John Allan MacIsaac was born in Fairmont, Antigonish County, on November 28, 1922. His father, Angus MacIsaac, was known locally as “Angus the Bolt.” The origin of the family nickname has not been established. John Allan was sometimes referred to as “Johnny Bolt.”
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| Private John Angus MacIsaac |
Angus MacIsaac was born in Lakedale, Guysborough County, a small farming and lumbering community located between Loch Katrine and Giant’s Lake. His father John MacIsaac was a native of Scotland, the son of Angus and Catherine (MacLeod) MacIsaac. John married Ann MacDonald and raised a family of six boys and three girls. Another of John and Ann’s sons, Hugh MacIsaac—known as “Hugh the Bolt”—also lived in Antigonish, where he passed away in 1941.
John Allan’s mother Annie Catherine “Cassie” MacDonald was born in Malignant Cove on May 12, 1890, the daughter of Allan and Isabella (MacPherson) MacDonald. Allan’s father Donald raised a family of 11 children at the Cove. His MacDonald grandfather, Dougald (Mor), emigrated from Moidart, Scotland, with three brothers—Donald (known as Donald “Straight”), who settled at Antigonish Harbour; John, who went to Inverness; and Hugh (Ban).
Cassie was Allan and Isabella’s youngest child in a family of five sons and one known daughter. She first married widower Lauchlin MacNeil on April 5, 1915. Cassie was 25 years old at the time, while Lauchlin was 65 years of age. Lauchlin’s MacNeil grandfather was part of the Malcolm (Dubh/Black) MacNeil family. Malcolm served in the British Army during the American War of Independence and settled in Arisaig with several other soldiers after the war. Lauchlin’s father was Roderick “Rory” MacNeil, son of Malcolm. Rory settled in Georgeville, where he raised a family.
Lauchlin first married Flora MacNeil of Lakevale around 1875. The couple and their three oldest children, all born in Antigonish, eventually relocated to Glace Bay, where Lauchlin worked in the coal mines. Three more children were born after the move. Lauchlin’s son Roderick followed him into the mines, where he was killed in a work accident. After his wife Flora’s death, Lauchlin returned to Antigonish County, while several of his adult children remained in Cape Breton.
Lauchlin established residence in Fairmont, where he explored the possibility of mining coal in the Big Marsh area. This deposit was the subject of investigation as recently as the late 1990s. After he returned to Antigonish County, Lauchlin met Cassie and the couple married in Georgeville on April 5, 1915, Reverend Michael Gillis presiding. At the time, Lauchlin gave his residence as Glace Bay and his occupation as “miner.”
Lauchlin’s second marriage resulted in the birth of two daughters, Isabelle “Bella” and Florence Janet. Lauchlin died on March 4, 1920, the result of tuberculosis of the lungs, a condition that had afflicted him for two years. He was laid to rest in Georgeville.
Widowed with two young children, Cassie found work as a housekeeper in Maryvale, where she met Angus (The Bolt) MacIsaac, a 60-year-old bachelor farmer living in Fairmont. The couple were married at Lakevale on November 8, 1921. Angus, 31-year-old Cassie, and her two daughters established residence in Fairmont. John Allan MacIsaac, born on November 28, 1922, was Angus and Cassie’s only child.
The timeline for the family’s subsequent residence is not known. They moved into town before Angus’s passing, as his death notice in The Casket described him as a resident of West St. It is believed that the family lived on the west side of the street, likely in one of two former rooming houses owned by St. Francis Xavier University. Used as residences prior to the construction of Xavier Hall, they were part of a structure that was cut in two and moved by teams of horse and oxen from St. Ninian St. to West St. The former Antigonish County Municipal Building, still owned by the University, sits adjacent to their location.
Angus (The Bolt) died on June 3, 1934, and 44-year-old Cassie once again found herself a widow. The family’s move to town may have been prompted by her daughter Florence Janet’s marriage to Daniel William “Dan Will” Chisholm, son of Valentine & Margaret (MacDonald) Chisholm, Brierly Brook.
Valentine and Margaret later occupied a house located on the corner of St. Ninian St. and Main St. Dan Will’s two brothers, Grant and Sylvester Chisholm, owned properties on West St. and Angus and Cassie may have rented from them. Sylvester and Grant later tore down one of the two StFX buildings. Sylvester’s daughter later recalled being struck by a board as it fell off the building.
In 1939, John Allan completed Grade 8 at Morrison School. Age 17 at the time, he worked for a while at the Sugar Loaf Bakery, Antigonish, “running bread” for a weekly wage of $18. In January 1942, he moved to Pictou town, as by that time Cassie was living there with her daughter Florence and son-in-law Dan Will Chisholm. Isabel MacNeil, Cassie’s other daughter, also resided in the household. After the move, John Allan found work in the Pictou shipyard.
