In an abandoned farmhouse in central Italy, a young man searched closets for something to wear.
He wasn’t going to a fancy ball, or party… Instead, he would be walking into a warzone.
The boom of artillery could be heard around him, as the Allies and Germans traded shots.
Amid the thundering of shells, the man found exactly what he needed. Old clothes once worn by a farmer who had long since abandoned his home in the face of war.
I would be the perfect disguise.
He got dressed, gathered some tools and went outside.
Observers saw a farmer weeding his field, completely ignoring the warring parties.
He slowly inched his way along and then stopped to tie his shoes.
All of this was done in the open field in front of the Germans who were shocked at the audacity of this farmer who seemed to care little for his dangerous surroundings.
But this was no farmer, and he wasn’t tying his shoes.
And his covert efforts that day earned him a medal for his act of bravery.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx.
Today I share the story of the most decorated soldier in the legendary Devil’s Brigade…Tommy Prince!
Long before Tommy Prince was born, his great-grandfather Chief Peguis was making his mark in history.
He was the leader of the Saulteaux people and in the 1790s, when settlers encroached into First Nation lands along the eastern shores of Lake Superior, he led his people west.
They spent months walking between the lake and the Canadian Shield until they arrived in present-day Manitoba to settle near the southern shores of Lake Winnipeg.
Unfortunately, travelling 1,000 kilometres from their ancestral home wasn’t enough because by the 1810s, the Selkirk Settlers had arrived in the Red River Valley.
However, Chief Peguis didn’t greet them as enemies.
He saw these new arrivals struggling to survive and Peguis and his people kept them fed, warm and alive.
After everything he did for his people and the settlers he gave his family a name that was better fitting for his lineage.
Peguis became Prince.
Upon his father’s death in 1864, his son, Henry Prince, became chief.
During the Red River Resistance of 1869-70, he gave shelter to English-speaking settlers who worried about attacks from the Metis.
Henry Prince then led a delegation to speak with Manitoba Lt. Governor Adams George Archibald to secure the future of his people.
He was successful and on Aug. 3, 1871, Treaty 1 was signed to cede territory to the Crown in return for supplies, food and more.
While Henry Prince negotiated in good faith, government officials did not and failed to live up to the agreement.
In 1877, the chief complained to Minister of the Interior David Mills and soon after, the government tried to remove him from his position.
Despite their efforts, Henry served as chief until the day he died on June 7, 1899.
His son, also named Henry, became the next chief of the Saulteaux.
He would go on to meet Arabella, an Ojibwe woman, and the two got married.
Time passed, and while Canada waged war overseas, a young boy who was to become a legend was born on Oct. 25, 1915.
His name?
Tommy George Prince.
Henry Prince taught his son everything he knew.
By the time Tommy was a young man Henry was teaching him to be an expert marksman by giving him five bullets to shoot through a target the size of a playing card that was 100 metres away.
Before he was 10 years old, Tommy was a crack shot.
However, like so many other young Indigenous children, Tommy was ripped from his family and put into a Residential School by the government.
While we know very little about his experiences, but we do know that for thousands of other children, Residential Schools were a place of abuse and cultural genocide.
By the time he was in the 8th grade, Tommy left the school and joined the Royal Canadian Army Cadets.
Almost immediately, he felt as though he had discovered his true calling.
He said,
“As soon as I put my uniform on, I felt like a better man. I even tried to wear it to class.”
He remained with the cadets throughout his teens and hoped to complete school then study law.
The Great Depression and tough economic times put a stop to that dream.
Tommy, instead, became a manual labourer to provide for his family.
But then on Sept. 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Germany and officially entered the Second World War.
Immediately, Tommy wanted to serve.
He was an excellent marksman, in the prime of his life and in perfect health.
He was turned down.
He repeatedly tried to enlist and each time he was refused.
Systemic racism and discrimination in the Canadian Army kept him from joining.
But that didn’t stop Tommy, and he continued to put his name forward.
Finally, in June 1940, his application was accepted.
