Wartime letters written by fallen soldier now in his family's possession

Love letters that were penned by a fallen soldier in the Second World War have finally made their way back to his family after being discovered by a woman in Hampton, N.B.

Alice Kennedy said she found the letters written to her aunt, Mary Calebrese, in 1943 after going through a box of family photos following her mother's death in 2008. 

"They've been in my possession for over 10 years, and for a long time I felt that they were too personal, so I didn't do anything with them," Kennedy said. 

Lt. Norman Alexander MacNeill wrote three letters to her aunt before dying while deployed in Ortona, Italy on Christmas in 1943.

Kennedy decided to reach out for help in finding his family soon after Remembrance Day.

After an article was published about the letters in the Kings County Record, it wasn't long before someone in her church community reached out to say they knew his niece, Mary Phillips.

"He was very fond of Alice Kennedy's aunt," said Phillips, who is originally from Sussex, N.B., but now lives in Wolfville, N.S. 

"I was quite delighted and very surprised to hear that there were letters in existence." 

The letters show the two met while working together at the Bank of Nova Scotia in Minto. 

According to a newspaper clipping that was saved by Calebrese alongside the letters, MacNeill was born in Moncton in 1916.

He worked at the bank in Minto for three years before joining the New Brunswick Rangers, and then left for training in Brockville, Ont., in the 1940s.

Calabrese later joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a sergeant and worked as a decoder from 1941 to 1945, spending most of her time in Ottawa, Kennedy said.

The last time the two saw each other was at the train station in Fredericton Junction, N.B.

While MacNeill was clearly enamoured of Calabrese, it's apparent through the letters that she only wanted to be friends. 

"Since leaving Minto, many and often are the times when I recalled incidents that happened during the three years we worked side by side and have had many a smile remembering them, even when I think of the number of times I asked you to go to dances and shows with me and always got that same pleasant, quiet but firm refusal," MacNeill wrote on Dec. 8, 1943.

"Haven't had a letter from you in a while but hopefully expect one soon," he wrote then. "Please write often, even if you don't get as many in return as you send, because Mary dear, you'll never know how much I look forward to getting one."

The newspaper article announcing his death shows he was first deployed in North Africa on July 10, 1943 under the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment. He was wounded while serving there, but had recovered by time his regiment made its way to Italy. 

MacNeill's mother later learned that her son's regiment had been bombed while they were having a Christmas dinner, Phillips said.

MacNeill had been shaking hands with another soldier from St. Stephen when they were hit. The man lost his legs, but lived to tell the story to the family.

"I look forward to hearing from you," MacNeill wrote to Calabrese on Dec. 5, 1943. "Let's hope we have Christmas dinner together somewhere."

Phillips didn't know a lot about her uncle, and her mother avoided talking about the war, she said.

"She didn't talk about his war experience at all. She said, 'I lived it. I don't have to talk about it!'" Phillips said. 

Few of his belongings were returned to the family.

The only thing that stands out in her memory was a signet ring of his. While his letters to Calabrese mention him writing to others, any that were sent to his family have been lost. 

Since reading the letters, Phillips says she's been able to learn a lot about her uncle's experience in the war that hadn't been known before.

MacNeill would often describe the places where he stayed while writing the letters, like the time his regiment rested in a house that was bombed out and abandoned, or the night he slept on the altar of church that no longer had a roof. 

"I figured he still had a good sense of humour," Phillips said.

He also wrote about how he had to crawl on his belly while hiding from German soldiers, and how he could hear the enemy talking to each other just a few feet away from him.

"It brings home just how dangerous the situation was that he was in, crawling along the ground and listening to the Germans talking," she said. "He said that machine guns were going off as he was writing this letter to her, and he said, 'I hope they stay far away, I hope they don't come any closer!' But we all know what happened on Christmas…"