Private Fred Moore: a Cree "Halfbreed" at the Battle of Normandy
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Private Fred Moore: A Cree "Halfbreed" at the Battle of Normandy FRED MOORE (1914-1993) & JOHN S. LONG Nipissing University Joseph Boyden's novel Three day road and the 2002 film Windtalkers have served to remind the North American public of the contributions made by members of the First Nations in the First and Second World Wars. R. Scott Sheffield's The Red Man's on the warpath documents the profound impact that the involvement of First Nations' members in the Second World War had on public opinion. Comparatively little is known, however, about the role of Metis veterans east of the prairies. We know that some 7,000 Canadian Indians enlisted in the two World Wars, despite initial government discouragement and much Indian opposition, but have no reliable statistics for the participation of the "halfbreeds" or Metis who could often proudly trace some ancestry to Britain, France and other allied countries. Fred Moore's account gives voice to the experience of Aboriginal veterans of WWII - reminding us that many also served in essential non-combat roles - and adds to our understanding of the lived experience of the Canadian Metis. Moore's name appears as that of the senior author of this paper because the story is his to tell, and much of it is given in his own words. As a friend, John Long recorded and transcribed Moore's story, and it is Long's voice that provides the narrative and commentary. Frederick Moore was born at Moose Factory in 1914 to George Tho mas (Tommy or Tomshee) Moore, a "halfbreed" Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) carpenter, and his second wife Beatrice, a daughter of Cree cate- chist, teacher, chief and treaty signatory Fred Mark2 (after whom Fred was named). He volunteered for service in 1943, at the age of 29, four 1. Long is grateful to Yvonne Morrison and Anne Marie Breckon for transcribing these taped interviews. National Museums of Canada funding in 1984 assisted with the initial cost of taping and transcribing; a Nipissing University Internal Research Grant in 2004- 2005 helped to finish the project. 2. Mark was ordained an Anglican deacon in 1925 and elevated to the status of priest in 1927 (Boon 1960:151; Petersen 1974:92-93). Papers of the 38th Algonquian Conference, ed. H.C. Wolfart (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2007), pp. 323-341. 324 FRED MOORE & JOHN S. LONG Figure 1. Private Fred Moore (courtesy of his nephew, John O. Moore). A CREE "HALFBREED" AT THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY 325 years after his marriage to Margaret Taylor. Although seriously wounded in France, he survived and was discharged in May, 1945. He returned to Moose Factory, where he lived to the age of 78. In 1984, a few months before his 70th birthday, Fred told me about his military service. Although it occupied less than two years of his life, this was clearly a story that he wanted to tell and wanted me to record. With the approval of his nephews and nieces, here is the story of one Cree veteran during WWII. We tell his story to show our love and respect for him and, indirectly, to acknowledge more than a hundred Native veterans of World Wars I and II from the James Bay region (Native Veterans of James & Hudson Bay; Kataquapit n.d.; Linklater 1984). His story serves as a microcosm of the Aboriginal responses to these wars. Military service was a family tradition for Fred Moore. His father joined the 228th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, in February 1917 and was a sapper in France two months later. As Fred put it, "They went right over, them fellas." Fred was four years old when his father returned from the war. "I was only a kid, eh. Only a baby. Little boy.3 Whatever you want to call it." He showed me a photograph of his father in uniform, and seemed pleased that his father had written to him from overseas. Fred also showed me "the old man's stuff' (Moore 1984b): his father's enlistment records and paybook, his medals, but not the cherished veteran's lapel pin that was buried with Tommy Moore. Tommy's brother, Harry Moore, had also enlisted in WWI, as had at least five of Tommy's wife's relatives: Andrew, James, John, Oliver and Sinclair Mark. They were recruited at Moose Factory by a man named McCarthy, from Elk Lake. Fred had heard that, in 1917, the Anglican clergyman Robert Reni- son had made exaggerated promises to the Crees recruited to forestry bat talions:4 That was up at Albany, and here too, I suppose ... You'll eat nothing but salt pork [here] but you'll be eating beef and I don't know what not, machiikana, he says. That's the line what I heard. That was shoot ing the boys quite a line, eh. That's these fellows here. I mean in this area (Moore 1984b). 