A casual chat between two neighbours in snow-covered Edgemont, Alberta, Canada, led to an unexpected connection between two sons—one from the freezing Canadian winter and the other from a bushfire-ravaged property in Queensland, Australia. Their fathers shared a heroic bond during World War Two, and neither family knew of the other’s existence before their contact.
Ken Wright and Anne Gafiuk explain.
Two of the landing craft, returning from the beaches during the Combined Operations daylight raid on Dieppe (Operation Jubilee). Source: Public domain, Imperial War Museum, available here.
The details of their contact date back to April 6 and 9, 1941, when the German invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia began at the same time. The operations against these two countries were examples of precision and efficiency. The daring use of tanks in the mountains, which were thought to be nearly impenetrable to armour, demonstrated what can be achieved with imagination and courage.
In Greece, the first fifty patients admitted to the 2/5 Australian General Hospital were from the battles in the northern parts of the country. As the military situation worsened and it became clear that Greece could not be defended, all female and many male staff were evacuated back to Palestine, leaving a token number of staff and six doctors behind to care for the patients that could not be moved in time. Captain Eric Vernon Barling, a doctor from Sydney, Australia, was one of the medical practitioners to stay behind. Doctor Barling volunteered for military service on 24 April 1940 and served with the 2/5 Australian General Hospital in various theatres of operations, and in April 1941, was transferred from Palestine to Greece.
By April 27, Greece, after fierce resistance by Greek and Allied forces, was in German hands. The British managed to evacuate forty-three thousand Allied troops thanks to the Royal Navy’s brave efforts, but the military had to leave all their heavy equipment behind. Those who remained, including the patients and the limited staff of the 2/5 Australian General Hospital, were now, in the bag, as Prisoners of War.
Almost sixteen months later, on August 19, 1942, code-named ‘Operation Jubilee’, a major amphibious raid involving nearly five thousand Canadians, about one thousand British commandos, and fifty American Rangers took place. They landed at five different points along a sixteen-kilometre stretch of French coastline at Dieppe. Six landings were scheduled just before dawn at locations east and west of Dieppe, with the main attack on the town itself happening half an hour later. Lieutenant Fred J.L. Woodcock, from Winona, Ontario, commanding the 17th Platoon “D” Company of the 1st Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, along with twenty-one others, boarded their designated landing craft assault [LCA]. Once lowered into the sea from the mother ship, they began their journey toward their assigned landing point on the French coast.
It was nearing dawn. Tracers streaked from the shore, seeking targets among the invasion force, while the attacking Allied Air Force tried to give the amphibious force a protective umbrella. Lt. Woodcock was in the LCA landing craft closest to the western headland, under intense German machine gun fire from positions around the castle and casino. Lt. Woodcock ordered two Bren gunners to return fire at the flashes on the cliff. As they neared the shore, there was a massive explosion. It is not known whether it was an underwater mine, a mortar shell, or an 88mm coastal battery round. Whatever it was, the detonation triggered the Bangalore torpedoes stowed among the toggle ropes and grappling irons of the landing craft, destroying it and nearly all its human crew.
Lt Woodcock survived the carnage, but his shoulder was smashed, his hearing was almost non-existent, and one eye was hanging out. According to eyewitnesses, the beached landing craft was a sickening sight full of bits and pieces of bodies. Even the Germans were shocked at the sight and posted a guard to keep onlookers away. Woodcock now faced an uncertain future if he survived.
The entire raid was poorly planned and overly complicated, with insufficient fire support and troops that were inadequately trained, many of whom experienced their first taste of battle. After a brave effort against heavily defended enemy positions, the attackers lost three thousand, three hundred and fifty men killed or wounded, twenty-eight tanks, several landing craft, a destroyer, and over one hundred aircraft trying to shield the landing forces on the beaches. It was the Royal Air Force’s biggest loss of aircraft in a single day during the entire war. In comparison, the German Luftwaffe lost only forty-eight aircraft.
Capture
Those captured faced especially harsh treatment in POW camps, and most remained in captivity until the war ended in 1945. About 180 of the most severely wounded survivors of the Dieppe fiasco, including Lieutenant [later Captain] Woodcock, were sent by train to the 400-bed POW hospital at Obermassfeld, a few kilometres south of Meiningen in Germany. This hospital was an agricultural school built on an island in the river and converted into a hospital. The medical staff mainly consisted of Allied hospital personnel who had been captured before the Dunkirk evacuation. One British doctor who observed the arrival of the Canadians at Obermassfeld recalled that the men were in a terrible state. Covered in excreta, they were whacked. The stench, horror, and tragedy of it all were obvious.
Woodcock’s shoulder was temporarily patched up, but there was nothing that could be done for his eye. Two teams of surgeons operated continuously for more than 24 hours on the other wounded. Fortunately, blood transfusions were available in limited supply.
The German Chefarzt [Chief Medical Officer], Hauptmann Doctor Martin Falke, insisted that Woodcock be transferred to Kloster Haina, where all the blind prisoners were being held. The entire medical staff at Obermassfeld pleaded with him to keep the Canadian Lieutenant where he was until he had sufficiently recovered, as they feared he might die if he made the journey. Their pleas fell on deaf ears as Falke was an exceedingly difficult man to work with and ran the hospital more like a dictator. It is believed that after the war, Doctor Falke was indicted at the Nuremberg trials for maltreatment of hospital patients, which contravened the rules of the Geneva Convention. Although a few patients succumbed to their wounds or ensuing complications, the majority did well at Obermassfeld.
