Category Archives: Second World War

Events, Second World War, WWII

Looking Back: VE-Day+50 – A Day Like No Other

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Charles D. McGregor

By  Charles D. McGregor

As a former member of drum and bugle bands in the 1940s and ’50s, I had done plenty of marching. From a cold wintry day leading the high school cadet band in the Santa Claus Parade, to a hot and steamy July day marching down Fifth Avenue in New York they were all memorable, in their own way.

But the one that I now remember with the most clarity took place in Appeldoorn, in Holland, on May 8th, 1995, VE-Day+50. I was there as a part of a touring group of about 20 World War Two veterans and their wives celebrating Victory in Europe Day. On this date, fifty years prior, Allied troops, mostly Canadians, had completed their liberation of Holland. This triggered the surrender by Germany of its armed forces, ending six years of war that had cost Britain and Canada more than 500,000 lives. The relatively small country of Holland had suffered 200,000 civilian deaths, many of those from starvation. Thousands more, mostly Jewish, were sent, by truck and train to Nazi concentration camps, where almost all of them –  men, women, children – had died.

Canada and Holland have a special relationship resulting from actions during   World   War   Two when Canadian Forces led the country’s liberation. This is where many members of The Queen’s Own Rifles fought their way across Holland to liberate the Dutch who had been suffering under Nazi occupation. Most of them are now dead but their part in ending the German oppression will never be forgotten.

Almost 8,000 Canadians would die in the fighting from September 1944 to April 1945. It had become urgent for the Allies to clear both banks of the River Scheldt estuary in order to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping, thus easing logistical burdens in their supply lines stretching hundreds of miles from Normandy eastward to the Siegfried Line. Supplies could then be delivered directly to those who needed them. Food, military vehicles and artillery, ammunition, fuel and, most important, replacement troops were needed for those fighting the ground battles. Clearance of northern and western Holland allowed food and other relief to reach millions of desperate and starving Dutch men, women and children. Its liberation triggered waves of jubilation and tears from those now free from occupation.

Wons, The Netherlands

The celebratory 50th anniversary parade was scheduled to start at noon in Appeldoorn, a medium-sized city in central Holland. We had travelled by bus from our hotel, a few miles from there, and were dropped off at mid-morning in the stadium’s parking lot where the parade would end. We were given a firm reminder that the bus would leave to return to the hotel at 5 pm SHARP. Until then, we were on our own. Fine by me and I set off alone, walking. The city streets were decorated with Dutch and Canadian flags, miles and miles of bunting and all the other trimmings that events like this require. There were all kinds of military exhibits and many happy people on the streets. I was in for a few surprises. The uniform  I was wearing and the regimental cap badge helped.

I was in the summer-weight tan uniform with The Queen’s Own Rifles shoulder flash and the Maple Leaf-shaped badge on my dress uniform wedge cap. As I headed towards a Starbucks ahead of me I noticed a throng of teenagers pretty well blocking the entranceway. They were just standing there in a group, the way teenagers do. But I wanted a coffee so I marched towards them. As I got there they made way for me and as I passed through they all clapped, in unison. I gave them a nod and a smile and continued on. They did it again when I came out, so I gave them a little wave, and said “Thank You.”

About an hour later I was walking along a side street when a man walking toward me stopped and as I got closer he stuck out his hand to shake and said “Queen’s Own Rifles.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. “I saw the maple leaf on your cap badge. You liberated our village in 1945. I remember you well. I was a schoolboy at the time. I was eight and my sister was 12 and one of your soldiers gave us chocolate. I asked if I could have cigarettes and he laughed and said I was too young. I told him they were for my father and he gave me a full pack of 20 Sweet Caporals. I really wanted them for myself. My father was killed by the Germans. I still have the empty pack as a remembrance of that day.” He said, “I am a school teacher now, but I always tell my students not to smoke,” and we laughed together.

