The Vanished World of a Wartime Generation

In civilian life, Canadian officer Brigadier James Roberts was a businessman. But when war came, like so many others, he discovered that he was a superb soldier, inventive and brave.

A rare funny moment from the last days of the Second World War:

It fell to the Canadians to accept the surrender of German forces in the Netherlands. A Canadian officer, Brigadier James Roberts, escorted the German commander, General Erich von Staube, to the signing ceremony. On the drive back to German lines, Staube's aide tapped the Canadian brigadier.

"My commander would like to know what you did before the war. Were you a professional soldier?"

The question startled the Canadian brigadier. He had been fighting for six years: He could barely remember "before the war." Then he realized why the German was asking. In an hour of humiliation, the German wanted consolation: At least he had surrendered his force to a fellow professional. Roberts answered:

"Tell your commander that I was not a professional soldier. Very few Canadians were. In civilian life, I sold ice cream."

I discovered that anecdote in Max Hastings' otherwise grim history of the last year of the war in the West, Armageddon, and repeated it in a book review. Shortly afterward I received a surprising email from Brigadier Roberts' daughter. Roberts had written a memoir. Would I like a copy?

Would I!

I read the book in a most Canadian setting: on a Muskoka dock. It told a story that conjured up the vanished world of the wartime generation. As we mark the 65th anniversary of victory in Europe, let's pause for a backward look.

Roberts was born into a middle-class Toronto family. They lived on the northern edge of the city, on Bloor just east of Yonge. Every summer the family travelled north to a rented cottage on the wooded shore of Lake Simcoe. The great excitement of the trip occurred at Hogg's Hollow, today's York Mills and Yonge. Could the family car rev enough momentum on the dirt road down into the hollow to drive all the way back up and out without stalling? Or would the boys have to jump out and push?

Roberts' father was a doctor, who volunteered for service in 1914 and served on the Salonika front. In the father's absence, the family had to move to a cheaper house, west of Yonge, opposite today's Holt Renfrew store, where Roberts had to face gangs who lived in the tough neighborhoods along Charles Street.

He graduated from Jarvis Collegiate in the Depression year, 1932. University exceeded the family's resources, but happily Roberts was able to find a job as a clerk with the Sun Life Insurance company. He found relief from the job's drudgery by following his father's military example and joining a militia company.

The great event in Roberts' young life arrived in the summer of 1937. His enterprising older brother had made some money in business in Britain and returned to Toronto for a visit. The Roberts brothers spent an afternoon together at the Canadian National Exhibition, and in the Food Hall the elder saw an amazing machine. The machine dispensed a frozen treat, like ice cream -- only soft! The inventor of the machine sold his product through a chain of restaurants he called Dari-Queen.

Roberts' brother whipped out his checkbook. How much for British Empire rights to the machine?

The next summer, the Roberts brothers were selling soft ice cream on the beaches of Blackpool. They seemed on the way to making a fortune, but fear of German invasion emptied the beaches in the summer of 1939. The company was ruined. The elder brother decamped to Australia; the younger was left to start over, unemployed and unhappily married. War came almost as a relief.

Roberts signed up almost at once, gained a commission on the strength of his militia service, drilled new arrivals, crossed to France just after D-Day-- and discovered in combat that he was a superb soldier, inventive and brave. He was put in command of the scout cars that escorted the main force, a very dangerous job. His gallant performance earned him his role in the May 1945 surrender ceremony, and his quip to the German field marshal made him a celebrity at home.

Roberts relaunched a second career in business, then a third in government and diplomacy, culminating in service as deputy secretary general of NATO during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He remarried, had a family, discovered a great personal cause as a founder of the Canadian society for persons with mental disabilities.

It's just one story. There were a million more, all honored in memory on this anniversary.

Originally published in the National Post.