3. 'Little boy' would be the English translation of the Cree term nabeshiish. 4. See Renison 1957:100-102 for his account. 326 FRED MOORE & JOHN S. LONG He knew that his father and his uncle Harry, like many other HBC ser vants,5 "got a crooked deal" during WWI. They had signed contracts with the HBC when they joined the army, but they lost their seniority and had to start all over when they returned (Moore 1986). When Fred enlisted in 1943, he was 29 years old, clearly a man by Cree standards, and older than some James Bay volunteers. In response to my comment, "You were a young man when you were injured," he jok ingly6 described himself as "only a boy," before saying "I was fairly old, though, eh, compared to them younger fellows, you know. Lots of them 16, eh. Like Billy Faries, you know. He was just 16 when he joined" (Moore 1984b). Fred was not conscripted: "I volunteered. I never got called. I was going to wait until I got called, but no they never called" (Moore 1984a). He took the train south from Moosonee and underwent basic training in Simcoe, Ontario. The military assigned him the number B14594: "I never forgot that. Funny, eh, John. Never forgot that number." He was found to have a physical limitation, perhaps flat feet: "I was category B.l, eh. I couldn't stay in infantry" (Moore 1984b). He was sent to Red Deer,8 Alberta for advanced training, a driver's course, and transferred from the Algonquin Regiment to the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. Almost immediately, he was among 100 chosen recruits who were told: "You boys are going over." I was only down there about two weeks, I guess ... They give me one week leave, embarkation leave they call it. 5. Morton & Wright suggest that most veterans were able to find work upon their return (1987:115,117). Returning veterans of WWII had the right to be reinstated in their prior or comparable employment (Keshen 1998:66). 6. Fred was known and respected as a comical raconteur. Even when speaking of some thing serious, dangerous or respectful, the use of humour by Crees is not unusual, (see also Berkes 1986). Laughing when John slips and falls on an icy road, I learned, is appropriate. People still care if you are hurt, but normally it's only your pride that is. We can smile or laugh while reading Fred's story, and yet still feel the gravity of other situations that he describes, and gain a genuine respect for the man. 7. Renison, who served as a chaplain and recruited in northern Ontario in WWI, notes that his recruits had flat feet from wearing moccasins (1957:101). According to standards of the day, a B. 1 rating meant the recruit could still see well enough "to shoot or drive" and was capable of marching five miles (Canada 1940:7); I am grateful to Catherine Wood cock, Librarian, Canadian War Museum, for this information. 8. This was apparently the A-20 Camp; cf. <http://www.city.red-deer.ab.ca/Connect- ing+with+Your+City/About+Red+Deer/History/default.htm> (accessed 21 June 2006). A CREE "HALFBREED" AT THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY 327 Come all the way down. Took about four days to come up here [to Moose Factory]. Three days, I think, from Calgary. We went into Red Deer, to Calgary, then we come up. All I had was one night here. One day. One night and a day. Out again, right back to Red Deer, Alberta (Moore 1984a). The recruits travelled by troop train to Debert,10 Nova Scotia. Fred chuck led as he recalled, "I was thinking afterwards, if I knew then what I know now in my life, I would have jumped that train there in North Bay, A.W.O.L." (Moore 1984a). He would soon be exposed to the frustrations of military discipline and the horrors of war. Adrian Hayes, in his biography of Francis Pegahmagabow, the cele brated Ojibwe veteran of WWI, states that "many native soldiers, espe cially those from isolated areas, found the discipline and order of military life to be a huge cultural shock" (2003:25). Immediately after arriving in Nova Scotia, Fred witnessed the military police in action: Got in there just before dinner, 11 o'clock, I guess. Got into this bar. So they asked, "Any cooks in the house?" Oh boy, ever quite a few fellas put up their hands then. They were cooks, eh. And our first meal there was - "This what you're going to get when you get overseas," they said - corned beef, a bit of corned beef, and one of these sea bis cuits - talk about hard, you know the real hard ones - and a cup of tea.