I found my way to the parade route and joined the thousands who had flocked there to see the marchers and military tanks and weapons carriers, as well as to hear the many bands. At one point I was walking past a restaurant and passed a young couple sitting at the outdoor patio. The man waved me over and said “You must be a Canadian. You have a maple leaf badge. Will you join us for a drink?” By now I was ready for one, so I sat with them while he ordered for me. The waiter arrived with a bottle of Heineken and a frosted mug and already my day became a great success. So we chatted for a while until I decided to move on. We exchanged names and addresses and I thanked them both. At Christmas that year I got a card from them where they identified themselves as the ones who “bought you a ‘bear’ in Appeldoorn.”  Sadly, by then I had lost their address so was unable to respond to them.

My recollection of parades, no matter the size, is that most spectators look for the saluting base on the parade route, and they congregate there. The marchers always put on their best show there. At the startup and the end, however, the crowds are usually smaller and by parade-end, those at the finish have been greatly thinned out. Not here. Not this day. I covered much of the long parade route and found it packed five or more deep in the stadium parking lot from start line to finish. Not only that, the rooftops on both sides held hundreds more everywhere I looked. Our Queen’s Own Rifles veterans were either riding on open army trucks or flatbeds while some were rolling along in wheelchairs piloted by family members. In addition to our band and bugles, there were brass bands, pipe bands, fife bands and even one accordion band, that was having difficulty being heard due to the cheers which seemed to be non-stop. It was a moving experience for me, seeing all those veterans from the Allied countries, all of whom would have been at least in their late sixties. Many would be dead by the time the year 1995 ended.

As the parade ended, I was walking back to find the bus when my name was called. I turned to see who it was and saw about half a dozen members of the regimental band sitting with beers in front of them under an umbrella in front of a bistro. Waving me over to join them was Doug Hester, a D-Day veteran who had been a bugler in the band before the war and a medic and stretcher-bearer in Normandy. Then living in  Florida, he had been one of several veterans who had come to Holland with the band. Now close to 80, he was wearing the same uniform he had worn in 1939. As we chatted and laughed together it suddenly occurred to me that it must be close to five o’clock. It was actually five-thirty!

True to the warning we had been given, I found the bus had left without me. I went to the stadium office, explained I had missed my ride and asked if they could call me a taxicab. When I gave them the name of my hotel I was told that it would be expensive. I said I thought that might be the case but I had no alternative. At this, a man seated in the office said, “I’ll take you.” He stood up, took his jacket off the back of the chair and as he put it on I saw that he was a major in the Dutch Army. I thanked him for his kindness and he smiled and said “Call it professional courtesy. One soldier to another.” He was a very interesting man and we had a great conversation on the trip back to the hotel. When we arrived I thanked him again and shook his hand in gratitude and said goodbye. As he drove off I headed into the hotel, where I was in for another very nice surprise.

As I passed the registration desk I was waved over and told there was a  phone message for me. It was,  from my son Rob, telling me he and Dianne had another daughter, born today, on the May 8th, a sister for Catriona (Catie) That was great news and it gave me an (expensive) idea. Dinner was being served for our travel group at 7 pm and was about to begin. I checked the dining room and found only 12 seated there, with the others presumably dining out. I went back to the desk and asked to speak to the manager. When he arrived I asked if I could order four bottles of chilled champagne and champagne glasses to be brought to our tables when dinner was finished and coffee was ready to be served. No problem, he said. I then went in to join the others, apologizing for arriving late.

As the meal progressed it was apparent I wasn’t alone in thinking the afternoon’s parade had been an outstanding event. It seemed to have affected them as much as it had me. It had been something we all would remember for a long time. Finally, as the meal dishes had been removed and the coffee arrived, the manager came in, gave me a questioning look and I nodded. At that, he stood aside and in came a trolley with four bottles of champagne in coolers along with tall crystal champagne glasses. I stood up and announced that I’d like all of them to join me in a toast to the birth of my second granddaughter.

After the bottles were opened and all the glasses filled, I proposed a toast to the new baby, almost 4,000 miles away from where we were. I said “I don’t know what her name will be but I’m going to suggest to her parents that Victoria Elizabeth would be appropriate for someone born on this date. Her initials would be V.E.” That brought laughter and applause. However she was named Mary Elizabeth, which became Mary Beth for a while, but now she has settled on Mary, so that’s what it remains. But this was a very special moment for me.

