing disaster of an operation did not permit this, though the lads eventually were put on the move into Belgium (1). In Brussels the sappers were greeted by very friendly faces, the Belgians offering Nicholas and his compatriots food and beer (1). Such a welcoming was a just reward for their hard labor and years spent away from home. It was within the beautiful Belgian countryside the 33rd began a new assignment of clearing and splitting mass volumes of timber (1). For a time they would loose their experienced surveyor, Nicholas relocating to England due to a medical issue, though he’d return later in the war. By it’s end the hardworking Ontarian had set foot in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. His family pleased that he and his two brothers, one having served in the Algonquin Regiment and the other in the First Hussars, were all returning home alive.
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Mining and Surveying
Roughly 5 years spent in the army practically made it Nicholas’s entire life, his previous career having been a couple years spent working as a clerk in a drug store, something he had no desire to return to. His position as a surveyor seemed sustainable, but his beloved wife Shelia urged him to leave the military, 3 years of praying for his safety having been enough. The understanding Lance Corporal subsequently accepted a discharge knowing Shelia was giving up everything by leaving England to join him in Canada. Yet he needed to provide a good life for them and in Timmins there really was only one option, to work in the mines.
Geology had fascinated Nicholas, maintaining a rock collection as a child, hence his natural proclivity to surveying and mining. Hardworking and unafraid of new tasks, he worked for several years in both the Aunor and Naybod Gold Mines as a machine operator, skiptender, and pumpman. Despite being out of the conflict zone, such a career proved hazardous, a severe mining accident being enough to frighten Shelia into encouraging the veteran to return to he military. Eagerly he reapplied and though coming off as a bit overconfident from the perspective of the recruiter, he was accepted as a surveyor and promoted to the rank of Sergeant. The couple would subsequently move from Timmins to Ottawa where Nicholas proudly served well into the 1960s.
Sources:
(1) 33rd Canadian Field Company War Diary, Canadiana Heritage, T-18591, https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t18591/10
(1) 33rd Canadian Field Company War Diary, Canadiana Heritage, T-18591, https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t18591/10