Rest in Peace, Fraser Eadie
Posted on 08/13/2003 5:23:20 PM PDT by Squawk 8888
OTTAWA (CP) - Fraser Eadie, a legendary soldier who commanded the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion in the waning days of the Second World War and went on to be the godfather to generations of post-war paratroopers, has died at age 86.
During the war, Eadie fought through northern Europe and led his battalion to Wismar, on Germany's Baltic coast, as the fighting ended.
His men remembered him as a disciplinarian who could still nod at unorthodox tactics that worked. In the post-war period, he was patron of Canada's paratroop association. He served as honorary colonel of the Canadian Airborne Regiment from 1989 until it was disbanded in disgrace in 1994.
In 1993, at the age of 76, he marked the Airborne's 25th anniversary by making a parachute jump with the outfit.
"He was a natural leader, a superb combat leader," said Bob Lockhart, a retired paratroop officer who knew Eadie well after the war.
Eadie began his military career as a militia soldier in the 1930s, serving as a private in both the Calgary Highlanders and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.
After the war broke out, he left his job with the Ford Motor Co., for the army and went overseas as a lieutenant with the Rifles.
He was promoted to captain and later major and took a parachute course before joining the fledgling parachute battalion. A pre-war hockey player, he was in top physical shape and breezed through gruelling training which left many gasping by the wayside,.
The battalion jumped into Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, as part of a larger British unit. The Canadians fought in Normandy for weeks and helped break the German army in France.
DeVries said Eadie showed a sense of humour even in combat.
He recalled an incident in Normandy when Eadie spotted a German tank and called for artillery support, telling the gunners he faced a Tiger tank, a formidable piece of armour. When a corporal pointed out that the tank was, in fact, a smaller, though still potent Mark IV, Eadie smiled at him: "Don't spoil a good story."
In March 1945, the battalion jumped with the British again, this time in Operation Varsity, leapfrogging the Rhine River into Germany.
Their jump zone was heavily defended and the battalion commander, Lt.-Col. Jeff Nicklin, a prominent pre-war football and lacrosse player, was killed. One history says he died when he landed in a clump of trees directly above a German machine-gun nest, but Jan DeVries, who was a private at the time, doubts that.,
"Nicklin was actually probably dead before he came into the trees because he sailed right over a German machine-gun," DeVries said.
With the commander dead and the landing under heavy fire, the Canadians were in a crisis.
"Fraser immediately assumed command," said DeVries.
He rallied the men and despite heavy casualties - 25 killed, about 50 wounded and 20 missing out of 475 - he led them to seize their objectives.
Eadie was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, promoted lieutenant-colonel and confirmed as battalion commander.
In the final weeks of the war, the battalion and Eadie were paired with a British armoured unit, driving into northern Germany.
The Canadians commandeered cars, trucks and other vehicles and outran the British, Lockhart said.
"They were moving so fast with their captured cars and such that the armoured battalion ran out of gas."
At one point, a British general arrived to inspect the regiment and was shocked to find some soldiers decked out in German parachute smocks, others sporting looted bowler hats.
Eadie was driving a big German staff car at the time and was hardly in a position to complain. He remembered later that the general was taken aback by the scorn for dress regulations.
He told Eadie: "I saw one fellow wearing what looked like a rugby sweater embossed with the words, Flin Flon."
Eadie said the general never did figure out what that meant and no one enlightened him.
DeVries said the Canadians, in company with the Royal Scots Greys, an armoured outfit, eventually ran into the Russians on the Baltic.
"Their orders were to go to Denmark," DeVries said. Eadie would have none of that and confronted the Russians, telling his men "Get ready lads."
"He told the Russian officer, 'you better have 10 men for my one'."
The Russians backed down.
The official history of the Canadian Army notes: "Wismar, taken by Lt.-Col. Eadie's men and the Royal Scots Greys was in fact the most easterly point reached by any Commonwealth troops in this campaign and the first point where any Commonwealth troops serving in it made contact with the Russian ally.
"It is satisfactory that a Canadian battalion was there.
The battalion went home in September 1945 and was disbanded. Eadie went back to Ford, where he spent 46 years in all.
A funeral will be held Friday in Oakville, Ont.
RIP
Would that there were more with his spirit.
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