Pte Louis Trainor

? – Prince Edward Island Feb 1997 ⚠︎

Pte Louis Francis Trainor (F82729), Essex Scottish Regiment

About: Pte L. F. Trainor of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was posted missing from the Essex Scottish on 6 October 1944 and jumped from the prisoner train at Utrecht on 23 October with Schjelderup's Canadian Scottish men. He was hidden at Groenekan, set out from Amerongen with Murphy's party on 2 January 1945, was recaptured, and was on the army's list of liberated prisoners of war on 15 May 1945.

Unit or role: Private, 1st Bn The Essex Scottish Regiment; posted to B Company on 5 September 1944.

Where: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (his mother's address in 1945 was Dorchester Street); Groenekan, 25 October to 24 December 1944; Amerongen, until 2 January 1945.

Evidence: ✓ Essex Scottish battalion orders; ✓ "Two Came Back!", pp. 4–6; ◐ Schjelderup's MI9 report (transcript; the Kew original not seen); ✓ the MI9 liberation reports of Swartz, Briere and Berry; ✓ the forms of the Groenekan families who fed and housed him; ✓ the Charlottetown Guardian; ⚠︎ Porter's book, which is the only source for his death.

His posting. ✓ The Essex Scottish took him on strength on 5 September 1944 from 44 Advance Reinforcement Company and posted him to B Company (battalion order No 49, 5 Sep 1944, PDF p. 1 of our extract). His number begins F, the letter of Military District No. 6, Halifax, which took in Prince Edward Island (regimental numbers; districts). The Essex Scottish was mobilised at Windsor, Ontario (Horrall), so he came to it from another unit; ⚠︎ the unit that first numbered him is not known.

Missing, 6 October 1944. ✓ Battalion order No 46 of 4 November 1944 lists "F82729 Pte TRAINOR L F" among those struck off strength as "MISSING IN ACTION" with effect from 6 October (order No 46, page 4). That day the battalion was east of Putte, on the Dutch-Belgian border north of Antwerp, and its C Company was sent east to clear a pocket of Germans, reporting "fairly stiff opposition as they crossed fields dotted with bushes" and a number of casualties (war diary, October 1944, PDF p. 9). ⚠︎ He was posted to B Company, and which company he was with on 6 October, and what took him to hospital, are not known. His missing date is a day before Schjelderup's company was taken at the Leopold Canal on 7 October.

Joining Schjelderup's party at Dordrecht. ◐ On 15 October, by Schjelderup's report, three privates of other regiments were brought to the prisoners there, "Pte. TRAINOR, L.F. No. F82729, Essex Scottish" among them; "The three Privates had been discharged from a hospital in DORDRECHT" (the transcript; Kew WO 208/3351/2349, 1 February 1945; the original not seen). The other two, of the Calgary Highlanders and the Canadian Black Watch, and a Canadian Typhoon pilot came with him; he was then in the party of 40 marched to the station on 16 October (Schjelderup's page). He was not one of the four who planned the escape from the box-car.

The jump, 23 October. ✓ "Two Came Back!" has him among the ten who dropped through the cut door at 23:00 as the train left Utrecht, and, with Schjelderup and Capt Brownridge RCA, lying a night and a day in bushes beside a German anti-aircraft post; when they moved on, Brownridge was caught on a road, and Schjelderup and Trainor, "better-trained in Fieldcraft", got away, knocked at a farm and were taken in (pp. 3–5; Roy, p. 371; Jean E. Portugal's We Were There, vol. 4, p. 2004, has "Pte Trainer of the Essex Scottish" from the same source, OCR only). Schjelderup's report has him join as the two men were leaving: "As we were leaving we were joined by Pte. TRAINOR." ◐ Swartz has him "later joined" them (Swartz, p. 1). Of the night of 24 October Schjelderup writes: "Myself and TRAINOR took evasive action and froze behind some trees", while Brownridge was caught (the transcript). The whole story is on Schjelderup's page.