In August 1942, John Allan moved to Halifax, where he was hired as a riveter in the Halifax shipyard. According to a later description in his service file, his work involved “heating rivets” for installation. The job paid a respectable $40.00 a week. John Allan worked in the shipyard for six months before deciding to enlist with the Canadian Active Service Force at Halifax on November 30, 1942.
On December 19, John Allan departed for Camp Aldershot, where he completed basic and advanced infantry training during the winter months. In April 1943, he spent eight days in the Camp’s hospital for treatment of an unspecified illness. He proceeded overseas on June 10, 1943, and arrived in the United Kingdom eight days later. As with other general recruits dispatched overseas, John Allan was “unregimented”—that is, not attached to a specific unit.
On June 27, 1943, John Allan was assigned to the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s Carleton & York Regiment. The New Brunswick unit was established in 1936 with the amalgamation of two Canadian militia units, the 67th Carleton Light Infantry and 71stYork Regiment. The “Carleton & Yorks” mobilized for active duty on September 1, 1939, and were assigned to the 1st Canadian Division’s 3rd Brigade, where they fought alongside Quebec’s Royal 22e Régiment (“Vandoos”) and the West Nova Scotia Regiment (Bridgewater, NS).
The Carleton & York Regiment departed for the United Kingdom aboard the Monarch of Bermuda in early December 1939. The unit landed in Greenock, Scotland, after a seven-day crossing, and spent the next three years and seven months training and performing “home defense” duties in the UK.
There was considerable debate over how Canada’s overseas forces should be employed in the war effort. Some Canadian politicians calling for the units to be used in any available circumstance, while others, including many officers, wanted Canadians to serve together in the impending invasion of Western Europe.
In the end, a compromise was reached in 1943, when plans to invade France were postponed for another year. As a result, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, 1st Canadian Tank Brigade, 1st Canadian Corps Headquarters, 5th Canadian Armoured Division and 1sr Canadian Army Group Artillery, were assigned to an Allied force assembled to invade Germany’s Axis ally, Italy.
The Carleton and York Regiment sailed from Greenock, Scotland, with the invading force on June 28, 1943. As John Allan MacIsaac had joined the unit on the previous day, it is not likely that he departed for Italy at that time but followed later with a group of reinforcements. He was later officially “taken on strength” by the Regiment on December 23, 1943.
Allied forces landed on the island of Sicily on July 10, 1943. Canadian units participated in the first four weeks of fighting, moving into reserve on August 7. Ten days later, the last Italian and German forces withdrew from the island. On September 3, a Canadian force crossed the Strait of Messina to Reggio, located on the southern tip of the Italian mainland. A second, larger Allied force landed south of Naples a week and a half later.
The arrival of Allied forces on the Italian peninsula led to the collapse of the Mussolini regime and Italy’s formal surrender. German forces in the country, however, pledged to resist the Allied invasion with all available resources. Fighting continued throughout the autumn months as the two Allied armies made their way northward. While the 1st Canadian Division met with little direct resistance as German forces withdrew northward, the enemy’s “delay” tactics and the peninsula’s mountainous terrain slowed their progress.
In less than two months, Allied forces advanced across one-third of the Italian mainland, reaching the Campobasso area by late October 1943. By that time, the strength of German forces in Italy was equal to that of their Allied foes. In addition, German units had constructed three defensive lines that spanned the width of the entire peninsula. While the Allied units managed to penetrate the first two without significant difficulty, the third system proved more formidable. Known as the Gustav Line, it stretched from Ortona on the Adriatic coast through Cassino to the Tyrrhenian Sea.
By December 1943, Canadian forces had swung eastward to the coastal plains along the Adriatic, where they encountered fierce German resistance. The 1st Canadian Division’s 2nd Brigade and tanks from the Three Rivers Regiment launched the initial attack on Ortona on December 20, 1943. It took eight days of hard fighting before Canadian soldiers cleared enemy soldiers from the town. During its time in the Ortona area, the 1st Canadian Division suffer 2,300 battle casualties, while another 1,600 men were impacted by illness or battle exhaustion.
The 3rd Infantry Brigade was in reserve when Private John Allan MacIsaac joined the Carleton and York Regiment’s active ranks on December 23, 1943. Throughout the winter and early spring of 1944, Canadian units completed regular rotations in a section of the front line north of Ortona during a period of static warfare. Both sides routinely dispatched night patrols, probing enemy defences and occasionally seeking to capture prisoners to identify units in the opposing line.
In April 1944, Canadian forces quietly withdrew from the Adriatic sector and made their way to western sectors of the Gustav Line, where Allied commanders planned an advance into the Liri Valley. British and Indian forces commenced the attack on May 11, with Canadian units entering the line several days later.
After breaching the Gustav Line’s defences, the Canadians advanced toward the Hitler Line, which cut across the valley’s northern area. The 5th Canadian Armoured Division, which had joined the 1st Canadian Division earlier in the year, breached the German defences on May 24, forcing the enemy to retreat northward toward the Italian capital.
