Maurice Bossé: Canadian war veteran of the 'Maisies' who was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry

At a time when we are commemorating the starts of the two 20th-century World Wars, lest we forget, victory depended not only on British and Allied European soldiers, but also on those from other continents, not least from the Commonwealth.

Maurice Bossé was one such – a Canadian reservist who took part in the Normandy landings, fought through Belgium and Holland, and won the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for personal gallantry in Germany. He commanded a section of flame-thrower vehicles during the final Allied push towards Berlin. Earlier this year, he was named Chevalier (Knight) de la Légion d'Honneur by French president François Hollande, an honour he shares with a small group of fellow Canadians.

After Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Bossé enlisted in Canada's Régiment de Maisonneuve. After training in Québec, he was sent to Greenock, Scotland, on 24 August 1940, as part of Canada's 5th Infantry Brigade. Along with the mainly French-speaking Maisonneuves – or the "Maisies" as they were called by their English-speaking comrades – were troops of Canada's Black Watch (the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada) and the Calgary Highlanders.

Bossé's regiment, with the motto "Bon Coeur et Bon Bras" (Good Heart and Strong Arm), were trained in England from December 1940, in the run-up to D-Day. The regiment suffered many casualties from German flying-bombs in the days before the Normandy landings.

On 6 July, Bossé's regiment landed to support the push inland, suffering 17 fatalities on their first day of combat on 19 July. "Our first encounter with German troops was at Saint-André-sur-Orne, just south of Caen in Lower Normandy," Bossé said later. "We were making our way towards Falaise through the city of Caen. A Canadian tank had been hit by a German shell. The officers told me to go and free the two men who were stuck inside. While my men were firing at the Germans, I climbed onto the tank, opened the hatch and got the two men out. That's when I received a Mention-in-Despatches.

Bossé's regiment and the Canadian Black Watch liberated Saint-André-sur-Orne. In October and November 1944, by which time Bossé was a Sergeant, the Maisies fought in the bloody Battle of the Scheldt, clearing the Scheldt estuary between Belgium and the Netherlands and enabling allied ships to bring vital supplies in through Antwerp.

In February/March 1945, Bossé survived Operation Blockbuster, the Battle of the Hochwald Gap in Germany's Lower Rhine region, one of the heaviest tank battles of the war, when the Maisies lost 13 dead and 33 wounded. Within days, the Maisies and the Calgary Highlanders, backed by Sherman tanks, Kangaroo armoured personnel-carriers and mine-clearing Flails, were nearing the Siegfried Line of Nazi defences as part of the Allied Operation Veritable. After the war, the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, said: "this was some of the fiercest fighting of the whole war, a bitter slugging match in which the enemy had to be forced back yard by yard". Bossé was part of that slugging match, commanding three armoured "universal carriers" armed with Wasp flamethrowers at the Battle for Xanten, which the Canadians captured. It was on 9 March 1945, that Bossé won the DCM for his bravery at Xanten.

"My carrier was alone in the Reichswald Forest. There were snipers in the trees and a lot of big machine-guns. I stood up in the back of the carrier. I had a flamethrower and a Browning machine-gun that fired 700 rounds a minute. I fired it all over, trying to get closer to the forest. I got shot in the arm. I told the driver, who was a guy from Rimouski, Québec, to continue. The blood was pouring down my arm and it burned. When we got close to the woods, we set fire to the forest and then we continued on. There were still German bunkers at the edge of the woods. The German troops were coming up behind us. The Browning was running out of ammo. I aimed it all along the edge of the forest and my men surrounded the woods." Bossé said the German troops, even the élite SS men captured, admitted they had feared the flamethrower more than any other weapon of war.

"I was flown to England, spending five or six months at Saint James's Hospital/Leeds General Infirmary (now popularly known as Jimmy's). I learned later that les Maisonneuves had carried on and by nightfall had taken 200 prisoners. When the Germans saw the flamethrower come up and start firing at them from 2-300 feet away, they came out with their hands up. [When I heard that] I cried, oh how I cried. I was very proud but I didn't think that I had done all that much. In France, we had been up against the SS, the élite, Hitler's best. Hitler was like God to them. As we moved deeper into Germany, we saw civilians. The German people weren't bandits. Sometimes I was reminded of Canada. There were a lot of farms and working people."

Most recently, the Régiment de Maisonneuve served bravely in Afghanistan.

Bossé was born in Saint-Hélène in the Kamouraska municipality of Québec province. After the war, he became a postal worker and lifetime believer in "peace, not war".

PHIL DAVISON

Maurice Germain Bossé, soldier and postal worker; born Sainte Hélène, Québec, Canada 4 March 1922; married Cecile Rioux (12 children); died Lac des Aigles, Québec 23 July 2014.