Canada at War: THE SERVICES: Riots in Aldershot

At Aldershot, Britain’s great permanent military camp and drill ground for thousands of Canadians in World Wars I & II, nearly 30,000 homesick Canadian soldiers waited impatiently to be sent back to Canada. Some were waiting to be redeployed to the Pacific. They were bored with the monotony of Aldershot life, resentful of the delay in getting home, the poor food, lack of money and what they felt were fleecing tactics by local shopkeepers.

Last week a group of griping soldiers met in Aldershot (pop.: 36,000). Soon the group grew to mob size. A rumor rose that some Canadian soldiers were imprisoned in the local jail. The mob marched off to release them. For two and a half hours they rioted through Aldershot, breaking windows, overturning cars, ignoring the pleas of senior officers.

That evening the rioting broke out again. With shoes, sticks & stones, the mob smashed most of the remaining windows in Aldershot’s stores, made a shambles of the town’s shopping center. Said one soldier: “Yesterday it looked as though a V-1 had hit the town; it must have been a V-2 last night.” In Ottawa, Defense Headquarters said every effort was being made to find shipping space to repatriate the Canadians. In the next six months 126,000 men would be transported back, but probably 125,000 Canadian soldiers, like thousands of U.S. troops, would still remain in Europe at the beginning of 1946, in addition to the 35,000 in the Army of Occupation.