Heroes of the Victoria Cross
In March 1945, during an attack on the Hochwald Forest in Germany, this Canadian officer performed numerous acts of bravery to earn the Commonwealth’s highest military honour
Acting Major Frederick Tilston crashed onto the sodden soil in front of the Hochwald Forest. Shrapnel had torn a four-inch gash through his hip, the 38-year-old officer’s second injury in almost as many minutes after sustaining a nasty-looking ear wound. Blood trickled down his neck and from the hole in his leg, while all around him the First Canadian Army’s Essex Scottish Regiment continued fighting. It was 1 March 1945, and amid an Allied push to neutralise the last formidable German bastion on the west side of the Rhine River, Tilston had just entered his first and last day of combat.
Nevertheless, it had been far from an easy ride up until that point. Born in 1906, the Toronto native had spent a stint in Chicago before his father died in a car accident. He, his mother and two sisters had then moved back home, where the family struggled to make ends meet. Tilston ultimately put aside his dream of becoming a doctor and instead qualified as a pharmacist. After a period of being a Sterling Drugs sales representative, the mild-mannered and affable Canadian enlisted in the army in 1940. His age and managerial experience saw him rise through the Essex Scottish ranks to officer status, but he was mercifully not involved in the disastrous August 1942 Dieppe Raid in which his unit participated.
Later that same year, however, he took a bullet to the back during a live-firing training accident. Upon his recovery, Tilston learned that he had been transferred to an administrative role, much to his bitter disappointment and despite his best efforts to reverse the decision. But the unwelcome change did little to keep him out of harm’s way, as he discovered in Normandy when his jeep struck a mine. Among his injuries, shrapnel had penetrated Tilston’s right eye, a wound that sent him to hospital yet again and would, much further down the line, require the entire eye’s removal.
By February 1945, with the casualtystricken First Canadian Army clawing its way into Nazi Germany, Tilston had got his wish of becoming ‘C’ Company’s acting major. The Essex Scottish had been tasked with clearing the northern half of the Hochwald Forest, a dense and sizable coniferous woodland that stood between the Allies and the German town of Xanten. From there, enemy forces could protect their escape route, the Wesel bridge across the Rhine. The plan was for ‘C’ Company to advance on the left and Major Paul Cropp’s ‘D’ Company to attack on the right. Unfortunately, confronted with inclement weather, Tilston’s command would receive no tank support due to the saturation of the roughly