Woodcock, still an extremely sick man, was sent to Kloster Haina [Stalag IXA], a small village east of Frankfurt-am-Main, the following day. Fortunately, he survived the journey. This establishment was a former Cistercian Abbey, situated eight kilometres up in the hills. It now functioned as a convalescent centre specialising in blinded POWs, but also accommodated many others with various disabilities. A German doctor was in charge, supported by Allied medical personnel. Major D. Charters from the Royal Army Medical Corps, an eye specialist, was the officer-in-charge.
Lieutenant Woodcock, in his memoirs, states that his shoulder was operated on late at night by an Australian doctor, Captain Barling, a general surgeon, and another member of the team who had been recently captured in Greece, an orderly named Colin Sommerville. When he recovered from the effects of the anaesthesia, it was nearly midnight, and the doctor asked if there was anything he wanted. He recalls asking for a cup of tea, which the orderly was able to make from sterilizer water.
Woodcock’s hearing, which had been steadily deteriorating throughout the entire period, finally ceased functioning. The drums in both ears had been ruptured by the explosion at Dieppe, and the subsequent immersion in seawater led to an infection in both ears. Ultimately, only the right ear was able to be brought back to normal.
Dr. Barling and other doctors and orderlies had a lot to deal with. There were also Royal Air Force casualties who suffered terrible wounds, including severely burned airmen whose eyes, faces, skin, and arms were affected. Others had broken limbs or legs frozen off after crashing in the North Sea. All kinds of disabilities. One poor man was almost a torso, in the sense that there was no way to fit artificial limbs on him. Another was missing an arm and a leg on the same side of the body. More than one of these poor men was suffering from mental depression, and twenty-seven blind people lived in a small one-storey building.
Doctor Eric Zeiss, nicknamed Poppa Zeiss, was a Viennese brain specialist in charge of the adjoining insane asylum with about six hundred German mental patients. He worked very closely with Dr. Barling and other surgeons on the treatment of disabled prisoners. When he had sufficiently recovered, Dr. Barling asked [now a Captain] Woodcock to serve as an amateur psychiatrist. It was hoped that his appearance and conversations with depressed patients would have a positive psychological effect on their recovery.
Kloster Haina closed in late October 1943 after most of the POW patients returned home through a prisoner repatriation scheme. Those who stayed, including the medical staff, were moved to Bad Soden/Salmünster in Hesse, Germany, until the war ended in 1945. It’s interesting to note that Doctor Barling, during his imprisonment, found the time and motivation to study for the Primary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons exam using books his father sent via the Red Cross.
After the war
Captain Woodcock eventually returned to Canada. He never forgot Dr. Barling and always wanted to make contact to express his heartfelt appreciation. Once again, in his memoirs, he wrote that he had survived a very traumatic experience and credited Doctor Barling and much of the subsequent treatment he received for saving his life. For various reasons, the contact never materialised. His wish to thank Doctor Barling was eventually fulfilled posthumously by his son, through a simple, casual chat with a neighbour in chilly Edgemont, Calgary, which led to a conversation with Doctor Barling’s son in Queensland.
Dr. Barling also survived the war. He went back to Australia and kept practising medicine. Barling’s brothers, Joseph and Geoffrey, also served during the war.
Two men, worlds apart, thrown together in war and as survivors, went on to be honoured in their respective countries.
Captain Barling was awarded the MBE [member of the British Empire] for his wartime service, as well as having been mentioned in Dispatches. He was killed in an automobile accident on April 27, 1978, robbing Australia of a distinguished and dedicated surgeon. Dr Barling had been the clinical teacher in the Department of Surgery at the University of Sydney.
To honour his memory and achievements, colleagues at the Department of Surgery established ‘The Vernon Barling Memorial Fellowship’ in 1981. There is also a memorial plaque located at the New South Wales Garden of Remembrance adjacent to the Sydney War Cemetery Memorial Avenue in Rookwood.
Captain Woodcock returned to civilian life with only peripheral vision, able to see light from the side of his one eye. He had been a commercial artist before the war and continued with painting and photography afterwards. He was also a talented woodworker. He was awarded the Order of Canada on 17 December 1984, and for many years, on behalf of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Toronto, served as an advocate, counsellor, and friend to blind veterans. In various national and international organisations, he has fought for the rights of veterans and all sightless persons.
Additionally, in 1989, the F. J. L. Woodcock Scholarships were established thanks to the families of veterans who were blinded during combat in World War I, World War II, and Korea. The families generously donate to support blind and partially sighted students in pursuing secondary training and education. Fred Woodcock passed away on 31 July 1998.
Credit must also be given to all those medical officers, medical orderlies, trained personnel, and volunteers who, through their tireless efforts, helped many patients survive that difficult time.
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The authors wish to thank the sons of F. Woodcock and V. Barling, Ray Butterfield, historian 2/5 Australian Hospital Association, Dr Serge Durflinger, author of Veterans with a Vision, and Mark Zuehlke ‘Tragedy at Dieppe,’ for their kind assistance.
