Our Veterans > World War II > Stuart Johns
Stuart Johns
(Canadian Grenadier Guards Tank Regiment, 1943-1946)
Stuart Johns was born in Windsor in 1925. Like many young men at the time, he joined the Army, as a rite of passage, directly out of high school. He recalls his mother being quite upset about his decision, "Not so much that I'd joined the service... but because she already had one son in the Army and she thought possibly spreading the danger around a little bit was maybe preferable."
He took Basic Training in Chatham and proceeded to Camp Borden, Ontario for more advanced training in tanks. By 1944, he was headed overseas and, while he would travel getting to see England, France, Germany, and Holland in the war years to come, he would also experience much more than the average teenaged boy from Windsor.
"My wartime experiences crossed off that word innocent."