Soldiers were needed in Europe, and it outweighed the racism.
Tommy said he wanted to prove that quote,
“An Indian was as good as any white man.”
Shortly after he finally enlisted, Tommy was on his way to England as a member of the Royal Canadian Engineers.
As a sapper he showed his value and was quickly promoted to lance corporal in February 1941.
Tommy hated what he considered to be busy work.
He was either sitting behind a desk or operating a piece of machinery.
He had much more to give.
And he was going to get his chance…
By 1942, the war had dragged on for three years and the Allies were looking for a way to break through the impenetrable fortress controlled by the Germans.
To make headway, they would need innovative war strategies and Geoffrey Pyke had one.
In 1939, just prior to the war, the controversial Englishman had sent volunteers into Germany to interview citizens to find out what they truly thought of the Nazi Regime.
His volunteers posed as golfers on a tour.
They went into Frankfurt, got their intel and left a week before the war started.
Now, three years later, he had the idea of creating a small and elite commando unit.
One, that could land anywhere in Europe by sea or air and be able to sabotage oil fields and hydroelectric plants.
His main target was Norway, where the production of heavy water was aiding the Germans in their quest for an atomic bomb.
Pyke proposed his special force parachute into the Norwegian mountains to establish a covert base.
In March 1942, he took his idea to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations Headquarters who liked the idea, but didn’t want British forces involved.
Instead, it would be an American and Canadian joint effort.
In July 1942, the Canadian Minister of National Defence, James Talston, approved the reassignment of 697 men for Project Plough.
Due to the highly secretive nature of the force, the official story was the men were training as part of the First Canadian Parachute Battalion.
Tommy, however, heard through the grapevine that this special force was being assembled and he wanted in
That unit would become one of the most successful military units in history and they would be known as…
The Devil’s Brigade.
Tommy was exactly the type of soldier the commanders of this new and specialized force were looking for.
He was single and thanks to his upbringing, he was more than capable outdoors.
Tommy and the new recruits were trained to use explosives, amphibious warfare, mountain climbing, skiing, hand-to-hand combat and other stealth tactics.
They trained with Allied weapons, and German weapons.
They were to be flexible, think on their feet while always being focused on the mission at hand.
By the end of their training, the Devil’s Brigade were the best of the best and ready to go into Norway.
But that never happened because Norwegian commandos had already destroyed the German deuterium plants.
Military leaders first offered the Devil’s Brigades’ services in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands in case of a Japanese attack.
But then they were sent to Italy in November 1943 to aid in the Allied push to Rome.
Their mission was deemed impossible.
Larger Allied forces had failed to assault enemy positions to penetrate German lines so now it would be up to the Devil’s Brigade.
Initially they were posted near Naples, to raid enemy territory and Tommy Prince quickly set himself apart from the rest.
He wore Ojibwe moccasins to silently penetrate enemy lines during the night without a sound.
If he had to, he would kill a guard, but most often he walked among the sleeping Germans.
He would steal their boots or leave messages for them to discover the next day.
It was psychological warfare, and Tommy was very good at it.
Enemy soldiers would wake up to knowing their enemy had been standing next to them while they slept.
One man who noticed the unique skills of Tommy Prince was Lt. Col. Tom Gilday, the commander of the battalion,
And soon he would have the perfect mission just for him.
In late-1944, Monte Majo and Monte la Difensa became critical to the Allies in their Italy campaign.
Situated along the Mignano Gap, Monte la Difensa was considered a gatepost key to their march to Rome.
It was well defended by the Germans, and British and American forces were in a stalemate.
Every attempt to take it. Failed.
Enter the Devil’s Brigade.
It would be the unit’s first combat action in Italy.
To succeed, the force would have to scale the mountain and attack the Germans directly on top.
From Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, 1943, the Devil’s Brigade went to work.
Their hard-fought battle was an overwhelming success and showed how good they were, but they couldn’t rest on their laurels.
They still needed to take Monte Majo.
