Tucked away treasure
It’s an extraordinary story. It was March 1, 1945, on the edge of the Hochwald Forest in Germany. The 2nd Canadian Division had been ordered to break through the German defence, as the tale is told. It was the last bulwark protecting a vital escape route. Windsor’s Essex-scottish Regiment was to clear the northern half of the forest. They were supposed to be supported by tanks, but the ground was too soft.
Under fire, Maj. Fred Tilston led his company of 100 men across 500 metres of flat, open field. Wounded in the head, he pushed forward through a belt of wire three metres deep to the German trenches. When the platoon on the left was hit by a nest of machine guns, Tilston charged ahead and extinguished them with a grenade. He was the first to reach the enemy and took the first prisoner. Then he pressed on with the main force to the second line of defence. Hit in the hip and severely wounded, he fell, then managed to struggle to his feet and rejoin his men. In hand-to-hand fighting, they cleared the trenches. But the company had lost threequarters of its men, and the Germans counter-attacked. Tilston sprinted, in the open, from platoon to platoon, organizing the defence. And when ammunition ran low, he bolted across a road under fire from machine gun posts to the next company to get more. He returned over and over, at least six times, for ammunition. On the last trip, he was wounded for the third time.
One leg was blown off, the other so mangled that it would be amputated later. But he still managed to issue instructions for the remainder of the defence and order the remaining officer to take over. The regiment achieved its objective, and Tilston was awarded the Victoria Cross, Canada’s highest military decoration.
In Windsor’s Community Museum today, you can see an MG42 German machine gun captured from a post wiped out by Tilston. It’s heavy, 11.5 kg empty. It fired 1,200 rounds per minute, more than any other machine gun at the time.
The small museum in the historic Francois Baby house on Pitt Street has two cabinets full of firearms, some dating back to the 1700s. They’re in storage in the basement, along with the MG42.
“I get a lot of questions about our firearms,” said curator Madelyn Della Valle. “It’s probably the most popular thing people want to see when they do tours of the storage area.”
Della Valle would like a gallery to display the guns, but it’s hard to find space.
I wrote about the Tecumseh flag last week, but there are lots of neat things in the museum’s basement. There’s a two-pounder cannon believed to have been dumped overboard from the British warship General Hunter before the fateful Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. It was found at the mouth of the Detroit River. (It’s called two-pounder because the shot used in it weighed two pounds.)
There’s a copper lid from a still dating to Prohibition.
There’s the seven-metre high facade and pipes from an organ made in 1847 and used in Assumption Church.
“It would be impressive,” said Della Valle, if there was room to display it.
There are handcuffs used on the Allies after the disastrous Dieppe Raid. There is silver traded to native people for furs, beaded pouches, gloves and headbands made by native people and still in remarkable condition, clothes, furniture, household items, tools, toys, newspapers, even memorabilia from local landmarks like the Top Hat restaurant. There’s a bust of Col. John Prince, a militia commander in the Battle of Windsor in 1838 who caused an international stir by ordering the summary execution of four prisoners. The bust sits in a Bacardi rum box in the basement.
Stuff is stacked floor to ceiling in the museum’s basement. Only about five per cent of the museum’s arti- facts are actually displayed. All kinds of stuff has never been out.
There is one permanent exhibit that tells the story of Windsor. It’s 500 square feet. Most permanent displays in museums in comparable cities are 1,500 square feet. Four windows have been covered with plywood to create more room for display cases.
There are two temporary galleries of 500 square feet and 300 square feet, also used for meetings, presentations and research. But it’s hard to fit travelling exhibits from national museums. The popular exhibit on ancient Egypt from the Royal Ontario Museum requires 1,200 square feet. Windsor’s Community Museum convinced the ROM to let us have it anyway, crammed it into 500 square feet and stored the crates off site.
The museum’s library is so small that some periodicals are kept in the staff bathroom.
“You could do some pretty intellectual reading while you’re sitting there,” quipped Della Valle.
From the War of 1812 through the Underground Railroad to Prohibition, Windsor has a fascinating history. On Thursday, the public will get its first look at the feasibility study for a new museum. We should tell our story.