Lest We Forget: Working in war led her to life in Canada

By Gillian Slade on November 9, 2018.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

She served in the Second World War in England, met her future husband — a Canadian sailor — and became one of the British war brides to settle in Medicine Hat.

Lynn Solley, nee Johnson, who lived in the English city of Great Yarmouth, joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1940 as a telephonist when she was only 17 years old.

She also trained to be an aircraft-spotter and quickly learned to identify enemy aircraft and raise the alarm. When that happened “guns as big as the ones in Veterans Memorial Park in Riverside” targeted them, said Solley.

She remembers training in Nottingham and then being stationed in a number of locations including Tynemouth, near Newcastle, and on the east coast of England near Dover. It was the sites nearer London that were the busiest. The team was comprised of about 20 girls and 10 men. They were often billeted in tents.

Newcastle was a bombing target, scary especially when the bombs meant fires.

“Gun sites were sometimes the targets for incendiary bombs that started fires,” said Solley, who feels she was probably safer on a gun site rather than a civilian in a heavily bombed area. Only once did she spend a couple hours in a bomb raid shelter because more often than not she was on a gun site working.

“I had a job to do and I did it,” said the soon to be 96-year-old.

She brushes off any thoughts of fear and says she was simply too busy to get excited or fearful.

“It was dangerous but I did not think about it. You lived from day to day,” said Solley.

Her future changed dramatically when she met William (Bill) Edward Chapman, who was with the Royal Canadian Navy stationed in Scotland at the time. They were married in Seaford, England, on Aug. 4, 1944. A day later her husband returned to sea.

After Solley was pregnant she had to leave the ATS.

The plan was for her to settle in Canada, and as a pregnant war bride she had to make the journey before she was six months pregnant. She travelled alone from Gourock, Scotland on Feb. 19, 1945 on the Aquitania. Her husband was still serving in the war but she was heading to Medicine Hat and her parents-in-law, whom she had never met. Her only contact with them had been through letters.

There were other war brides on that ship along with injured veterans but Solley had enough trouble of her own trying to cope with seasickness.

After a 10-day journey they docked at Pier 21 in Halifax. It was the middle of winter.

Solley’s long journey continued by rail to Medicine Hat. When the train finally pulled into the Medicine Hat station it was 3 a.m. and there were no sign of her in-laws, whom she was expecting to meet her.

She took a taxi to their home, the taxi driver waiting to ensure she was welcomed in.

Although Solley had written giving the date of her arrival, communication had been misunderstood and they’d expected her 24 hours earlier.

“We got along fine,” said Solley. “I don’t think I cried. I was just so glad to get into a bed.”

Her first child, a daughter, was born May 30, 1945. Bill did not see her until she was six months old.

“You just had to go on living,” said Solley.

She does not remember being homesick at all. Her own mother had died when she was 13 and she’d been in the care of her grandmother. Once she had children of her own she no longer pined for England.

After Bill returned home from the war he worked for CP Rail and they lived in a basement apartment of a house near Alexandra School. They later moved into a “war time house” of their own at 111 10th St. SW.

“We’ve lived the good and the bad,” she said.

See Saturday’s Medicine Hat News for the sixth Remembrance Day story about a local seaman from Medicine Hat in the Second World War who sadly passed away this year.

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