Giving obscure soldier `his due'
Historian delves into Windsor teen's life, death
There's no known photo of Pte. Clarence Richard Vaise, a young Black soldier from Windsor, an orphan who was an absolutely green recruit when he was killed in the midst of the chaotic, dead-of-night Battle of Veen on March 7, 1945.
In the 75 years since, no one has visited his grave at Groesbeek Canadian Military Cemetery in Groesbeek, the Netherlands. Except for a brief notice in the Windsor Star, there was no acknowledgment of his sacrifice, not even an obituary. During his training, officers described him in glowing terms — “a tall, sturdy soldier, intelligent and responsive” and “a quiet, determined chap of good character and background.”
But all his attributes and exceptional promise have been lost to obscurity. Because he had been with the regiment for just six days when he was killed, none of the survivors knew him.
“There's nothing. This poor guy just disappeared from the face of the earth,” says Dr. Robert Fraser, the regimental historian of Vaise's Hamilton-based Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. Fraser decided to research Vaise's 19-year life and write his biography, to give some context of the last seven hours of his life.
“I found it fascinating, I found it sad of course,” Fraser said. “I felt somehow I had to give this fellow his due.”
Patrick Brode, a City of Windsor lawyer and avid historian, helped Fraser by “digging around locally” to find out about Vaise's upbringing, but there was very little information, and no indication he has any family left in the area. His enlistment papers say he was born Aug. 5, 1925, in Montreal, but it appears he grew up in Windsor. He listed his parents as “deceased” and was apparently placed by children's aid into the Windsor Avenue home of Daisy Craven, who became his foster mother.
Fraser's biography suggests who Vaise's parents may have been and concludes he was either abandoned by them or removed from them. By the time he enlisted in 1944 at 18, “Daisy Craven and her daughter (Cecile Craven) were Clarence Vaise's only familial connections.”
Vaise left school at age 17 and was working at a farm near Bolton before he enlisted on June 20, 1944. After completing basic training on Sept. 1, 1944, followed by advanced infantry training, he disembarked in the United Kingdom Dec. 27 and reported for duty the next day. He completed a three-week refreshment training and was placed on a list for reinforcements on Jan. 30.
The Argylls, meanwhile, had been losing soldiers at a “staggering” pace, bleeding through the fighting strength of the unit more than three times in the previous 11 months, according to Fraser. Vaise was one of 54 new recruits taken by the Argylls on March 1-2. This followed the massive Battle of Hochwald Gap that drew 5,300 Canadian casualties, opening the way for Allied forces to advance into Germany.
After the capture of Sonsbeck on March 5, the Argylls turned their attention to the small village of Veen the next day, starting a 6.4-kilometre journey in pursuit of retreating German forces.
“Everything goes wrong,” Fraser said. “They expect the place will be lightly defended, they expect to get there quickly.” But in fact, it is heavily defended by seasoned German paratroopers and the town is a small fortress with strong outer defences and roads towards it heavily mined. Eight-hundred yards from Veen, they come under heavy fire. A tank and troop carrier are destroyed. By 6 p.m., the soldiers came to a dead halt.
“The night was dark, the route not reconnoitred, there was no tank support and limited artillery support,” Fraser writes. But two of the three companies, B and D, were ordered to take the town by daylight. At 1 a.m., they began a “creeping barrage,” a complex tactic that usually requires welltrained troops to slowly advance as artillery fires ahead of them in a precisely timed manoeuvre.
“They take casualties right away,” said Fraser.
In the midst of this, commanders Capt. Len Perry of B Company and D company's Capt. Sam Chapman confer. It appears Chapman, “considered the situation hopeless and proposed asking ... for permission to withdraw,” while Perry wanted to keep going. B Company ended up “on its own,” and one of its three platoons had gotten lost. The original plan for three infantry companies with two squadrons of tanks and artillery support had failed to breach Veen's defences. What's more, the Germans knew the reduced forces were coming and B Company had no means of communication.
Vaise was in Company B, in his first exposure to battle.
“Pte. Vaise spent his last six hours in the dark, the cold and the terror of battle that night.”
What characterized the failed Battle of Veen was confusion on every level, said Fraser — “confusion, inexperience and battle fatigue.” A total of 51 Argylls were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
When a group of Germans who had been hunkered in a shallow trench 50 or 60 yards from town withdrew into town, and Company B soldiers occupied the vacated trench and prepared for the “final attack.”
Pte. Donald Macpherson, a survivor of the battle who later became chief justice of Saskatchewan, recounted that around daylight “to my soul-shaking shock — and with abject fear — I observed Capt. Perry climbing out of the trench and yelling ` Charge!' and the troops from the trench joining him.
“We hadn't advanced 10 yards when a withering fire came from the town hitting a number of our troops and causing us to hurriedly return to our trenches and shell holes.”
Capt. Perry ultimately decided to surrender.
“When exactly Pte. Vaise is killed, I think he's likely killed in that period between 5 and 6:30 in the morning, possibly in the charge,” said Fraser. The bodies were recovered a few days later when a more co-ordinated and overwhelming attack on Veen was successful. Two of the nine soldiers killed were Black, and two other Black soldiers were captured.
Fraser was writing a history of the battle itself when he decided to drill down to the nine who were killed, and further focused on the two Black victims and a Francophone soldier whose body was never found.
“To my mind, lives like these are lives worth remembering,” said Fraser, a University of Toronto professor who retired from teaching a few years ago but remains acting general editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Vaise was one of 24 soldiers killed, wounded or captured who had joined the unit between Feb. 28 and March 7 — the day of the battle. Fraser is wondering if someone in the Windsor area might read this story and recognize Vaise. If he had lived, he would be 95.
“It hit me that here is a young man who certainly has exceptional promise,” said Fraser.
“He's hardly there at all and the next thing you know he's involved in this action and killed.”