I had already attended several VE-Day+50 events with members of The Queen’s Own Rifles and their families and friends. These had included a reception at la Maison du Queen’s Own Rifles on the beachfront at Bernières-sur-Mer, where the regiment landed on D-Day, as well as a service at Beny sur Mer Canadian War Cemetery. There are more than 2,000 Canadians buried there including 61 from The Queen’s Own. Another service would take place later at Groesbeck Canadian War Cemetery near Nijmegen where another 72 members of the regiment are buried, including Sgt Aubrey Cosens, VC. Sgt Cosens was awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery which cost him his life during an attack which took place across the Rhine, in Germany in March 1945.

I also visited Wageningen, the site of the surrender of Germany to Canadian General Charles Foulkes on the fifth of May  1945, officially ending the war in Holland. Here again, the town was in a festive mood, thronged with celebrating visitors. And here again, I got free beer. I was looking in the windows of a bistro and a couple were seated just inside. I saw the man get up and head outside, where he took me by the arm and said “You are Canadian?” I nodded and he pulled me inside, introduced me to his wife and told me I could have all the free drinks and food I wanted. I settled for two bottles of Heineken and something on the menu called “kroket” which is beef ragout inside a fried breaded pastry roll. Went down very well with the beer!

Other visits were made to points of interest along the route which played a major role in the movie “A Bridge Too Far” which was the bridge at Arnhem. The movie is about the planning and execution of General Montgomery’s  “Operation Market Garden.” The largest airborne assault ever staged, it cost as many as 18,000 British and Americans killed, wounded, and captured in eight days of fighting. The Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek, which had been commandeered by the Germans as its HQ eventually became British Second  Army’s HQ as the battle for Holland continued. Now an Airborne Museum it contains historical artifacts about what happened there. It was there I saw something I have never been able to forget. It was a full-sized, white-painted door with a message written in large lettered charcoal. From the British officer commanding outnumbered and surrounded troops now fated to die or be taken prisoner it was his thanks for their continued bravery. He noted that they would soon be out of ammunition, “but we must fight until the last bullet is spent.” An emotional message to men whose war would soon end.

John Missons at VE Day event in 1995

It was in the Canadian Military Cemetery at Groesbeck that I saw D-Day veteran Sergeant John Missons sitting under a tree in his wheelchair. I knew him and his son, also John, who was a drummer in the regimental band, as I had once been in other bands. We had become pretty good friends and I liked them both a lot. As I walked along John waved  me over and said “Can you do me a favour?” I said sure I could. He said, “Aubrey Cosens is buried here and I’d like to visit his grave.” Sergeant Aubrey Cosens VC and John Missons were both in B Company and Missons remembered him well. He said “We were friends and the news he had been killed spread quickly. He was one of close to 100 killed or wounded in that fighting but he was one I knew better than the others. Some were replacements who had only been with us a few days.” Sgt Cosens was awarded the VC for his bravery Mooshof, in Germany, in February 1945, “but we didn’t find out about that until after VE-Day.”

John Missons at 18 years of age circa 1940 likely in Newfoundland.

It was as I was wheeling him back to find his son that I passed a row of 17 headstones, all of soldiers from the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, all killed on the same day. The Canadians had been tasked to clear the German occupiers from both sides of the Scheldt, resulting in many losses among both armies. The “Links and Winks” had their headquarters in St. Catharines, where I lived in the late ’40s and early ’50s.  I had played drums in their band on several occasions, and as I looked at those headstones I wondered whether any of my high school friends were sons of those who died in Holland. At the Telegram, I worked with a photographer named Jim Kennedy, who had been with the regiment there and was in a Jeep which was blown into the river by a shell explosion and, as far as he knew, he said he was the only survivor of the incident. He woke up in the hospital and was soon on his way home.

