Finding Home: A War Child's Journey to Peace

Sidney Allinson is Canadian news correspondent for Britain’s The Army
Quarterly and Defence. He is the author of The Bantams: The Untold Story
of World War I, Jeremy Kane, and Kruger’s Gold: A Novel of the
Anglo-Boer War.

Frank Oberle has achieved a distinguished career in his life. A
self-educated immigrant to Canada, he has built a successful business,
was elected to Parliament for six terms, and was appointed a member of
the Privy Council. So it’s a shame that he has written such a
remarkably dull book. Oberle focuses on describing the early stages of
his life in British Columbia and building his tire retail
company—which, while admirable, is not exactly absorbing.

The first six chapters, which recount his memories of being a youngster
in Germany before and during World War II, are the most interesting. He
is proud enough of his homeland to believe that “the vast majority of
German people were themselves innocent victims.” However, quite a few
of Oberle’s wartime observations are not historically accurate. His
indignation over the Allied bombing of Dresden is particularly strong,
and he mistakenly asserts that it “created a firestorm comparable in
size and ferocity to those generated by the atomic strikes on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.”

In later chapters, Oberle often expresses his appreciation for the
opportunities he found as a new immigrant to Canada and for the
supportive, honest B.C. folk he encountered. But the material that
fleshes out the rest of his memoir would be more suitable in a family
history than in a trade book. Finding Home ends just when Oberle’s
activities promise to become more interesting. He plans to tell about
his adventures as a politician and cabinet minister in a follow-up book.