A former resident credits having been put on the road towards a distinguished career in the Canadian military to his experience as a cadet in Kamsack and as a Kamsack Times newspaper reporter.
Cecil Berezowski of Victoria, B.C., joined a reserve force field artillery battery of the Canadian army while still in high school in 1945 and retired in 1985 after having served at bases around the world and across Canada.
Born and raised in Kamsack, Lieut.-Col. J. Cecil Berezowski (Ret.) was one of three children born to Joseph and Mary Berezowski. His brother Melvin of Kamsack died recently, and Edward lives in Niagara Falls.
An immigrant from Ukraine, or Poland, depending on when the boundaries were drawn, his father had come to Canada at 18 years of age and worked in the CNR roundhouse. His mother was the daughter of Ukrainian immigrant farmers in Manitoba who had been raised south of Grandview.
“The war was on and military service was the most important thing in town,” Berezowski said recently when he discussed his career, which began when he was one of about 35 cadets in Kamsack.
He had also begun working with the Times as the high school columnist and soon he was being paid by the inch of typed copy.
He said that Chiz Davis, one of the Davis Brothers who had owned the Kamsack Times and Canora Courier newspapers had offered him a job as a sports and news reporter and he accepted, because by the time he had graduated from high school in 1947, the universities were “filled” with veterans and by working at the newspaper he would still be trained as a writer.
“I had a knack for it,” he said of writing, explaining that he would work Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Kamsack, and then take the train to Canora to work on the Courier on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
“I did that for four years and served in the militia at the same time,” he said, explaining that he was a member of the reserve force of the 64th Field Artillery Battery in Yorkton.
Asked what it was like, living in Kamsack after the end of the Second World War Berezowski said that there was “a fantastic feeling” with the veterans returning from the war.
“They were all heroes and they all received that reception,” he said, adding that the Royal Canadian Legion branch had been a powerful organization, filled with veterans of the First World War.
He mentioned the name of Carl Hodges, a former Kamsack principal and said that Hodges, a veteran, had treated him as one of his “fair-haired boys,” who had taught him mathematics and “everything in the artillery.”
He said he also recalls an anti-German feeling in the area and that the three or four families who had emigrated from Germany were often ostracized in the community.
He said that his mentors, Chiz and Ralph Davis, had moved on as editors with the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix after he had been selected for army officer cadet training at Victoria, B.C. in 1951.
Training at the Royal Canadian School of Coast and Antiaircraft Artillery at Work Point Barracks, he was commissioned a Second lieutenant 1952. Posted to 119 Medium Antiaircraft Battery in Victoria, he was promoted to lieutenant in 1955 while overseeing the design and building of air defence control centres in Victoria at Fort Rodd Hill and Vancouver.
“This included early warning integration with the NORAD Ground Control Intercept (GCI) Station at Blaine, Wash.,” he said.
For the next two years he was an army recruiting officer on Vancouver Island, speaking at many high school career days, citing the merits of Royal Roads Service College in Victoria and Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.
In 1957 Berezowski was transferred to Germany with the First Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery as the regimental survey officer and two years later he attended an artillery survey course at the School of Artillery adjacent to the pillars of Stonehenge in England.
Returning to the First Regiment in Germany, he was promoted captain and served as a troop commander and forward observation officer at the “Iron Curtain.” Upon return to Canada in 1961, he instructed at the Royal Canadian School of Artillery at Shilo, Man., where his depot instructional team trained recruits, new officer cadets and future sergeants for the RCA.
At Central Command Headquarters in Oakville, Ont. from 1964 until 1968, Berezowski obtained his staff qualification and temporarily during this period, he served with the United Nations Force in Cyprus from August 1965 to February 1966.
While serving in Cyprus Berezowski was able to take a leave to the holy land. Although it was his duty to brief the Canadian High Commissioner, and the national defence headquarters in Ottawa each week, he was able to take his leave when his commanding officer had agreed to take over for him.