When my trip ended, we flew back to Canada from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, changing planes at Heathrow. We were due back sometime in the late afternoon, as I recall. Rob had offered to meet me there but a storm developed which diverted our aircraft to Ottawa. We were told we’d have to wait there until the storm, which was centred over north Toronto, had cleared. Also, we were not allowed off the aircraft because we were at Uplands Airport, which had no customs or immigration personnel. What I didn’t know was that Rob had brought Catie to the airport. The delay went on for several hours and I felt badly for both Rob and Catie, because she was only four years old at the time, and sitting and waiting is not what little girls want to do. However, we eventually got into Toronto Airport and my trip to celebrate VE-Day+50 was done.  I was certainly happy to see Rob and Catie, who had waited a very long time for me to get back on Canadian soil.

POSTSCRIPT (1) Holland vs The Netherlands: While the use of the name “Holland” has now been officially replaced by “The Netherlands,” World War Two veterans of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, who paid a steep price for their efforts in liberating the country, always spoke of it as Holland. And what’s good for the veterans is good enough for me in these memoirs. Although the names were once used interchangeably, the Dutch government has decided the name Holland will now be dropped and The Netherlands will replace it in reference to the country. The difference between the Netherlands and Holland is that the Netherlands is the term for the country as a whole (12 provinces). Holland refers to  North Holland and South Holland the two largest provinces.

POSTSCRIPT (2) A three-year stay in Canada. Following the German occupation of Holland, the Dutch Royal family was invited to Canada, where they lived as guests of Canadians until their homeland was liberated. Princess Margriet was born in exile while her family lived in Ottawa. The maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital in which the princess was born, was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing her citizenship to be solely influenced by her mother’s Dutch citizenship. To commemorate the birth, the Canadian Parliament flew the Dutch flag over Peace Tower, which became the only time a foreign flag has flown over the Canadian Parliament Building. Princess Margriet was baptized in St Andrew’s Church, Ottawa, on 29 June 1943. Her godparents included President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dutch Merchant Navy, in honour of the role played by the latter during the Second World War. It was not until  August 1945, after Holland’s liberation,  that the princess, her parents and two sisters arrived home to a wild welcome from their citizens who had suffered so badly during the war years.

In 1945, the Dutch Royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered the future Queen Juliana and her family during the preceding three years of Nazi occupation of their country. The Gift of Tulips became a yearly tradition. Every year, the Dutch Royal Family and the people of Holland each send   10,000 bulbs to Ottawa. These are planted in beds at the Ottawa Hospital in tribute to the birth of Princess Margriet. This gift gave rise to Ottawa’s annual Canadian Tulip Festival, held in May. Perhaps the world’s largest tulip festival, it displays over one million tulips and has an attendance of over 650,000 visitors. Large displays of tulips are planted throughout the city, with many thousands planted along the Rideau Canal alone. Princess Margriet continues to make regular visits to Canada, continuing strong ties between Canada and the Dutch.

Regular Force, Second World War

Bill McAndrew: Part V

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Bill McAndrew joined the army at age 17, was commissioned the following year and served the next eleven years as an infantry officer in Canada, Korea, Germany and Ghana. On leaving the army, a high school dropout, he attended Glendon College, York University as a mature student and gained his doctorate at the University of British Columbia. McAndrew taught at the University of Maine at Orono and directed that university’s Canadian Studies programme before joining the Directorate of History in Ottawa from which he retired in 1996. His particular interest has been in the battlefield behaviour of soldiers.

This is Part V of an excerpt from an article which originally appeared in Canadian Military History, Autumn 2013 issue and is reprinted with permission of the author. 

If you missed them, you can still read Part I,   Part II,  Part III and Part IV.

Part V – Leaving the Army, Back to School, and Directorate of History

Glendon was a fortuitous choice with small classes and an eclectic inter-disciplinary array of courses. Open access to a library was sheer luxury. I was somewhat an anomaly among my decade-younger fellow students coming from a culture where short hair assumed an unlikely importance to one where its opposite was similarly overemphasized. This was the sixties, after all. Having learned later about RCMP recruitment of informers of supposedly radical ideas in universities I imagine that some students viewed me skeptically. Ironically, other than culturally, I was likely more radical than most of them. My only army connection happened when I invited General Guy Simonds to speak to our weekly residence lecture group. He graciously agreed and told us about the pressures of command, especially during the sea approach to Sicily when as divisional commander he had had to modify his landing plans as updated intelligence trickled in.