• The farm and the fort, 25 October. The farmer G. van Brenk, about four in the morning, sent for Rakers and gave "Roger Schilderup and Louis Trainor" each a civilian overcoat (Van Brenk's file, p. 3). Rakers took them to Fort Ruigenhoek, where its guard F. H. Ponssen looked after them (Ponssen's file, p. 4). J. Bakker, the Maartensdijk policeman, fetched Trainor from the fort with Rakers: "The other came at the back of Bakker's bicycle to Maartensdyk. This one was Louis Trainor" (Bakker's file, p. 4).
• Koele and Westerbeek, Groenekan. W. Koele's form has him from 25 October to 23 December: "He slept with the KOELE family and breakfasted with them and the day and other meals he spent with the WESTERBEEK family" (Koele's file, p. 3). C. Westerbeek's form, from Utrechtseweg 289, says he slept with "the neighbours of WESTERBEEK as at his home there were no beds left"; ◐ Koele's house, at 291, is very probably the neighbours' (Westerbeek's file, p. 4). Bakker has the same: "Trainor went to Westerbeek where he got his meals and slept at the house of Mr. Koele."
• Schilt, 22 to 24 December. H. W. Schilt of the Lindenlaan has "Louis TRAINOR … stayed here from 22 Dec - 24 Dec 44" (Schilt's file, p. 4); Westerbeek's form agrees: "From 22 - 24 Dec 44 TRAINOR went to Mrs. SCHILT". ◐ From there he went on to Amerongen with the others.
• Rakers, one night. ✓ The form Rakers's widow filled in on 18 September 1945 has "TRAINOR only stayed one night" at the house, "and then he went to WESTERBEEK" (her form, p. 8). The form she filled in for her husband on 26 April 1946 has "My late husband found Maj. Schelderup and Trainer along the road" and lists Fam. Westerbeek and Fam. Koele among the families who helped (the form, p. 2); its table has him from 25 October to 24 December and handed on to "Fam. Koele and Fam. Westerbeek (see reverse-side)" (p. 3).
• Holwerda. The police sergeant who led the Maartensdijk underground wrote that "Trainor was sheltered with fam. Westerbeek from October until Xmas" (his report, p. 8); his table has "Bevond zich in kosthuis bij J.Bakker" (was in lodgings at J. Bakker's) (p. 30).
• Hans Hellendoorn of Bilthoven listed the six Canadians and "BOB", Porter, as "Allen doorgegeven aan 'Dirk' Langbroek en wel in Amerongen op Vrijdag en Zaterdag voor Kerstmis 1944" (all handed to "Dirk" of Langbroek, at Amerongen, on the Friday and Saturday before Christmas 1944, which were 22 and 23 December) (his file, p. 5).
• ✓ What the British recorded afterwards. The British index of helpers has Westerbeek, C., Utrechtscheweg 289, Groenekan, certificate 14887, grade 5 (sheet W/5); Koele, Willem, Utrechtscheweg 291, Groenekan, certificate 14918, grade 5 (sheet K/10); and Schilt, H.W., Lindenlaan 30, Groenekan (typed "Groeneken"), certificate 9419, grade 5 (sheet S/4). Read on the images; the address and grade columns sit up to half a line off the names on these sheets, and each row was matched by the address on the family's own form.

At Rakers's house, Schjelderup was ill and Porter lived there; the household's side is on Rakers's page.

◐ Schjelderup's report (Kew WO 208/3351/2349) gives him as "F.82729. Pte. TRAINOR, L.F." in the party of 2 January. The brackets and footnotes in the transcript are the transcriber's.

• 25 October. At the fort Schjelderup was treated well, "All possible comforts were given to me as well as to Pte. TRAINOR", and at about 18:00 Rakers took "us" to his house by bicycle after bringing civilian clothes. ⚠︎ Rakers's widow has Trainor at the house for one night only, and the Koele and Westerbeek forms have him from 25 October.
• 2 January. ◐ By the report's own list he was one of the five (Berry, Porter, Swartz, Briere, Trainor) who "panicked and ran madly onto the ice" at the second firing (Schjelderup's page).