While American forces advanced on Rome, Canadian units enjoyed a break from duty before returning the peninsula’s eastern coast, where they prepared to attack another German defensive network known as the Gothic Line. Their main objective was the town of Pesaro and the port of Ravenna to its north. A total of six rivers cut through the area the Canadians had to cross to reach their objectives. Beyond the line lay the Po Valley, the industrial heartland of Italy that produced materials to support the German effort.
The Canadian attack commenced on August 25 with units crossing the Mataro, the first river in their path. The soldiers then pressed on to the Foglia River, where German commanders had deployed reinforcements that included the 1stParachute Division. While Canadian Lieutenant General E. L. M. “Tommy” Burns announced that the Gothic line had been broken on September 2, the statement was premature, as heavy fighting developed on Coriano Ridge, located on the western flank in front of the Republic of San Marino.
Coriano Ridge was the last important area of high ground blocking the Allied advance northward. German troops, assisted by poor weather, resisted all attacks on the location. On September 12, the British 8th Army’s 5th Corps launched an assault from the south while Canadians pushed forward from the east. The two Canadian units conducting the attack—the Perth Regiment (Ontario) and the Cape Breton Highlanders—swept across the ridge amid fierce fighting.
The ridge’s capture was key to Allied forces advancing toward Rimini and eventually the Po River valley beyond. German commanders now concentrated their forces on a new defensive position known as the Rimini Line. With British and Indian forces held up in front of San Marino on the extreme left flank, the Canadians turned their attention to the eastern sector in front of Rimini. The 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade received orders to capture Rimini airfield in front of the town, while the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade secured San Martino Ridge.
The Canadian attack commenced on September 14, 1944, the first day of what became a week-long battle. The 3rd Brigade managed to advance six kilometers to a 1,500-meter-long ridge. The 22e Régiment and West Novas leading the attack managed to enter the fortified village of San Martino itself but were soon driven back by German resistance. The two units finally secured the location the following day. While the Seaforth Highlanders were ordered to relieve the “Vandoos,” confusion during the relief process allowed German forces to recapture the village.
On the morning of September 18, the Carleton and York Regiment moved toward San Lorenzo on the left flank with the support of a squadron of British tanks. By 0800 hours, the soldiers reached the embankment of San Fortunato Ridge, but immediately encountered fierce enemy fire. While a small group of personnel managed to reach the Ausa River by 1010 hours, the group reported that it was “a definite tank obstacle… being held in strength.”
Machine gun fire from hidden positions along the Ausa’s opposite bank rained down on the Canadian infantrymen, while anti-tank weapons systematically eliminated their tank support. A bombardment of artillery and mortar shells also pummeled their position. By 1110 hours, six German tanks on the far side of the river had pinned down the Carleton & Yorks, preventing any further advance without significant casualties.
As no further progress was possible, the New Brunswickers were ordered to “firm up” their location. By day’s end, the Canadian attack had lost its momentum in all sectors along Fortunato Ridge. The forward troops found themselves scattered across low ground under direct enemy observation, unable to move.
At 2130 hours, two Carleton & York companies successfully crossed the Ausa in the aftermath of an artillery barrage and surprised their opponents, who were being relieved at the time. The attackers dispersed the enemy forces and secured a bridgehead on the opposite bank. Engineers immediately set about erecting bridging equipment across the river.
The crossing was completed by 0320 hours September 19, allowing Canadian forces to quickly expand the bridgehead on the Ausa’s opposite bank and assemble the forces required for a final assault on San Fortunato Ridge. The attack commenced later that day, the Carleton & Yorks holding their position as two units from each of 1st Canadian Division’s three brigades pressed forward up the ridge. By day’s end September 20, San Fortunato was under Canadian control.
Considering the enemy resistance that the Carleton & York Regiment faced during its September 18, 1944 advance to the Ausa, it is not surprising that the unit suffered 10 fatalities, while 20 infantrymen were wounded during the day’s fighting.
Private John Allan MacIsaac was one of the soldiers killed in the attack on San Fortunato Ridge. Three days later, his remains were buried in a cemetery in Coriano, Italy. A news item in The Casket, dated October 17, 1944, informed its readers that Cassie, who was still living in Pictou, had been notified that her only son had been killed in action in Italy.
In April 1945, military officials selected Coriano Ridge as the site for a cemetery that became the final resting place for soldiers who died on the surrounding battlefields. Before years’ end, John Allan’s remains were re-interred in the Coriano Ridge War Cemetery, two miles north of Coriano. His mother Cassie requested the following inscription for his headstone: “IN LOVING MEMORY OF A DEAR SON AND BROTHER SADLY MISSED BY HIS MOTHER AND TWO SISTERS.” John Allan is also remembered on the Antigonish Cenotaph, Columbus Field, Antigonish, and the Carleton & York Regimental Cenotaph, located next to the Armoury, Carleton Street, Fredericton, NB.
Photograph of John Allan MacIsaac courtesy of Cordiss MacDonald, Antigonish, NS.
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