I had to adjust to university life in other ways as well. All incoming students had to present a book review on arrival. I was blown away with an A+ mark but then was taken down a peg or six with my next one, a C-. My problem was that I didn’t know what made for the difference until a very understanding John Conway, who had lost a hand in the Liri Valley with the Seaforths, kindly explained the vagaries of academic writing. I did well over the next four years, was on the short list for Woodrow Wilson and Commonwealth fellowships as well as an H.R. MacMillan for UBC which I chose for my doctorate, in which I tried to explain the political and economic contexts of why Canada did not have a New Deal like that of Franklin Roosevelt down south in response to the Great Depression. I completed it a couple of years later while teaching at the University of Maine in Orono and running the university’s Canadian Studies programme.

UMO was a broadening experience. I made a goal of persuading at least one student that there really was life beyond Houlton. I’m unsure if I succeeded but my Canadian history classes were full of students wanting to learn how to get north to escape the Vietnam draft, another long hair issue. It was an exciting time with Vietnam, Watergate, the civil rights movement, and after six years, and promotion to a tenured position it seemed only right either to change citizenship and become actively involved or return to Canada. When I was offered a job in Ottawa with the Directorate of History at NDHQ I took it. It was another huge, life-changing decision.

I had done no academic studies in military history so had to learn an altogether new field. My first task at the directorate was fact checking and other basic tasks for the first volume of the RCAF official history, on the First World War, then researching and writing draft narratives on the RCAF’s development in the years between the wars. These were concerned primarily with policy and the introduction of aviation to the endless expanse of Canada.

My main interest, however, was the army whose idiosyncratic ways were more familiar. There was another, more personal, aspect. I had not been in combat and couldn’t help wondering if battles actually went like training exercises, straight as an arrow from start to successful finish. Like all young officers, I expect, I also wondered how I would have reacted and behaved under fire. I have a sense that I would have not survived, because of some reckless act, if a sensible sergeant-major was not around to save me from lack of discretion.

The author with some Second World War veterans on a battlefield staff ride in Normandy in the 1980s. Here the group poses in front of the Churchill AVRE on Juno Beach: (l. to r.) unknown, Jamie Stewart (19th Field Regiment), Lockie Fulton (Royal Winnipeg Rifles), McAndrew, Sydney Radley-Walters (Sherbrooke Fusiliers), Hans Siegel (12th SS Panzer Division), Peter Kremer, Alan Darch.

Opportunities to explore the conduct of operations, historically, came about by happenstance. With a colleague, Ben Greenhous, I got interested in the extraordinary military career of Major-General Bert Hoffmeister who had landed in Sicily in 1943 as a battalion commander and eight months later commanded 5th Canadian Armoured Division. A projected book didn’t materialize, fortunately, as I was able to pass that on to Doug Delaney who produced his excellent biography. However, we did persuade the then army commander, Charlie Belzile, my old regimental mate, who was recreating a divisional structure in the army, to take several of his senior commanders and staff officers to Italy to refight the Canadian Corps battle of the Gothic Line. Hoffmeister and three of his former commanders walked us through the battle on the ground.

Re-fighting the Gothic Line with Army Staff College student. Lieutenant-General Henri Tellier seated at the right.

One thing led to another and over the next several years I was uncommonly fortunate to have been able to refight Canadian battles in Italy and North-West Europe with students of the Army Staff College, the Canadian staffs at CENTAG/4ATAF and soldiers in other units. Having both Canadian and German veterans along to guide and inform us lent an incomparable dimension to those battlefield studies.

