81 Facts About Tommy Prince

Tommy Prince was Canada's most decorated First Nations soldier, serving in World War II and the Korean War.

Tommy Prince was one of only three Canadians to receive both the Canadian Military Medal and the American Silver Star during WWII.

Tommy Prince has been described as "perhaps Canada's greatest soldier".

Tommy Prince was descended from First Nations in Canada chiefs.

Tommy Prince's grandfather had negotiated treaty rights in Manitoba with representatives of The Crown.

Tommy Prince advocated for the abolition of the governing Indian Act in Canada and proposed respect for the traditional Crown treaties as the basis of First Nations rights.

Tommy Prince was the great-grandson of the Indigenous Chief, Peguis, who, as a very young chief, had led his nation of about 200 people from Sault Ste.

Tommy Prince was the grandson of Chief Henry Prince, known as Mis-koo-kenew or Red Eagle, a son of Chief Peguis, who was an original signatory and a principal negotiator of First Nations Treaty 1 at Lower Fort Garry, Manitoba on behalf of the Peguis or Saulteaux tribe on 3 August 1871.

Chief Henry Tommy Prince was an original signatory to Treaty 2 on 23 August 1875, which reaffirmed the promises contained in Treaty 1.

Tommy Prince's father Henry Prince was a chief of the Saulteaux nation.

Chief William Prince had led the Nile Expedition Voyageurs in the relief of General Gordon at the Siege of Khartoum in 1885.

Tommy Prince attended Elkhorn Residential School, completing grade eight, where he studied agricultural science and machinery.

Tommy Prince had aspirations to become a lawyer, but had to leave school at age 16 due to circumstances of the time, dire family finances during the Great Depression.

Tommy Prince was employed at a variety of manual-labour positions but primarily as a tree feller.

At the start of World War II in September 1939 Tommy Prince volunteered to fight with the Canadian Army, although First Nations members were not subject to any conscription for national defence and were not required to join the armed forces.

Tommy Prince easily met the requirements for recruitment, but was turned down several times.

Tommy Prince was finally accepted on 3 June 1940 at a time when the war had reached a crisis for British and Canadian forces with defeat in the Fall of France.

Tommy Prince was originally a member of the Royal Canadian Engineers, trained as a "sapper" or member of a combat engineering platoon.

Tommy Prince was promoted to lance corporal in February 1941.

Tommy Prince eventually became bored with the routine duties spent mostly behind a desk or a lathe, and joined organized Canadian Army sports activities such as running and boxing.

Tommy Prince then reported to the UK's parachute school at RAF Ringway, near Manchester.

Out of 100 initial volunteers, Tommy Prince was one of the nine graduates of the parachute course to be chosen to continue with the selection program.

Mark Radcliffe, remarked that Tommy Prince "moved just like a shadow" as he led his patrol away from the forward outpost into the night.

Under cover of darkness, Tommy Prince led his patrol partway up the lower slopes to a position where he left his men behind as a supporting group, should they be needed to provide covering fire.

Tommy Prince successfully dispatched all of the gunners and soldiers in the artillery and machine gun bunkers with complete silence and without eliciting any enemy alarms or defensive fire.

Radcliffe never learned the exact details of how Tommy Prince had managed to accomplish this stunning result, beyond the fact that Tommy Prince had entered the gun emplacements and had then eliminated the gun platoons.

Tommy Prince did not receive any individual award or medal for his unparalleled and essential contribution to the successful outcome.

On 5 February 1944, near Littoria, Tommy Prince was sent forward by Lt.

When Tommy Prince failed to return the following day, Gilday feared that he had been killed or captured by the Germans.

However, Tommy Prince suddenly emerged from the darkness into Gilday's post two nights later and reported to Gilday how he had found a deserted farm house close to major German gun positions.

Tommy Prince had managed to elude the Germans searching the house without being discovered and had then hid in the attic for another day until the Germans left.

Tommy Prince discovered some farmer's clothes in a closet in the house, found some tools in the farm shed, and walked out dressed as a farmer weeding the crops.

Tommy Prince made a show of shaking his fist at the nearby Germans, then again toward the Allied lines.

When Tommy Prince returned to the Force positions and made his report, Lt.

When Tommy Prince replied that it was himself in disguise, Gilday pointed out to Tommy Prince that if he had been apprehended by the Germans while in the peasant clothes, he would have been executed as a spy.

Tommy Prince would maintain a regular sniping schedule at Anzio, under his own initiative.

Tommy Prince conducted a detailed observation of this German battalion at close quarters using natural foliage as a cover.

Tommy Prince made contact with the French leader, who asked Tommy Prince where the rest of his company was located.

When Tommy Prince pointed to the private and said "Here," the French commander exclaimed that he had thought there were about 50 men involved in his relief.

Tommy Prince continued on and penetrated the German lines to rejoin the Force positions.

The keen sense of responsibility and devotion to duty displayed by Sergeant Tommy Prince is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of the Allied Nations.

However, when the King came to Tommy Prince, he stopped and discussed for several minutes with Prince his various wartime exploits with the Force, and asked Prince about current conditions on the Brokenhead Reserve.

Tommy Prince was reportedly recommended for the French Croix de Guerre for his actions in rescuing a French military unit from German attack in September, 1944, but the courier carrying the information was killed before reaching General de Gaulle.

