Baptism for Zombies

Ever since the first batch of Canadian Zombies (home-defense draftees) was ordered overseas at year's end, Canada had waited to see how they would perform as fighters. Last week the first definite word came that Zombies were in combat --and the news was good.

Exactly how many Zombies were already in action was not yet known. But it was known that some were attached to the Algonquin Regiment. And when the Regiment was given the job of taking the German village of Veen, the Zombies got their chance. They had to advance over flat farmland, then subdue the German defenders house by house, barn by barn, pigsty by pigsty. It took three days, and one reporter called the battle "a double-header dose of hell." Even after the village was taken, it had to be combed for mines, for it was nastily booby-trapped. One Canadian was blown up when he pulled a sheet off a farmhouse bed to spread over a dead comrade. Said one officer: "We scarcely dared milk a cow standing in a barn."

Toronto Starman Frederick Griffin reported that "a more terrible baptism [of fire] no new troops ever took, or took more splendidly." The Algonquin's commander said: "They were just as good as any reinforcements we have had."*

* In Ottawa last week, the Department of National Defense announced that more & more "thirty-niners"--soldiers who have been overseas five years or longer--will be permitted to come home on leave. Chief reasons: the "highly satisfactory" reinforcements situation, lower-than-expected casualties.

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