Through the Hitler Line: Memoirs of an Infantry Chaplain

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.

This is a rather good military memoir. The late Canon Laurence
Wilmot’s book provides rare insights into frontline combat conditions
through the eyes of a World War II army chaplain. His memories remained
remarkably keen even when recalled 50 years later (he was 91 years old
when he wrote this book). In 1942, he was already past the usual age of
army service, an Anglican priest far from harm’s way. He had first to
insist that his church allow him to enlist, and then pester the Canadian
army until it accepted him as a chaplain.

Captain Wilmot was also equally determined to serve where he was most
needed—in combat. Soon, he was attached to the West Nova Scotia
Regiment and served with it throughout its bloody campaign in Italy. His
compassionate depiction of the courage and self-sacrifice displayed by
so-called ordinary Canadians—while neither glorifying war nor
belittling warriors—documents the price of the freedom we enjoy to
this day.

Wilmot’s description of infantry fighting in Italy is as good as it
gets. He is particularly vivid when describing a little-known battle at
the Arielli. He served in the thick of things there, working as a
frontline stretcher-bearer, helping to bring in scores of wounded men
while under heavy enemy fire himself. He conveys his compassion and
devotion to the soldiers without a flicker of self-aggrandizement. The
book-jacket blurb is the only way you would know he was awarded the
Military Cross for bravery in 1944. During his long career later, Canon
Laurence Wilmot became warden emeritus of St. John’s College,
Winnipeg. He passed away, at the age of 96, in December 2003.