Deserter Hunt

The snow was 3 to 5 ft. deep, and the drifts were deeper. Even on snowshoes, it was an arduous climb. But the three provost officers (military policemen) found what they wanted--a cabin, well up on Mt. McKay, overlooking Lake Superior, some 16 miles southwest of Fort William, Ont. The cabin, screened by a stand of pine and spruce, was obviously new, built of rough-hewn logs. Sergeant Ronald "Slim" Harrison approached cautiously, threw open the door.

Inside two young Army deserters were eating supper (they had trapped rabbits and had a well-stocked larder of canned goods). Sergeant Harrison arrested the men, marched them away.

Later the same night the sergeant followed footprints in the snow for four miles (it took three hours) to another isolated cabin, found two more deserters. A few days later a fifth was caught in a hideout north of Fort William. Four of the five were Canadians of Central European descent.

A few miles west of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. other provost officers, aided by Mounties, were staging another manhunt. In two cars and a truck they drove to the road's end at the foot of lonely Gros Cap hill. Then they trudged on snowshoes up the steep hill to a well-hidden, log-and-tar-paper shanty at the top. Outside, the officers pounced on five unshaven, bedraggled youths. Inside they found seven more, plus large stores of butter, canned goods, milk, cigarets, coffee, bread.

All of the twelve were Italian-Canadians. All were surly. When officers tried to take them aboard a train at Sault Ste. Marie, they resisted, smashed windows. They were finally handcuffed and bundled aboard. During the night, five managed to escape. One was recaptured at once. The other four hitchhiked, still handcuffed, into North Bay. Local police picked them up.

An estimated 4,000 of the 6,300 Canadian soldiers who had gone AWOL to avoid overseas service (TIME, Jan. 29) were still loose, many in bush country hideouts, some in the U.S. Clearly, to capture them all would take a lot of time, a lot of doing.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.