The war in Europe ended while Tommy Prince was in England.

Tommy Prince was honourably discharged on June 15,1945, and returned to his home on the Brokenhead Reserve, working in a pulpwood camp.

Tommy Prince was then appointed chairman of the national delegation representing First Nations of Canada at the 1946 joint Senate and House of Commons Parliamentary Committees in Ottawa which were set up to review the Indian Act and to suggest ways to improve the conditions for Native peoples.

Tommy Prince traveled across the country and consulted with Canadian First Nations organizations to lobby Ottawa for changes to the Indian Act.

Tommy Prince insisted that the traditional Crown treaties with the First Nations should be honoured and respected, and that the Crown treaties should form the basis of a new system for First Nations peoples.

Frustrated with the red tape of Ottawa, he returned to Winnipeg to discover that his cleaning business had folded in his absence because the friends Tommy Prince had entrusted to operate it had crashed the truck and sold the parts as scrap metal and had sold the supplies and equipment, pocketing the money.

Tommy Prince worked in lumber camps and a concrete factory to make ends meet.

Tommy Prince continued to work on occasion with the Manitoba Indian Association and when a tribe in northern Manitoba was in trouble for violating provincial hunting regulations, Prince successfully interceded for them in representations to the Manitoba government.

Tommy Prince was sergeant and second in command of his rifle platoon, and he soon resumed his special form of stealth missions.

The stealth tactics devised by Tommy Prince and executed by his special team resulted in the complete elimination of a strong Chinese defensive position in total silence, without firing any shots, while Tommy Prince and his force sustained no casualties.

Tommy Prince went on to lead his special force on several more successful nocturnal demoralization raids against Chinese forces, again with the complete neutralization of enemy positions accomplished without the loss of any casualties by Tommy Prince's assaulting force.

In 2022, a 2 PPCLI Korean War veteran credited Tommy Prince with saving his life due to the special training which Prince had given him.

Tommy Prince's company commanding officer refused to nominate him for any awards or medals for masterminding and leading the unparalleled and successful night raids on Chinese positions.

Tommy Prince prepared his own report of the dispute and submitted it to Lt.

Tommy Prince was credited with steadying and motivating many of the nervous young Canadians who voiced a desire to run in the face of overwhelming odds of about 30 to 1.

Tommy Prince was hospitalized after a medical examination in May 1951.

Tommy Prince was later returned to Canada, despite his vigorous protest, and assigned to administrative duties where he served as a platoon sergeant at The Officer Candidate School Canadian Forces Base Borden in Ontario.

Tommy Prince was among the nine wounded in the battalion with shrapnel wounds to his legs, although he continued to fight until the outpost was retaken by Tommy Prince and his men.

Tommy Prince removed shrapnel from his legs with his bayonet by himself.

Tommy Prince continued to work at a personnel depot in Winnipeg until September 1954.

Tommy Prince was granted a small military disability pension due to his injured knees.

Tommy Prince was entitled, posthumously, to the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal for Korea after it was created in 1991.

Tommy Prince was effectively denied access to the special Canadian armed forces WWII veteran benefits programs, which included WWII veterans employment programs, WWII veterans educational support, land purchase support for WWII military veterans, and supplementary income support programs for WWII veterans.

However, partly due to discrimination against Native people at the time, Tommy Prince occasionally encountered hostility from his co-workers who were not aware of his military achievements.

Tommy Prince never used his military record to promote his interests in civilian life, even with his own family and friends.

In June 1955 Tommy Prince made the news for his heroism in saving a man from drowning in the Red River at the Alexander Docks in Winnipeg, using an army "stranglehold" to drag the struggling, resisting man to safety.

Tommy Prince's life became increasingly difficult, ultimately ending in his estrangement from his family due to financial problems.

Unlike other famous Canadian war heroes who struggled in their civilian lives after the war ended, Tommy Prince was not assisted by well-off friends or offered positions by the government.

Tommy Prince spiraled into a depression, and like many war veterans, he experienced post battle stress symptoms and combat nightmares which caused him to awaken in a sweat and in terror.

Tommy Prince would attend the annual Remembrance Day reunions with his PPCLI comrades-in-arms.

On one occasion at night in 1976 on the Winnipeg streets, Tommy Prince was assaulted and beaten by a street gang who were unaware of his identity.

Tommy Prince died in 1977 at Winnipeg's Deer Lodge Centre, a health care facility specializing in geriatric care and treatment of veterans, and was interred in Brookside Cemetery, Winnipeg.

Tommy Prince had never discussed his war record with his daughters, and they were unaware of his status as a public hero before the funeral.

In 1998, the television documentary "Fallen Hero: The Tommy Prince Story" was aired and was nominated for three Leo Awards.

Beach, 37, said he was honoured to play Tommy Prince, calling him a positive role model for all First Nations.

In 2016, a play about Prince by playwright Alanis King, Tommy Prince Story, was published and critically acclaimed.

In 2016, a plaque honouring Tommy Prince was installed in the main floor of the Legislative Building of the Province of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

On 17 October 2022 it was announced that Tommy Prince would be the subject of a postage stamp to be issued 28 October 2022, by Canada Post.