✓ Three reports, photographed at Kew by the late John Howes, who passed them to Lisan Koppenol, and she sent them on, name him; each is told from its writer's side on Berry's, Swartz's and Briere's pages.

• The jump. Swartz has "Pte. TRAINOR, Essex Scottish Regt." joining Gri, Swartz, Schjelderup and Brownridge after they left the train (Swartz, p. 1).
• Groenekan. Berry writes that at Groenekan, between about 1 and 24 December, he "met four other Canadians who had escaped - Capt. SHELDR[?]UPP, Sgt. GRI, Pte. SWARTZ, and Pte. TRAINOR" (a letter in the first name is blurred; Berry, p. 2). Briere has a group formed at the policeman's house around 8 December, including "Pte. TRAINER, Essex Scottish", of whom "Sgt. GRUN, Pte. SCHWARTZ and TRAINER left one day and the remainder of us left the following day" (Briere, p. 2). ⚠︎ The Dutch forms have Trainor at Koele's and Westerbeek's until 22 to 24 December.

The crossing from Amerongen is told on The crossing and recapture. Murphy is in none of Trainor's own words, since no report by him is held; the Canadians' reports put the two in the same party.

• Amerongen. Berry has the six Canadians "in the same locality" from 24 December to 2 January (Berry, p. 2). Swartz has Gri, Trainor and Banwell join him there (Swartz, Appendix C).

• The barn. ✓ Swartz writes:

  TRAINOR and I set out on bicycles with two escorts from the Dutch Underground and crossed the RHINE on a German ferry just south of AMERONGEN. We travelled along a dyke road on the south side of the RHINE to a barn. Here we were rejoined by Sgt. TRY, Sgt. BANWELL, Pte. MURPHY and another Canadian Airborne soldier.

  — Pte H. Swartz · MI9 liberation report, Appendix C · the photograph

  Swartz does not say who was there first. Hardy has himself and Murphy reach the Kesteren barn and meet "Sgt. BANWELL , 10 Para Bn, Sgt. GRI and two Pte's, all of them Canadian Scottish" (Hardy), ◐ the two privates very probably Swartz and Trainor, though Trainor was Essex Scottish; Schjelderup's group came later in both. The same page is on Swartz's page. - The party. Schjelderup's list of the party that set out on foot has "Pte. TRAINOR, L.F." (F.82729) beside Murphy, Hardy, Noble and Banwell. "Two Came Back!" has "Pte Trainer of the Essex Scottish" among the eight left after the first firing, at the "concealed German fort", before the second, which scattered the rest (p. 6).

He reached Arnhem a day ahead of the six others. ⚠︎ Briere says that after the ambush "Pte. TRAINER [one letter is blurred on the photograph], a Dutchman and I were marched to ARNHEM with our hands tied. Here we were questioned for two weeks", and that "The six who were re-captured reached ARNHEM the following day. They were Capt. NOBLE., CSM BERRY., Sgt. PORTER., Sgt 'TIM'., Pte. SCHWARTZ., Pte. MURPHY." (Briere, p. 3). Porter has a different party. After the interrogation near the front line, "Louis, Marcel, Harvey, and the doctor from the Army all showed up" (p. 150), and "Wilf, Louis, Harvey, Marcel Briere, the Army Doctor and myself were taken to Arnhem" (p. 151; Porter, chapter 6): Trainor and Briere with the rest, and no Murphy and no "Tim". Briere's report does not date "the following day". Not reconciled: Briere's is a report of June 1945, Porter's a book written fifty years on (Porter's page).