The Germans had artillery and machine gun encampments arranged in layers along the steep slopes of the mountain.
Any attempt at an attack would alert them, and they would unload a tremendous firepower on whoever tried it.
So, Lt. Col. Gilday turned to his secret weapon, Tommy Prince.
He was assigned to lead a patrol.
His mission was to create a pathway for an attack.
To be successful, he had to do it without making a sound.
Partway up the mountain, Tommy stopped his patrol.
He would go the rest of the way alone and his compatriots watched him move like a shadow in the night.
Death greeted every German on his path that night as he took out every gunner and soldier in total silence.
He completed his mission without raising a single alarm.
By the break of dawn, every German gun pit along the route was neutralized.
Only the ones at the top of Monte Majo remained and they had no idea that the Devil’s Brigade were climbing the mountain in silence. Within hours, they were ambushed and Monte Majo was in Allied hands.
But the Germans quickly mounted a counterattack.
Over the next few days, Prince and the Devil’s Brigade fought hard to keep Monte Majo.
While they held the mountain, it came at a cost.
The force was reduced to only 400 men.
Tommy Prince deserved a medal for what he had done in that mission.
You could even argue he deserved the highest honour in the British Empire, the Victoria Cross.
But he received no citation, no medal.
His mission was classified, and honour would have compromised the Devil’s Brigade.
And that was okay because they weren’t done yet.
As the Allies gained ground in Italy, the Devil’s Brigade was sent to Anzio.
The Allies were heavily under attack in an area just over 80 km from Rome.
By this point, the devil’s brigade had seen its ranks replenished to 1,200 men and their mission was to hold several kilometres of ground against an entire German division of several thousand men.
In the face of that much manpower, Lt. Colonel Gilday gave Tommy his mission.
He was to go into enemy territory to report the location of their assembly points.
Once again, Tommy left like a shadow and the Devil’s Brigade waited.
And waited.
When Prince didn’t return the following day, Gilday believed he was dead.
He didn’t return the next day either.
Two nights later, Tommy finally emerged from the shadows.
He had entered a deserted farmhouse near the Germans and soon after they had entered the house.
Tommy evaded them as he made his way into the attic where he hid for an entire day while the Germans searched the house and slept.
They had no idea that one of the war’s deadliest soldiers was directly above them.
When they left, Tommy returned to Allied territory to report on his mission.
The next day, Gilday sent Tommy back to the farmhouse with a telephone wire to keep him in contact with his unit.
Once again, Tommy entered enemy territory while hauling and laying down 1 km of wire and set up base only 200 metres from the Germans to reports back to his commanders.
The day after he arrived, the Germans and Allies opened fire at each other.
One of the bombs landed near his farmhouse and severed the communication wire.
That’s when Tommy sprung into action.
He found some clothes, grabbed a few tools, and went outside disguised as a farmer.
While he pretended to weed his crops, he searched for the damaged wire.
When he found it, Tommy knelt down and pretended to tie his shoes and quickly fixed the wire.
Then he stood up, shook his fists at the Germans and Allies and went back into the house like a disgruntled farmer.
Once safely inside he continued reporting back.
When he returned three days later, Gilday asked him about the farmer they had seen and in response. Tommy simply smiled and said it was him.
Thanks to his efforts the German artillery locations were destroyed, and Tommy was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery.
Throughout his missions in Anzio, Tommy went into German territory while wearing his moccasins.
He was like a ghost to the enemy.
Each time he left them notes and stole their boots.
The Germans called this unknown entity Geist and Teufel, meaning ghost and devil.
The Devil’s Brigade and Tommy Prince did their part and on June 4, 1944, the Allies liberated Rome.
With their mission complete they were on to their next target and this time they would be heading to France.
The Allies had made progress following D-Day on June 6, 1944.
They had pushed into France in the Battle of Normandy in the North and were on their way to liberating the country.
To help their efforts the Devil’s Brigade entered southern France.
And once again, Tommy was a thorn on the Germans side.
