Prisoner No. 26683 recognized prisoner No. 27092 immediately, though their features were now etched with lines and creases, their hair thinner and snowy.

This time, Toronto natives Ron Beal and Howard Mills — the former numbered prisoners — would not be confined within Stalag VIII-B’s barbed wire compound, a watch tower sniper at the ready. Nor would their hands be bound at the wrists, day and night, for 17 months as POWs in Lamsdorf, Germany.

The Canadian soldiers, who survived the 1942 Dieppe slaughter and 2 1/2 years in a stalag, were unexpectedly reunited 66 years later in the cheery comfort of Sunnybrook’s veterans residence. Their first words to each other after seven decades?

“Hello Howard.”

“Hello Ron.”

Four words. A friendship renewed.

Veterans’ recreational therapist, Leslie Stephens, had noted that Beal, a new Sunnybrook arrival in September, and Mills, a long-time resident in the 500-person facility, were both Royal Regiment of Canada vets. A meeting was quickly arranged, the men eager to catch up on old memories.

“When I knew Howard was alive, I wanted to meet him again,” said Beal, 90, in the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre’s bright, airy art room.

“I had no idea he was alive. I don’t think he knew I was alive — we hadn’t seen each other in 70 years.”

Mills, 93, said of seeing Beal, “I knew him right away.” The two first met in 1940 after Mills had enlisted at old Exhibition grounds garrison. Beal had been a reservist since age 15.

That the pair had survived one of the worst battlefield chapters of World War II was impressive. But what are the odds that two Central Tech high school grads would storm the same French beach, be sent to the same POW camp, not see each other for seven decades, and then one day end up in the same retirement residence?

Beal, ever the soldier, barked an answer.

“Ten thousand to one!” he exclaimed, his wife of 65 years, Marjorie, smiling at him fondly.

Those odds may be modest.

On Aug. 19, 1942, 913 Canadians were killed during the disastrous allied landing at the port of Dieppe which was heavily defended by German troops. Some personnel made it back to England. Many, like Beal — a 21-year-old private at the time — were captured when surrender was ordered amid the carnage. He and about 160 others from his unit were loaded immediately into railway box cars bound for Stalag VIII-B. In all, 1,946 Canadian prisoners were taken that day.

Mills, then 24, was badly wounded. Bullet spray from a Royal Air Force Spitfire blasted off the beach and up through the private’s right armpit. Bleeding profusely, Mills was carted off by the Germans for hospital care. He would eventually end up in Lamsdorf.

Mills gave an idea of the staggering volume of men — mostly British and Canadian troops — who were in Stalag VIII-B.

“My prisoner number was 27092 — that meant there were 27,000 guys there before me,” he said, grimly describing the camp as a town that lacked so many essentials for so many people.

Food was scarce, no “three meals a day,” said Beal. Typically they were served ersatz coffee for breakfast, one potato per man at mid-morning, a daily serving of soup “that was practically water” and a slice of “sour” German bread smaller than a playing card, Beal recalled.

Red Cross packages were supposed to be delivered weekly to every man to boost diets and spirits. But the parcels arrived irregularly and often had to be shared among several POWs, Beal and Mills recalled.

Memories? The American Red Cross parcels had good coffee, but the Brits had better tea and jams.

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By late 1944, the Soviet Army began to push the Germans from the east. Beal recalled hearing Soviet shelling in a town about 100 kilometres from the camp. In late January of 1945, German guards rounded up the POWs and led them out of camp. Where to? “Away from the Russians,” Beal said.

Mills would be moved to another camp with other injured POWs and repatriated relatively quickly to Canada. Not so for Beal, who was one of thousands taken on the infamous prisoner “march” from January to April of 1945.

Beal said columns of freezing, starving men zig-zagged about 1,000 kilometres over those months, being pushed by the Germans to stay ahead of the advancing Russians. The young soldier was in the same worn clothes and boots he wore at Dieppe when the column made a final stop north of Hanover, Germany, in April.

Then, a shock.

“We woke up one morning and the guards were gone,” Beal said.

That same morning, the British rolled in and gave the liberated men their first real food in months.

“It was white bread,” Beal recalled. “A loaf each. Or as many loaves as you wanted. It was just like eating cake.”

Beal said the realization he was free “hit him like a brick.” No tears flowed. He rejoiced quietly because there was still work to do.

Immediately, the British began trucking out the ill and wounded POWs to a local airfield, where Dakotas flew them to England. The troop transport took several days, with healthier POWs like Beal helping to load the weaker men to freedom first. He wouldn’t get out for nearly a week.

That he got home at all still dumbfounds Beal.

“How anybody survived in that situation is beyond me,” Beal said, referring to the massive German assault at Dieppe.

“They cut us to pieces. I don’t know how I survived or how I didn’t get hit. The good Lord must have been standing with his hand on my shoulder.”

Repeatedly at Sunnybrook they expressed their deep sorrow that many of their regimental brethren — brave and young too — did not return to Canada as Beal and Mills had done to marry, raise families and live long, healthy lives. Both worked as civil servants before they retired.

For the old soldiers, now in wheelchairs as their strength wanes, this Remembrance Day will be the first time they salute the flag and the fallen together.

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