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The life of Rifleman Sulo W. Alanen

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By Ariane Gauthier

Sepia-coloured photograph of Sulo W. Alanen when he was about 30 years old, featured in a Finnish newspaper announcing his death.

Photo of Sulo W. Alanen as it appeared in a Finnish newspaper announcing his death. (Source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial)

The story of Sulo W. Alanen begins in the northern Ontarian village of Nolalu, a small settlement outside of Thunder Bay that emerged largely due to the arrival of Finnish settlers in the region. These settlers were likely drawn to the thriving lumber industry, the opportunities for farming, and the convenience of the railway passing through Nolalu.

Matti Alanen, originally from Jurva, Finland, was one of these immigrants who braved the journey to Canada in 1904, inspired by the promise of a better life. Like many of his compatriots, he settled in Nolalu, a growing Finnish community established just four years earlier. Here, he found familiarity in an unfamiliar land, with a supportive network of fellow Finns. Matti embraced farming as his livelihood. Hilma Lehtiniemi, originally from Ikaalinen, Finland, followed her family to Canada in 1908. After arriving in Nolalu, she met and married Matti, likely around 1910, as suggested by Sulo’s service file, which mentions their marriage in April 1910 in Port Arthur, Ontario.

Sulo, the couple’s third son and child, was born May 13, 1914, in Silver Mountain, Ontario, a mining settlement near Nolalu. The Alanen family’s farmstead appears to have been located between these two communities, as their place of residence alternates between Silver Mountain and Nolalu in Sulo’s service file.

Black-and-white photograph from 1888 of the Silver Mountain mining settlement, showcasing the forest expanse and rural landscape.

Silver Mountain mining settlement, 1888. (Source: a045569)

Sulo was the middle child among five siblings. The 1931 Census provides insight into his upbringing, indicating that Finnish was his first language. This is unsurprising, given that Nolalu was a Finnish community where most settlers shared this cultural heritage. Census entries for neighbouring households confirm this pattern: nearly all family heads were originally from Finland and spoke Finnish as their first language.

Section of the 1931 Census for Nolalu, listing members of the Alanen family, their age, gender, and place of birth.

A screenshot of the 1931 Census featuring the Alanen family. Sulo’s name can be seen on line 42 of the 5th page. (Source: e011639213)

English came later for Sulo and his siblings, likely as a result of simply living in Canada, as none of them attended school or learned how to write. Much of Sulo’s childhood was spent working on the family farm. In adulthood, he continued working on his father’s farm until his enlistment for the Second World War. His service file also mentions that he occasionally worked as a bushman for extra income.

Sulo was forced to serve at the 102 Canadian Basic Training Camp in Fort William under the National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA), enacted in 1941 by the King government as a compromise to avoid full conscription. The NRMA mandated that able-bodied men contribute to Canada’s defence and national security. After serving for 30 days under this program, Sulo made the pivotal decision to enlist voluntarily on May 4, 1943.

Sulo’s enlistment in the Canadian Army aligned with the critical Allied preparations for the D-Day landings, planned for the summer of 1944. From his initial training at Camp Shilo in Manitoba to boarding a ship bound for England, his focus was singular: preparing for the storming of Juno Beach.

Sulo’s ship arrived in England on April 11, 1944—just two months before Operation Overlord. On April 27, he was assigned to the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, specifically to the 2nd Canadian Base Reinforcement Group. This designation indicates that Sulo was not initially slated to participate in the first assault wave. Instead, as a part of C Company, he was positioned to join the Royal Winnipeg Rifles after they had pierced the Atlantic Wall.

The Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ war diary tells us what D-Day was like for Sulo and his comrades. The troops were informed at 9 p.m. the evening before that Operation Overlord was on, and all were fairly enthusiastic. The diary states: “There was an air of expectancy and sense of adventure on all craft this night, the eve of the day we had trained for so hard and long in England.”

The long day began at 4 a.m. with tea and a cold snack. The weather was cloudy and the sea was heavy. At 5:15 a.m., landing crafts were lowered from the motor vessel Llangibby Castle, still about 15 kilometres from the coast. At 6:55 a.m., the Royal Navy and air support began bombarding the coastline of France. The landing crafts arrived on shore around 7:49 a.m. with B and D companies landing first. As the war diary grimly notes: “The bombardment having failed to kill a single German or silence one weapon, these coys had to storm their positions “cold”—and did so without hesitation.”

A and C companies landed later around 9 a.m. C Company disembarked on the Mike and Love sectors of Juno Beach, where the beach and surrounding dunes were still under heavy mortar fire. Pinned down for about two hours, the soldiers eventually regrouped and, alongside A Company, pushed forward towards their objective, Banville, encountering several pockets of resistance en route but overcoming each one until just south of Banville, where the enemy had dug in on commanding ground.

Map of Juno Beach showing the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s movements on D-Day. Highlights show the landing sector and path of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ C Company.

Map of Juno Beach showing the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s movements on D-Day. (Source: e999922605-u)

The first day of the Battle of Normandy brought surviving members of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles to Creully by 5 p.m., completing phase II of Operation Overlord. Little rest was had, especially for C Company, which faced an enemy patrol attack at 2 a.m. The soldiers repelled the assault and captured 19 German prisoners, allowing for a brief respite until 6:15 a.m., when they were ordered to advance once more. Their next objective was the OAK Line at Putot-en-Bessin.

This event set the tone for the Royal Winnipeg Rifles’ grueling experience in the aftermath of D-Day as they encountered some of the most ferocious and obstinate resistance by German forces.

Photograph by military photographer Lt. Bell showing Canadian artillery camouflaged with foliage, Carpiquet, France, July 4, 1944.