Some veterans of that battle with others members of the tour group near Rimini in May 1991: (l. to r.) Lieutenant-General Bill Milroy, Colonel Tom De Faye, Amedeo Montemaggi, Contessa Guerrini-Maraldi, Oberst Gerhard Muhm, Count Guerrini-Marabaldi, Lieutenant-General Henri Tellier, Bill McAndrew, Brigadier-General Ted Brown, Colonel Serge Labbé.

Many unforgettable moments come to mind. One was a fine spring morning at the Assoro castle in central Sicily when Strome Galloway recited Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “The General,” an appropriate comment, he thought, on the battle he had fought below in the valley forty years earlier:

‘Good-morning; good morning!’ the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead
and we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

Major-General George Kitching poses with Meyer in front of the Tiger tank at Vimoutiers, France.

There were others: one dodging traffic on the Caen-Falaise road with George Kitching and Hubert Meyer, old enemies, as they positioned their Totalize tanks; another at Villa Belvedere on San Fortunato with Henri Tellier, Bill Milroy, Ted Brown, Hunter Dunn, and Gerhard Muhm as they talked with Contessa Guerrini-Maraldi who as a young girl had watched their battle at the Villa; yet another walking the trail where John Dougan led his company to infiltrate beyond San Fortunato, blowing a Tiger tank on the way. There was the Belgian resistance leader, Eugene Colson, who described how his fighters seized the Antwerp docks before the Germans could blow them; Johnnie Johnson on commanding Canadians in Normandy; Lockie Fulton, Jamie Stewart, and Rad Walters detail their unique experiences on D-Day; Denis Whitaker on Dieppe’s White beach and Ron Beal on Blue. What a privilege it was to have shared such company.

Talking to them and other veterans, and trying to write about battles at Ortona, the Liri Valley, Verrières Ridge and the rest impressed me upon me the sheer impossibility of describing any military engagement adequately. They can be told on so many levels and in all of them uncountable personal realities intrude on historians trying to participate vicariously in them. There is history and there is historical writing: national narratives, official accounts, personal descriptions, memoirs, fiction, all attempting to approach some version of the truth. Some, of course, are more reliable than others. As E.B. White has cautioned, “All writing is slanted. Writers can’t be perpendicular but they should aspire to be upright.” Some historical writers approach the vertical more closely than others, but even they can go only so far in their depictions of combat.

The author (left) poses with Hubert Meyer (centre – 12th SS) and Syd Radley-Walters (right – Sherbrooke Fusiliers) in front of the Tiger tank at Vimoutiers, France.

The dimension that especially caught my interest was the human, the personal experiences of soldiers. How did they actually behave in battle as opposed to how we think they should have behaved? I recall one veteran company commander standing at the foot of a hill that had been his objective many years earlier saying that he had started at the bottom with seventy-five men and at the top he had twenty. When I checked, the company had taken fifteen casualties. Where were the other forty? What did they do? Where did they go? What happened to them? I began to explore some of the possibilities.

A fortuitous opportunity came when, around the same time, some army units and formations became interested in soldierly behaviour. Brigade in Lahr asked the directorate to have someone develop a presentation to a brigade study week on the topic of battle exhaustion. Soon after the Army Staff College made a similar request. I involved myself and this led me to some intensely interesting explorations in Second World War documents that hadn’t been opened since being deposited at its end: medical records and war diaries of unusual units like No. 2 Canadian Exhaustion Unit and No. 1 Non-Effective Transit Depot, as well as files of military police units, detention barracks and others. They revealed a wide range of soldierly behaviour not usually found in official or regimental histories, in the process shaking my naïve assumptions to the core.

