bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2020), pp. 43–44
BY KURT F. JENSEN
COMMONERS’ PUBLISHING,
OTTAWA, 2019.
248 pp
THE SUBTITLE OF ESCAPE FROM GERMANY could well be “the story of Pete Anderson, a genuine Canadian hero”. Through meticulous research conducted over 40 years, Jensen ably makes the case in his commendable biography that Anderson is an exceptional Canadian well worth remembering.
The story of the eventful life and times of Peter Anderson comprises three main narratives. The first, and in many respects the leitmotif of Escape from Germany, is Jensen’s colourful portrayal of Anderson as the typical hard-working and talented immigrant who achieves great success and wealth in his adopted country. As a first-generation Danish immigrant himself, Jensen tells this story with empathy and authority.
Like many first-generation immigrants, failure, either in peace or war, was never an option for Anderson. Born in Denmark to a modest farming family, Anderson emigrated to Canada in 1888, where he arrived in Winnipeg barely 20 years old, alone and with next to nothing. Although his original goal was to gain sufficient knowledge and experience to be able to return and become a Danish military officer, by the time of WWI Anderson had become a very wealthy and successful businessman, working his way up from logging, hunting and trapping in Manitoba to Edmonton where he became the biggest supplier of bricks and construction materials in the Prairie provinces. Along the way he developed into a committed Canadian nationalist as well as a senior local militia officer, with his battalion one of the first Canadian units to deploy to Europe after the outbreak of the War.
In the title narrative, Jensen relates the gripping story of Anderson’s capture and daring escape from a German POW camp. Anderson was captured on 24 April, 1916, during what for the Allies was the disastrous second battle of Ypres. It was his birthday, and he spent the day demonstrating, as usual, considerable bravery and leadership, including personally inflicting at least 50 casualties on the rapidly advancing German army. Determined not to be held for long, in late September Anderson successfully escaped from the POW camp in Saxony where he was being interned. Less than two weeks later, after a series of harrowing experiences, Anderson crawled under the barbed wire border to freedom into his native and neutral Denmark. So adept at passing himself off as a neutral Scandinavian, he was able to travel partway by train through the heart of Germany, visiting Berlin and Hamburg en route, picking up valuable military intelligence along the way.
Anderson was one of only 100 Canadian POWs to successfully escape and reach freedom during WWI. He was the only Canadian officer to do so and, at 47 years old, the oldest. He would eventually be awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his remarkable accomplishment, one of two he was awarded, which is itself exceptional.
Despite this incredible achievement, what Anderson most wanted — a successful and meaningful war — proved elusive, at least on the Western Front. Jensen details the frustrations and outright obstacles that Anderson, like many bright and highly motivated self-made men, faced in the British-dominated Canadian Army. Anderson actively railed against the significant wastage of men and material that he saw resulting from incompetent military leadership, ineffective tactics and irrelevant rules and regulations. Being noticeably non-British in a quintessentially British-dominated institution was a further significant impediment. More darkly, groundless whispers persisted that his successful escape was really the result of him being a German spy or at least a sympathizer.
As a result, Anderson struggled to obtain what he considered a meaningful post, despite his prewar military training and militia commission, not to mention his business acumen, that had prepared him better than most. Nevertheless, through his persistent efforts, and building on his experiences in the Western Canada wilderness, he overcame various inane bureaucratic obstacles to establish a “Sniping and Scouting School” addressing what he ably demonstrated to be a critical front-line need. He also anonymously authored a ground-breaking training manual on the skills involved that was immediately embraced by the US Marines.
In another main story of Escape from Germany, equally heroic and little remembered, Jensen documents Anderson’s leading role in the Canadian contribution to the Allied Expeditionary Force in Northern Russia. Anderson was the last officer to join the second and smaller of the two Canadian contingents involved, which was deployed south of Murmansk from September 1918 to August 1919. It was there that Anderson finally achieved his lifelong goal of a front-line military command. The original Allied mission was to guard Allied military supplies stockpiled in Northern Russia from being captured by Germany, but with the war’s end this quickly morphed into training Russian “White” counter-revolutionary forces and provision of more active military support. The small Canadian contingent, all experienced veterans, eventually found themselves spearheading Allied intelligence gathering and combat operations against the Bolsheviks in the depths of a Russian winter, sometimes deep behind enemy lines.
Notably, in April 1919, after learning that a large Bolshevik force was assembling at a nearby railway town, representing a serious threat to the Allies, Anderson took the initiative to quickly organize and lead a highly successful pre-emptive attack, capturing the town and securing the region. The hide-bound British-led Allied high command initially considered court-marshalling Anderson for not seeking prior approval for the attack, but the value of the victory was later appreciated, and Anderson was promoted. He received a Distinguished Service Order, his first, for the initiative, along with several foreign honours. But the limited Allied intervention in Russia was soon over, and by December 1919, after an absence of more than five years, Anderson was back in Edmonton, where he received the greatest welcome accorded to any returning WWI veteran.
Decimated by his extended absence and changing times, Anderson’s business struggled during the challenging post-war era and never regained its previous prosperity. Anderson gradually faded from public life, eventually retiring to Victoria, B.C. in 1942. Always one who sought to live life on his own terms, he shot himself in August 1945, some time after being diagnosed with cancer. Taking place the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, his suicide received limited media attention.
Although he leaves no stone unturned and has unearthed significant new material on the hero of Escape from Germany, Jensen admits that Anderson remains something of an enigma in that he left virtually no record of his own personal feelings, notably how he felt about being away from his family and business for so long, to the clear detriment of at least the latter. While Anderson was justifiably proud of what he accomplished in realizing his life-long military ambitions, he neither sought glory nor considered himself a hero, according to Jensen. His main motivation was to do what he considered to be his duty, and to do it as well as he possibly could. Anderson was typically Canadian in this regard. That he did it so well, against all obstacles, makes him a genuine Canadian hero. And because, as Jensen notes, Canadians tend not to honour their heroes, it is no surprise that he has largely been forgotten. It is to Jensen’s credit, and to our benefit, that Anderson’s remarkable story is brought back to life.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2020), pp. 43–44. Read the rest of this issue →
