Special Feature - Ernie Franck

Ernie was born in Germany in 1925. He grew up under the Hitler regime, joining the Youth movement as a ten year old. During the early war years, Ernie served as courier between Germany and occupied France. He joined the Navy as a 17 year old, and saw service as a radio operator on board a minesweeper out of Brest in France, which also carried out convoy operations along the French Atlantic coast from Cherbourg down to the Spanish border.

After the successful Allied invasion, Ernie was transferred to the infantry. He was wounded near Budapest in Hungary , and after recovery, was taken prisoner of war by the Russians in May 1945. Ernie spent four years in several Russian prisoner of war camps.

After being released in 1949, Ernie went to university in Hamburg Germany, and graduated after three years as economist. Soon after graduating Ernie was hired by Unilever, which had an export office in Hamburg. There he met his future wife, Ingrid

Through her boss, who had investments in Newfoundland, Ernie got a job as an accountant with Premier Smallwood’s New Industries. This was a matter of industrial symbiosis: Newfoundland needed money and German industries were looking for a safe heaven for theirs.

During the first year in Newfoundland Ernie corresponded frequently with Ingrid. Overseas telephones were far too expensive in those days. When he had earned sufficient time off he flew to Hamburg, married Ingrid and brought her back to St John’s by freighter.

After 18 months in Newfoundland, Ernie applied for and was hired by Imperial Oil as an operations analyst. (One of the people who interviewed Ernie was Brian Maloney). One of Ernie’s first assignments was to carry out a financial assessment of the hydrant system at Gander airport. Subsequently Ernie carried out feasibility studies of various Newfoundland marine plants and distribution system.

Ernie moved to Halifax in the same capacity when Newfoundland became part of Imperial’s Atlantic operations. He was promoted to be Plant Superintendant of Imperial’s Dartmouth Truck terminal. In sheer volume, this was Imperial’s largest plant in Atlantic Canada.

After four years at Dartmouth, Ernie was transferred back to the Region Office in Halifax, working as the Financial Analyst in the Industrial Division until his retirement in December 1986.

Ernie Franck has many interests: They include Chess, Bridge, art painting, carpentry, gardening, tennis, soccer and sailing. Ernie has also been a soccer coach and is a Past President of the Dartmouth minor soccer team, dance club and Canadian Diabetes association..

Ernie is currently in the process of finishing up his memoirs depicting pre-war and WWII experiences.

I have the pleasure of including a short summary of Ernie Franck’s life. I am sure you will agree that it has been a full and eventful one. His wartime experiences must have been harrowing and very difficult especially the four years in Russian prisoner of war camps. It speaks volumes that despite all that horror, Ernie is the gentle, kind and humorous man we all know. I hope he will share his prewar and WWII experiences with us.