On Sept. 1, 1944, Tommy and another soldier entered enemy territory to scout out their positions and make detailed observations.
They were never detected.
As they made their way back, they came upon a battle between Germans and French soldiers.
Tommy and his fellow brigadier became snipers behind enemy lines and took out 12 soldiers, while wounding others.
Believing they were surrounded, the Germans quickly withdrew.
After the brief skirmish, the two brigadiers made their way back to the Allies.
By then, they had spent 72 hours without food or sleep.
They would get to eat but no rest because the Devil’s Brigade was needed again.
They went back into German territory and used the intel gathered in Tommy’s mission to capture or kill 1000 Germans and Tommy was awarded the American Silver Star.
He was one of only three Canadians from the Second World War to be awarded both the Military Medal and the American Silver Star.
On Feb. 12, 1945, Tommy was invited to Buckingham Palace.
During his reign from 1936 to 1952, King George VI frequently took part in military ceremonies and the palace often served as a solemn yet proud backdrop for medal presentations.
On these occasions, the King would walk down the line of assembled servicemen and women which included soldiers, sailors, airmen, nurses, and civilians, all of whom had performed acts of bravery or exceptional service.
The King would then personally pin decorations and exchange a few words with each recipient. When he reached Tommy, he shook his hand but didn’t move on.
The two men spoke for several minutes as the King asked Tommy about his wartime service, and life back home in Canada.
Stories of his exploits had reached the highest echelon of society, and the King was happy to meet the man behind the legend.
The ceremony was both formal and deeply human, as Tommy made his mark on the monarch.
When Victory in Europe day happened, Tommy was in England and was honourably discharged on June 15, 1945.
He left Europe a hero, but it didn’t translate across the pond.
In Canada he felt like a second-class citizen once again and he wasn’t going to take that sitting down.
Upon his return, he moved to Winnipeg where he established a successful cleaning service.
But being away from his reserve didn’t mean he didn’t care about his people.
A year after the war, Tommy was elected the vice-president of the Manitoba Indian Association.
The organization then asked him to serve as chairman for the national delegation that would speak about the Indian Act at a Parliamentary Committee.
First passed in 1876, the Indian Act created a system of reserves, dictated how the First Nations could operate, and decided who could be considered to have status under the act.
For decades, it gave an immense amount of power to government Indian Agents who decided whether a person could leave a reserve, and even how much food they received.
Tommy was not a fan of the Indian Act.
He believed it made the First Nations dependent on the government and prevented them from reaching their full potential.
To prepare for the meeting he spent several weeks speaking with other First Nations around Canada on his way to Ottawa.
At the Parliamentary Committee, he was unable to get the Indian Act abolished but the committee was impressed by Tommy’s excellent arguments, which were well organized and researched.
Because of this he was successful pushing for various revisions which removed outdated provisions that had been in place since the 1870s.
If not for his opposition to the Indian Act, it is likely he would have been given a position with the Department of Indian Affairs, instead he returned home to find his successful cleaning business was destroyed.
He had left it in the hands of some friends who turned out to be in it for themselves.
They crashed his truck and sold it for scrap.
To make matters worse, they sold his equipment and supplies and stole all the money.
Left with nothing, Tommy continued his work with the Manitoba Indian Association while working at a concrete factory to make ends meet.
But just as he found a level of comfort a new war was on the horizon and Tommy Prince’s unique set of skills would be needed once again.
The world only saw five years of peace because on June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a surprise attack on South Korea by crossing the 38th Parallel and started another major war and many feared this one could go nuclear.
Once again, Canada entered the battlefield and sent 26,791 Canadians to serve from1950 to 1953.
They were the third largest force behind only the United States and United Kingdom and Tommy Prince was among them.
He had nothing to prove to anyone.
He was a highly decorated war hero and when he reenlisted in August 1950, he was asked why serving again. Tommy said,
“I owed something to my friends who died.”
In February 1951 he became part of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and once he arrived in Korea, he selected eight men to train them personally.
