How a Bible lost in WWII finally made it home, tinsel and all

Last week, a small family Bible arrived in the mail at Keith Brown's home in South Bar, N.S.

His late father carried it during the Second World War, but only 73 years later had it finally made its return to Cape Breton.

"I had been doing family research and been writing the family story," Brown said. "Now, there's a whole new chapter of the story."

That story starts in June 1944 with Leslie Wade, who was serving with a special Australian naval unit and found the Bible in an encampment in England.

Wade, now 99 years old, kept it.

The British national emigrated to Australia after the war, and over the years had tried a couple of times to find the Bible's owner, but with little luck.

Sapper R.M. Brown

Through an inscription written inside the front cover, Wade knew it was once the property of "Sapper R.M. Brown, Third Division, Canadian Army." A sapper was a combat engineer who mostly built bridges for military purposes or, in some instances, demolished bridges to prevent the enemy from using them.

It wasn't until after Wade's granddaughter, Laura Condely, of Heidelberg, Australia, got involved that the mystery of the Bible was solved. She and her 11-year-old daughter, who was doing a school project on immigration, went to see Wade to learn about his experience as an immigrant.

When the subject of the Bible came up, Condely went on Facebook and contacted many of her friends, including some in Canada, seeking help in tracking down the owner.

Then came a breakthrough. One person contacted a Nova Scotia historical society, which then got in touch with Keith Brown. The Bible was that of his father, Sgt. Robert Brown.

Wade told CBC Cape Breton's Information Morning he discovered the Bible after he and his unit arrived in 1944 to an encampment in a place named Selsey Bill in the south of England. It was just before D-Day.

The encampment had previously been occupied by Canadian soldiers and was covered with "litter." Among items left behind were tools and several cans of beer, and a New Testament lying on the ground.

"I put it in my pocket and when I returned to [home base] I just dropped it in my kit bag," Wade said, assuming it would not have been dropped or thrown away on purpose.

A piece of tinsel

Wade and members of his unit were divers who were called "frogmen." They took to the water on D-Day to defuse some of the mines floating near Juno Beach to make way for the Canadian attack.

Wade was hit in the face and hip with shrapnel and he was shipped back to England to recover.

He said prior to the invasion he was on a ship packed with Canadians, maybe even the same landing craft as Robert Brown.

One curious feature about the Bible is a piece of "tinsel" placed between pages 288 and 289. Wade suspects that the passages therein, Acts 4: verses 1-27 held some particular significance for Robert Brown.

There was an Allied practice of dropping bomber loads of "tinsel" to confuse the German radar, Wade said. Pieces were about as big as a thumbnail — foil on one side, black on the other — sort of like a metal snowflake. It was one of these that he found inside the Bible.

Keith Brown said he has no idea if it contains any special meaning.

"Only one person knows that and he died 45 years ago," he said of his father.

Wade said the Bible "belongs" in Cape Breton and he's pleased it's been returned. His granddaughter said he had tears in his eyes when he was told it had been returned.

"I heard him sigh. And it was a sigh of joy, but also of relief. It was so special," said Condely.

She said her grandfather's quest has brought her family and friends closer together.

For Keith Brown, it means the joining of two families across two hemispheres.

"I think the descendants of Leslie Wade and Robert Brown who almost met the day before D-Day, and perhaps were on the same ship on D-Day, which was my father's 28th birthday, I think the descendants will reconnect in Australia and Canada and we'll get other stories to tell," he said.