Research on 15 Great Canadian Stories: Tommy Prince, the decorated and forgotten war hero

“He used to carry a pair of moccasins in his bag with him. He would never tell anyone where he was going, but would just slip away in the night. The Germans thought he was a ghost or a devil. They could never figure out how he passed the lines and the sentries. He was deathly quiet. Instead of sneaking in and killing them, he would steal something, like a pair of shoes right off their feet. Or he would leave articles behind, like a calling card, just to let them know he had been there. Once in a while, he would kill one of them, slit their throat so as not to awaken anybody. When those Germans woke up and found one of their own lying dead in the midst of them, that’s when they got scared. They didn’t believe that Prince could be real, so they figured he must be an evil spirit or better yet the devil. We were known as the Devil’s Brigade to the Germans.”One of Tommy Prince’s comrades, describing his stealth behind enemy lines during the Second World War.
His is one of the great tragedies of Canadian military — and social — history. Tommy Prince, an Indigenous Canadian war hero and among the country’s most decorated non-commissioned officers, gave everything he had for his country in two conflicts — the Second World War and Korea — yet due to systemic racism was largely forgotten by that same country when he, himself, fell: an alcoholic who spent his last days in a small, sparsely furnished room in the Salvation Army’s Social Service Centre in Winnipeg, his medals either pawned or lost, his spirit damaged beyond repair.“Remembrance,” P. Whitney Lackenbauer poignantly wrote in A Hell of a Warrior: Remembering Sergeant Thomas George Prince, “particularly in the official policy domain, always involves a calculated amount of forgetting.”
Born in a canvas tent in 1915 and raised on the Brokenhead Reserve, about 70 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, Thomas George Prince was the great-great grandson of Saulteaux Chief Peguis, and his forebears served on the Crown’s side in the Red River Rebellion, as Nile River Voyageurs in Sudan, and in Europe during the First World War.
One of 11 children in his family, he attended residential school from the age of five, and joined the army cadets, where he became an excellent marksman.
“As soon as I put on my uniform,” he once remarked, “I felt like a better man. I even tried to wear it to class.”
“Prince,” wrote historian Robert Hepenstall, “belonged to the 10 per cent of the battalion who were really competent in battle. Prince was an excellent man in the field, but the demons that lurked within his personality rendered him useless in garrison. Eventually, the demons would tear him apart and kill him; but not in war. Some people are indestructible in war. Prince was one of them.”
On Christmas Eve in 1952, during his second tour in Korea, the accumulated stress finally got to Prince, who suffered a breakdown while on a recon patrol during which he and the men in his command were shelled by Chinese mortar bombs. Prince was moved to administrative duty and spent several weeks in early 1953 in hospital.
He returned to Canada and continued to serve at a personnel depot in Winnipeg, until he was honourably discharged in September 1954. Although he was never assessed or diagnosed, Prince most certainly suffered from PTSD.
His search for odd jobs in Winnipeg continued to reveal systemic racism. He and his common-law wife, Verna Sinclair, had five children and moved back and forth between Winnipeg and Brokenhead. They separated in 1964, their children placed in foster homes. The arthritis in Prince’s knee worsened and he had difficulty sleeping as he increasingly turned to alcohol for relief.
By the mid 1970s, he was living at the Salvation Army in Winnipeg, in a six-by-eight-foot room. His only possessions were newspaper clippings of honours he had received. According to a 1976 newspaper article in the Winnipeg Free Press, Prince had kicked his alcohol habit, but “his final years were spent reliving the terror of the two wars, and every night his bed was wet from tears and sweat.”
Tommy Prince died at Winnipeg’s Deer Lodge Centre on Nov. 25, 1977, at the age of 62. He has since been commemorated on a coin, a plaque and various murals. A statue of him sits in a park on the Brokenhead Reserve, near one of his great-great grandfather and streets in Winnipeg and Calgary, and a school in Manitoba, were named after him. The Canadian Forces have immortalized Prince at various sites, including the Tommy Prince barracks at Garrison Petawawa and the Tommy Prince Drill Hall in Wainwright, Alta. In 2000, the Sergeant Tommy Prince Army Training Initiative was established to encourage Indigenous recruitment.
That same year, his medals turned up at auction in London, Ont., and through donations from various groups and individuals, were purchased for $75,000 and given to his family. In 2001, they were placed on permanent display in the Manitoba Mus; but not in war. Some people are indestructible in war. Prince was one of them.”
On Christmas Eve in 1952, during his second tour in Korea, the accumulated stress finally got to Prince, who suffered a breakdown while on a recon patrol during which he and the men in his command were shelled by Chinese mortar bombs. Prince was moved to administrative duty and spent several weeks in early 1953 in hospital.
He returned to Canada and continued to serve at a personnel depot in Winnipeg, until he was honourably discharged in September 1954. Although he was never assessed or diagnosed, Prince most certainly suffered from PTSD.
His search for odd jobs in Winnipeg continued to reveal systemic racism. He and his common-law wife, Verna Sinclair, had five children and moved back and forth between Winnipeg and Brokenhead. They separated in 1964, their children placed in foster homes. The arthritis in Prince’s knee worsened and he had difficulty sleeping as he increasingly turned to alcohol for relief.
By the mid 1970s, he was living at the Salvation Army in Winnipeg, in a six-by-eight-foot room. His only possessions were newspaper clippings of honours he had received. According to a 1976 newspaper article in the Winnipeg Free Press, Prince had kicked his alcohol habit, but “his final years were spent reliving the terror of the two wars, and every night his bed was wet from tears and sweat.”
Tommy Prince died at Winnipeg’s Deer Lodge Centre on Nov. 25, 1977, at the age of 62. He has since been commemorated on a coin, a plaque and various murals. A statue of him sits in a park on the Brokenhead Reserve, near one of his great-great grandfather and streets in Winnipeg and Calgary, and a school in Manitoba, were named after him. The Canadian Forces have immortalized Prince at various sites, including the Tommy Prince barracks at Garrison Petawawa and the Tommy Prince Drill Hall in Wainwright, Alta. In 2000, the Sergeant Tommy Prince Army Training Initiative was established to encourage Indigenous recruitment.
That same year, his medals turned up at auction in London, Ont., and through donations from various groups and individuals, were purchased for $75,000 and given to his family. In 2001, they were placed on permanent display in the Manitoba Museum.“Prince,” wrote historian Robert Hepenstall, “belonged to the 10 per cent of the battalion who were really competent in battle. Prince was an excellent man in the field, but the demons that lurked within his personality rendered him useless in garrison. Eventually, the demons would tear him apart and kill him; but not in war

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