Utrecht and the concentration camp. ⚠︎ Tjeerd Holwerda wrote in 1946 that "Trainor, Porten, Swarts, Berry and Briere were from 16-1-45 until 9-2-45 in the prison at Utrecht, have been transported afterwards to Neurenberg and have been liberated there by the American Army" (his file, p. 23; the Dutch original, p. 30). It is hearsay: his English report says he heard of the ill-treatment "from Dutch guards" (p. 8). The dates fit the other accounts of the party's captivity, which have the Wolvenplein prison too (Recapture, interrogation, captivity), and Noble, taken in the same scatter, had the Gestapo prison at Utrecht from 18 January to 7 February (Noble). Its Nuremberg is not borne out for the others, freed at Fallingbostel and near Lübeck.

⚠︎ Charles Noble's own later account (unpublished private papers, shared with us privately), told long after the war, has the Canadians of the party with him at Utrecht, naming none of them. At a first prison, "the wrong prison", the Canadians came in, whom he had not seen at Velp: "There were about five of them … These were the ones who had been on the dyke when we had been shot at". In the waiting room a German who took them for terrorists spat in Noble's face, until his guard said he was "an English doctor". At the Wolvenplein Noble was alone in a cell for three weeks: "The others were kept in two cells." At Doetinchem "There were Canadians who were in the cell next to me with two Americans and one Pole."

To the camp and out of it. Porter has Trainor with him on the lorry that took him from Utrecht to "a very well-guarded concentration camp", which he believed was the Kruisberg at Doetinchem (p. 165): "Wilf, Louis, Harvey and Marcel were there. This was the first I had seen of them since we were brought from Wolvenplein" (p. 163; transcript; chapter 6). After a couple of months there he has the five "back together again, just the five of us" on a lorry out of the camp (p. 176, chapter 8); at the holding camp the army men and the airman were parted: "I was separated from Wilf and the others I had been with. No good-byes" (p. 177). ◐ Porter puts all this about the end of March; the three Canadian Scottish reports have Berry, Swartz and Briere in Germany in the last week of February and in Stalag XI B by 3 March at the latest, so his own date is not known, and none of them says where Trainor was.

Liberated. ✓ "Trainor, Louis Francis, Pte., Mrs. Loretta Trainor, (mother) 265 Dorchester St., Charlottetown" is in the army's fourth list of liberated prisoners of war, issued at Ottawa on 15 May 1945 (Charlottetown Guardian, 16 May 1945, p. 1). ⚠︎ Where and when he was freed is not known. By 9 June he was in England, one of 32 Canadian prisoners "who since early March have been driving over bomb-riddled German roads to bring food to their buddies in prison camps", volunteers for the International Red Cross (Charlottetown Guardian, 9 June 1945, p. 14); the paper's "early March" sits with Porter's end of March only if the paper means the drivers as a whole.

Later. ⚠︎ Porter's book has his photograph with the caption "Louis Trainor died in Prince Edward Island. February 1997" (p. 263). That is the only source for his death; no death record has been found, and the book was published that year.

• Where he slept in October to December. ⚠︎ Koele's and Westerbeek's forms have him at Koele's and Westerbeek's from 25 October; Rakers's widow has one night at her house first; Holwerda's table has him lodging at J. Bakker's; Westerbeek's form types the start as "26 Sep", a month before the train escape (the form is typed that way, probably for October).
• Who he was taken with. ⚠︎ Briere has Trainor marched to Arnhem with himself and a Dutchman, a day ahead of the six others (no date given); Porter has him with Berry, Swartz, Briere, the army doctor and himself.
• When he went into Germany. ◐ About the end of March by Porter, in February for the three Canadians who wrote reports. The Charlottetown paper's "since early March" dates the 32 men's Red Cross driving in Germany, not his entry into Germany.
• Where he was freed. ⚠︎ Holwerda's Nuremberg; the Canadian Scottish men Fallingbostel; his own camp is not known.
• His move to Amerongen. ⚠︎ Schilt has him at the Lindenlaan until 24 December; Swartz has the group taken to Amerongen on 23 December; Berry has the move on 24 December.

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