Into battle armed with faith alone
Today at Huron University College in London, they will remember the Rev. Walter L. Brown — the only Allied chaplain to be executed during World War II, by William G. Cliff
A banged- up suitcase and some well- worn pieces of silver hardly catch the eye. They look like they belong in an attic, behind a trunk and covered with dust.
However, there is more to it; this old case has a story, one which is enough to make students reflect, and remember a sacrifice made more than half a century ago. Huron University College is like any other university in Canada in many ways. It is a theology and liberal arts university college, affiliated with its daughter institution, the University of Western Ontario, and it vibrates with youth, life and scholarship.
Its students work hard and play hard and dream and get involved with their community by volunteering. It is a busy place, filled with life. But it is also 142 years old, and so its halls have memories of their own. One might be excused for thinking that the stories of World War II are more about analysis and study than memory in a place like this. Its professors work hard to articulate to another generation the influences and sacrifices of the past. But this tired piece of luggage, a banged- up piece of the past, gives students the rare chance to touch history made by one of their own.
Captain the Rev. Walter L. Brown has come alive for students, though he died 61 years ago — because of this old suitcase.
This is a real piece of history that has engaged their imagination and made tangible the story of one of their own who died in 1944 in France, not because he carried a gun, but because he carried a cross. The old and battered case contained the Field Communion Kit of Capt. Brown, chaplain in the Canadian Army Chaplain Service. Brown graduated from Huron in 1938 and served as an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Huron. He was the Curate at All Saints Church in Windsor, Ont., and from there he volunteered to be a chaplain to serve the men and women who would serve their country. Commissioned as a captain in 1941, Brown was the first Canadian chaplain to land at Juno Beach on D- Day. He worked and served his men faithfully and even buried some of the first men who lay at Deny- sur- Mer.
In the days immediately following the invasion, Brown was captured by the Germans and listed as missing in action. His family back home waited for word. He was listed as prisoner of war, then missing in action. They waited five long weeks. The truth, however, was far darker. He had been summarily executed by his captors — the only Allied chaplain to be executed during World War II.
His body, found five weeks later by the side of the road, was taken back to Deny-sur-Mer to lie among the soldiers he served. He was buried by other priests, army chaplains and graduates of Huron attending him. He rests there still. His kit, however, has come home. These were the tools of his trade: a chalice, the cup used for holy communion, a paten, the small silver plate to hold the bread, a silver hip flask for a small supply of wine and small wooden box for bread; a brocade stole, crushed and folded into the case with some tattered old linens used in worship. This is what Brown faced war with. The communion kit’s return to Huron was made possible by a former student and distinguished alumnus, Dr. Christopher McCreery, who came across the story and the mass kit in his research into the lives of those students and graduates who had fought and died in both world wars. He donated the mass kit back to Huron and it has taken pride of place in the College Chapel, which will regularly use it both for worship and for display as a means of teaching about the demands of sacrifice and the necessity of the willingness to serve. The return of the kit to Brown’s alma mater has been an opportunity to teach a new generation that also faces a world plagued by war. Remembrance Day on any university campus is an exercise in contrasts. With youth culture driving most activities on campus, one might be excused for feeling that fewer and fewer remember. But it is object lessons like Brown’s mass kit that provide a means to shake the intellect from complacency. His story stirs the spirit to remind us to honour the deeds as well as understand the motivation behind them. World War II is not even a distant memory for many of Huron’s students. Today’s grandparents were too young to serve then, and the real costs and real lives that were affected get lost in the history and analysis.
This kit has made it very real now for young students. There are reservists studying here, officers and enlisted men working toward degrees, and there are some who are here who want to follow Brown and serve in the military as chaplains. This part of Huron’s story makes them stop and think and remember one of their own. Brown did not carry a gun. He carried kind words, a comforting presence and in times of need, he carried the sacraments to dying and frightened men with this kit. Now, 61 years after his death, the stole, the mark of his office as priest, and the chalice that carried the wine for communion will be used again. And he, and all who served, will be remembered. Canon William Cliff is chaplain to Huron University College in London and Anglican chaplain to the University of Western Ontario.