They were to conduct snatch patrols in enemy territory under the cover of night and were responsible for taking machine guns and eliminating Chinese defenses without suffering a single casualty, but his new commanding officer felt he was taking too many risks.
Slowly, Tommy went on fewer patrols.
Despite his efforts and official complaints to higher ups, Tommy’s nighttime excursions eventually ended.
During the Battle of Kapyong Tommy proved his mettle once again
From April 22 to 27, 1951, 700 Canadians defended Hill 677 against 20,000 Chinese soldiers and Tommy steadied and gave courage to the young Canadians who were seeing battle for the first time.
Even though they were outnumbered 30 to 1, the Princess Patricia’s successfully held the hill and prevented a Chinese advance in Seoul.
But Tommy’s years of service had taken an incredible toll on his body.
His knees and hands often swelled and he suffered with arthritis.
He was hospitalized in May 1951 and sent home to Canada despite his protests to take on administrative duties.
Upon his return the swelling and arthritis improved, and Tommy volunteered to serve once again.
By November 1952, he was back with the Princess Patricia in Korea for one last bit of glory.
At the Second Battle of The Hook the Third Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s fought against Chinese forces from Nov. 18 to 19, 1952, to hold a vital sector.
Tommy suffered shrapnel wounds in his legs but refused to be evacuated.
With his bayonet, he pulled the shrapnel out of his leg and continued to fight until the Canadians retook the post.
Once that was done, he carried a wounded soldier to a medical field station where he recovered from his wounds but the swelling in his knees returned, and he was hospitalized for weeks in 1953.
During that time, the Korean War ended now Tommy had to battle readjusting life as a First Nations man in Canada.
Tommy Prince had served his country with distinction and bravery.
He had cemented his legend during two major wars.
After his military career was over, Tommy discovered that although he could receive a disability pension for his knees, everything else was off the table.
White veterans could receive employment programs, employment support, land purchase support and income support by applying through the Royal Canadian Legion
Tommy would get none of that because he wasn’t allowed into any Legion in Canada.
He was a veteran, so he had a right to be there, but he was also First Nations.
Since liquor was sold at the premises, no Indigenous veteran could enter a Legion Under the Indian Act.
Every Legion enforced this to exclude First Nations soldiers from participating.
Without support from the military, and newly married to Verna Sinclair, with whom he would have five children, Tommy looked for employment.
He found work at an ice cream factory in Winnipeg. The plant owner knew of his military record and heroics, but Tommy’s coworkers did not.
Even if they did, it is unlikely they would have cared.
They mocked him.
They called him racist names and made his life terrible.
Unable to take it anymore, he quit.
A few years later in June 1955, Tommy was walking along the Red River near the Alexander Docks in Winnipeg when he saw a man drowning.
Without a second thought, he jumped into the water and pulled him to safety.
As people gathered, Tommy walked away before any media arrived.
But one person recognized him and gave Tommy’s name to the newspaper.
When a reporter tracked him down and why he risked his life, he said,
“I knew how I would have felt if I were in the water unable to swim and someone just stood looking at me, not doing a thing.”
Over the next few years, Tommy’s life somehow worsened.
He and his wife divorced in 1964, and their children were put in foster homes.
Each child was put in a different home by the government and moved around on a regular basis.
This prevented Tommy from keeping contact with them.
He was only able to remain in contact with his daughter and visited Beryl every single month at her foster home.
With each passing year, he fell into a deep depression.
The battles he fought years earlier manifested into post traumatic stress disorder leaving him unable to sleep.
With these inner demons came alcoholism, which led to becoming unhoused.
The police knew who Tommy was and they respected him for his service to his country.
Every time they picked him up, he was never charged with vagrancy or public intoxication.
They always took him to a Salvation Army facility.
Eventually, he made a small room at the Salvation Army his home and did janitorial duties in exchange for shelter.
His son, Tommy Prince Jr., offered him a room in his home but he refused, believing that he would be a burden to his family.
By the 1970s, Tommy was at his lowest, but he once again showed bravery and determination to fight against alcoholism.