Army Numerical 35899-36430—Northwest Europe—Album 75 of 110. (Source: e011192295)

By July 5, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles had painstakingly made it to the village of Marcelet, where they engaged in the battle for Carpiquet. While Sulo’s service file does not delve into the specifics of the injuries that ended his life on that day, the war diary tells us his regiment was subjected to enemy shelling and strafing from the air during the whole day. In this chaos, Sulo was either struck by shrapnel or collapsing buildings. Initially, he couldn’t be found and was reported missing, but when the battle calmed just enough by July 5, his body was discovered, and he was officially reported killed in action.

Like so many Canadians who gave their lives during D-Day and the battle of Normandy, Sulo W. Alanen rests at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in Calvados, France. He is buried in plot XV. G. 16, where his name liveth for evermore.

For more reading on this subject:

Ariane Gauthier is a reference archivist in the Access and Services Branch at Library and Archives Canada.

A look inside former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson’s archives

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By Thora Gustafsson and Rebecca Sykes

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson is best known as a former Governor General of Canada (1999 to 2005), but she has been in the spotlight for many more reasons throughout her life. As a refugee, a household name at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Ontario’s first Agent-General in France, she touched the lives of Canadians long before she became a resident of Rideau Hall.

Adrienne Clarkson, née Poy, was born in Hong Kong in 1939. Following the surrender of Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941, the Poy family lived under harsh conditions with little food during the Japanese occupation. Adrienne’s father, William Poy (Ng Ying Choi), had been a message courrier in the Volunteer Militia working for the British. He used his connections to write to Canadian trade commissioners in search of an escape for his family. Eventually, William, his wife Ethel Lam (Lam May Ngo), Adrienne and her older brother Neville were placed on a list alongside Canadian citizens to be exchanged by the Red Cross. With only 10 hours’ notice and one suitcase each, the Poy family left by ship for North America. A publicity photograph in Clarkson’s fonds shows her, only a few years old, eating an ice cream cone on her first stop on Canadian soil in Montréal. In her 2009 memoir, Heart Matters, Clarkson writes that the night her family was informed that they were to be exchanged was a formative moment in her and her family’s story.

A girl reading a book while sitting on a sofa.

Adrienne Poy reading (R12308, vol. 189, file 1)

From a young age, Clarkson was a prodigious reader. In interviews, she has frequently remarked that her idea of hell is being trapped with nothing to read, and that she could read seven or more books in a week: “I read the way other people bite their nails, compulsively and voraciously” (R12308, vol. 159, file 13). At age nine, she was gifted a copy of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, and like for so many immigrants to Canada, the book became a favourite and a touchstone for understanding Canada and its people. Clarkson went on to earn a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Toronto and to lecture in the English department there. This led to her career in television.

Hired by CBC’s “Take 30” television series as a book reviewer in 1965, she was quickly promoted to co-host. There, she and Paul Soles discussed a broad range of topics including books, motherhood, cooking and issues of the day, such as abortion and illegal drug use. While on the show, she also discussed issues that are still very close to her heart, such as the first French-immersion schools and the experiences of immigrants in Canada.

In looking at the documents, it is clear how connected she felt to her viewers. In an article she wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press in 1966, she said she often thought of the so-called average viewer “as a third person in the conversation, someone you might meet at any party—pleasant and interested.” That sense of connection clearly went both ways, judging by her collection of letters from viewers. One viewer, who wrote on behalf of herself and her husband, compared watching “Take 30” to “having a friend come into our home.” The show also aired several episodes dealing with pregnancy and motherhood, which Clarkson co-hosted while she was an expectant mother. Many of the show’s fans were mothers themselves, and both new and experienced mothers wrote her letters with advice and book recommendations.

In 1982, Clarkson left her 17-year career in broadcasting at the CBC to become Ontario’s Agent-General in France. Clarkson is a lifelong Francophile. Photographs in her fonds show her family’s friendship with their French-Canadian neighbours and her travels through France as a young woman. Clarkson also studied the French language, achieving fluency during postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1962. In her position as Agent-General, Clarkson was responsible for promoting Ontario’s economic and cultural interests in France and other European countries. One of her proudest moments was when up-and-coming Uruguay-born, Toronto-based Canadian architect Carlos Ott was selected as the winner in an international design competition for the new Paris Opera in 1983. Through her work as Agent-General, Clarkson secured the budget to bring the competition judges to Toronto to counter their perception of Anglo-Saxon Canada and show them what a prosperous and diverse city it was.

Several people looking at a model of a building.

Clarkson (centre) and others beside a model of the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris (R12308, vol. 190, folder 5)

In 1999, Clarkson became Canada’s 26th Governor General since Confederation. The second woman to take up the post, and the first immigrant and person of colour to do so, she is credited with modernizing the role. She continued her efforts to connect with Canadians by travelling across the country to speak to individuals in person, which she was able to do fluently in both English and French.

Going through the Adrienne L. Clarkson fonds, from her youth through her time in broadcasting and her Agent-General days, shows how consistent Clarkson has been on issues that have interested her throughout her life. As an immigrant, broadcaster, Ontario’s Agent-General, Governor General, and co-founder of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship—her legacy project as Governor General—Clarkson has thought long and hard about being Canadian and what it means to belong here. Her early research on topics for “Take 30” was clearly informative for her later work and causes. Her lifelong love of the French language served her in her public service career and as Governor General in connecting with Canadians. Her records at Library and Archives Canada are rich sources of information that document Clarkson’s passionate and adventurous life.

Thora Gustafsson and Rebecca Sykes are archivists in the Governance, Military and Political section of the Archives Branch at Library and Archives Canada.