Bill Enmark

 

 

I was early in the SSR. I enlisted when I was 18. I was from Bienfait, Saskatchewan. I was never in Holland during my service. I got hurt at Dieppe, 19Aug1942.  The Germans were like us.  Lots of time to train. They were preparing to defend against us. We were preparing to attack.  The Raid was supposed to happen on the 4th of July. But the weather was bad. We were training on the Isle of Wight. The Germans were well aware that we were coming. When we landing on the beach it was very difficult. It was good experience for the Canadians.

 

We had a guy with us, a British fellow, who was a radar expert.  He wanted to take a look at the radar station at Pourville.  Three or four of us escorted him.  He wasn’t to be taken prisoner.  He had a one-way ticket, really, and was lucky to make it back.

 

Occasionally I think of the war.  When I see all these cemeteries. The stones in rows.  You see the names and ages.  I think it was a big waste of humanity, really.  Bienfait had lost quite a few. Frank Nieviadomy got wounded there.

 

I visited Dieppe in 1990 and again in 1992.  I got a rock from the beach at Pourville, and made a clock of it and gave it to Cecil Merritt at a reunion of the SSR in British Columbia.

 

I’ll be 84 this Friday.

 

 

Bill Enmark and Lyle Bullock, Mayor of Pourville, and two unknown persons at a wreath laying at the memorial in 1992 at the 50th Anniversary of the Dieppe Raid of 19Aug1942.

 

 

 

 

Anna Edith Enmark  March 7, 1920 - March 17, 2005

 

“…Anne completed high school by correspondence courses, then graduated as Registered Nurse from St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, graduating in 1943. She immediately joined the Armed Forces (Army) as a nursing sister until the end of World War II. Anne met her husband Bill while nursing in Bienfait. They were married in 1946….

 

For full obituary, see The Saskatoon Star Phoenix:

 

http://www.legacy.com/can-saskatoon/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=3310500

 

 

From a telephone conversation with Bill Enmark, 13Apr2005.