Tommy emerged victorious.
He also started to speak with the media about his time in the military, but things were still tough and to make ends meet he sold his precious war medals.
Even when he had next to nothing though, if Tommy saw someone struggling, he was always eager to help.
Every Remembrance Day, he attended ceremonies to honour his comrades who never came home.
But life as an Indigenous man in Winnipeg is a risk and one night in 1976; while walking alone at night, he was attacked by a gang who physically assaulted him and robbed him.
Later that year, a young man stabbed him believing he was another First Nations man.
These incidents, along with his years of hard living and war wounds, finally became too much.
Tommy Prince, one of the greatest soldiers in Canadian history, died on Nov. 25, 1977, at the age of 62 at Winnipeg’s Deer Lodge Centre.
When news of his death reached spread, over 500 people attended his funeral and a delegation from the Princess Patricia’s served as pallbearers.
A group of men from his reserve sang Death of a Warrior as his body was lowered into the grave.
In attendance that day was the Lt. Governor of Manitoba, several senior officers in the Canadian Army, and the Consuls of France, Italy and the United States.
While the family appreciated the show of respect, they wondered where they all were when he was at his lowest points.
And as the year passed Tommy Prince was forgotten by society once again.
But…it wouldn’t last for long.
I never knew Tommy Prince’s story or of his heroism.
I had heard of white men like Billy Bishop, Wop May and Sir Sam Steele.
It wasn’t until I grew up and started to do my own reading that learned of Indigenous heroes like Fred Loft, Francis Pegahmagabow and, of course, Tommy Prince.
Just as I was broadening my own historical views, society was doing the same.
As the 21st century dawned, Canada started to make amends and today, four streets bear Tommy Prince’s name, along with several buildings and a scholarship.
In 2000, his medals came up for auction and Jim Bear, Tommy’s nephew, raised enough money to purchase the medals for $75,000.
The bid was backed by many, including the Royal Canadian Legion. Today, they sit on display at the Manitoba Museum and are the property of the prince family.
In 2002, the French Ambassador to Canada presented his family with a certificate from the Government of France in acknowledgement of his bravery.
In 2005, Historica Canada released a Heritage Minute about him.
Five years later, Manitoba Ojibwe actor Adam Beach was cast to play Tommy Prince in a movie about his life.
Beach says it was an honour to be chosen to play a Canadian hero.
Sadly, the film was delayed by reshoots and the studio went bankrupt before it could be released.
In 2020, Tommy Prince was declared a person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government and became a finalist to have his face on the Canadian five-dollar banknote.
He lost out to Terry Fox, and there is no shame in that.
Finally, in 2022, Canada Post honoured him with a stamp.
While there have been various plays and films that featured Tommy Prince, one of the most famous war films of the 1960s wrote him out completely.
The 1968 film Devil’s Brigade starring William Holden is a great movie by most accounts.
Based on the 1966 book by Robert Aldeman and Col. George Walton, the movie told the story of the famous brigade and its missions in Europe during the war.
Upon its release, the film made $8 million and was one of the highest grossing films of the year.
Unlike a lot of war films based on the exploits of Canadians, this one didn’t push us to the side to tell a glorified American story.
Ahem…looking at you The Great Escape and Argo.
But that doesn’t mean the film was accurate.
Many veterans of the Devil’s Brigade stated that it was an entertaining war movie but was often steeped in quote unquote “sheer nonsense”.
Possibly its greatest crime was the complete omission of the most decorated member of the Devil’s Brigade…Tommy Prince.
There was maybe one reference to him.
But like Frodo grabbing Samwise’s hand over the magma of Mount Doom, this is quite the reach.
In one scene of the Devil’s Brigade, an American soldier is playing cards and is referred to by the nickname “Chief”.
And that was kind of it.
The only reference to Tommy Prince, is a terrible one.
The man deserved to be the star of the movie.
That would have been a fitting tribute to one of the greatest soldiers Canada has ever produced.