So, he and two sergeants flew to Beirut and then in a commercial plane to Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem was very educational,” he said, explaining that he could not resist the temptation to walk on the red painted footprints that traced the route of Christ where He had been dragged across the square to His crucifixion. He bought a hand-carved rosary and ivory-carved bible cover which he gave to his mother in Kamsack.
“She never missed a Sunday attending the Greek Catholic Church in Kamsack and was speechless when she received the two souvenirs from Jerusalem,” he said.
He also fondly remembers being able to skip stones on the Dead Sea and an evening of entertainment at the Kit Kat Club in Beirut where, after being entertained by a soldier playing the bagpipes, an attractive cross-dressing entertainer in an “Alice blue gown” shocked one of his comrades.
As the Canadian contingent operations and intelligence staff officer, he was also designated national military representative to the local United Nations headquarters.
In 1968 Berezowski became second in command of a Militia Artillery Training Regiment Headquarters at Camp Borden, Ont. and was promoted to major.
“This HQ conducted all live-firing artillery training for six militia artillery units in Ontario, on both the Meaford and Camp Petawawa ranges.”
Posted to Mobile Command Headquarters, St. Hubert, Que. in September 1970, he served in the Army Operations Centre during the FLQ October 1970 crisis in Quebec and during the War Measures Act. Thereafter, he became a staff officer in army reserves, assuming that responsibility from Canadian Forces Headquarters in Ottawa.
Berezowski was one of two Canadians officers selected to attend the United States Army Command and General Staff Course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1972-73, and upon graduation, he joined the staff and faculty of the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College at Kingston, Ont. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1976.
The next year he was a posted to Washington, D.C. as a Canadian liaison officer to the US Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command (DARCOM) Headquarters at the Pentagon, and for the next four years he represented Canada on the personal staff of the four-star commanding general.
Finally, Berezowski was assigned to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa from 1981 until his retirement in October 1984.
“As Director of Standardization Co-ordination, my primary tasks were co-ordinating our navy, army and air force international standardization programs within NATO and under the America, Britain, Canada and Australia (ABCA) Quadripartite Standardization Agreement.”
Upon retirement, he and his wife Vanlea returned to Victoria in 1985, which was 30 years after being married there at Work Point Barracks.
Now a widower, he and his wife, who died in January, had one daughter, Lori, who lives in Olympia, Wash. He has two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
In his retirement, Berezowski has served as a director with the Royal United Services Institute of Vancouver Island and its national parent, the Federation of Military and United Services Institutes of Canada (FMUSIC).
As chairman of its National Defence committee, he testified before the Commons Defence Committee in 1993 and the Parliamentary Special Joint Committee on Canada’s defence policy during its visit to Victoria in 1994.
Berezowski was awarded an Honorary Life Membership by the Royal United Services Institute of Vancouver Island in October 1994.
As team leader of the FMUSIC Policy Committee 2001, “Cec” produced its major report to the Government of Canada entitled Canada’s Strategic Security XXI.
On February 14, 2003, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal was conferred to him through the National Chairman, FMUSIC.
For 10 years, beginning in 2000, the RUSI VI (Royal United Services Institute of Canada, Vancouver Island) newsletter was edited by him, which he said is a reflection of his early newspaper training in Kamsack.
A member of the Kamsack branch of the Legion, Berezowski also was in the habit of supporting Legion functions in Victoria.
Asked what his military life has meant to him, he said that the military has been the “biggest school he has ever belonged to.
“During my first 10 years, I was always on specialized courses, first as a cadet and then in anti-aircraft.
“My advantage was that I could out-write most others. My university education was working for the Davis brothers. I was able to hold my own with university graduates and often even taught them how to write.
“Chiz was a master linguist who went out of his way to teach me, and Ralph was a good editor.”
Berezowski donated a uniform and replicas of medals to the Kamsack Legion, which has the items displayed behind glass and hired an artist to make a painting of the HMCS Kamsack corvette-typed boat which had served during the Second World War.
As has been his custom, on November 11, Berezowski plans to attend the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Victoria.