They persuaded me that morale was the core of military effectiveness, hardly a new discovery but one frequently taken for granted both by commanders and historians. The Napoleonic aphorism that the moral is to the material as three is to one is cited more frequently than observed. Moreover, generalized statements on collective morale, especially those from higher headquarters remote from front line soldiers, can often be taken with a few kilos of salt. Was it really so, as a corps commander stated, that his worn out, badly bruised units were keen to get back into action? Morale can vary randomly, daily, hourly depending on timing and circumstances. It also became clear from questionnaires that junior officers completed and from lessons learned reports that morale was directly affected by how soldiers were deployed in battle, that is, their tactical doctrine. Many commented on how top-down plans would be given units to implement, often too late for battle procedures and when the few properly briefed officers became casualties movement stopped. They noted how too often too few troops would be sent to attack too strong a position, how attacks were invariably directed against the enemy’s strongest positions rather than outflanking or bypassing them, and that higher commanders insisted that a circle on a map be occupied despite it being an enemy registered target that could be dominated from nearby. This way of conducting operations inevitably produced soldiery verse:

Let’s throw in another battalion
The Brigadier cried with glee
Let’s throw in another battalion
or maybe two or three
We’ve got the money, we’ve got the time
Another battalion won’t cost us a dime
Let’s throw in another battalion
or maybe the old LAD.

The search for the origins and assumptions of this way of war, tactical doctrine, and its relationship to how soldiers reacted to the stress of battle, is a timeless theme. Beyond ever-changing theories of attrition and manoeuvre, operational art and supposed Revolutions in Military Affairs, are soldiers. Although technologies have materially changed over the years, soldiers haven’t: their bodies bleed and their minds break like those of their fathers and grandfathers. The human factor remains central, even in this day when the sole strategic problem has to be climate change, all other political and military dimensions being just messy operational and tactical distractions. If we lose the basis of our human existence, air and water, other concerns fade away.

What can I conclude from this long, varied and fortunate life that has seen the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the sixties, globalism, the Internet era, the Canadian transformation, and climate change? Above all is the need for a thinking education in the humanities. This need not be at a university, after all there are countless educated fools and many wise illiterates, but we ignore the experience of the ages at our collective peril. A thinking education can reveal the arrogance of the categorical, demonstrate the insight of nuance, and stimulate a healthy skepticism of ideologues of whatever stripe; political, economic, religious, philosophical, whatever. It can provide an escape from the necessarily limited bonds of individual experience to peer into the vastness of human diversity over time and in space and provide understanding of how the other guy thought and lived, thinks and lives. A thinking education can, should, must lead one to penetrate the cant and doublespeak of much discourse, question the premises and assumptions of any assertion and assess its veracity accordingly. This especially applies to those who want to send others to war.

Second World War, WWII

The quest for Jack Kavanagh’s last resting place

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The amazing story of the identification of an emblematic and bold Canadian soldier whose last resting place was lost for 75 years.

By Francis Bleeker (© FLG Bleeker)

Introduction

Lieut. Gen. Mart de Kruif speaks about Canadian sacrifices, Canadian War Museum, photo F Bleeker, 4 May 2017

In May 1992 I was seconded to the Dutch 41 Light Brigade in Germany for a major exercise. My new boss was Major Mart de Kruif, a Dutch Grenadier Guards officer, in charge of G3, the Operations section. I was his liaison officer for the duration of the exercise. Exciting times, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After my immigration to Canada in 1998 we continue to meet at regimental events. In 2008 he takes command of Regional Command South in Afghanistan and for a whole year works with numerous Canadian staff officers.

Grave of unknown soldier, Steenderen, photo by F Bleeker 2017

Fast forward again and in 2017 now Lieutenant General de Kruif shares a panel with LGen Marc Lessard at the Canadian War Museum to talk about Canadian-Dutch co-operation in Afghanistan and the close ties between the two countries. He then talks about the heroism and the sacrifice of Canadians during the liberation of The Netherlands from the Germans in 1945 and how soldiers of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada are commemorated in Rha, a village close to his home in the Eastern part of The Netherlands. One of them does not have a grave and is remembered on a wall at the Canadian War Cemetery in Groesbeek. In nearby Steenderen there is a grave of an unknown soldier. Local amateur historians think they know who he is: Lieutenant John Gordon Kavanagh of The Queen’s Own Rifles. General Mart recites what is engraved on the monument in Rha: ‘Dying for freedom is not the worst that could happen, being forgotten is.’ Afterwards I agree to delve into this story, do more research, and see what I can come up with.

Who was Jack Kavanagh?

Jack Kavanagh (Photo by permission J.G. Young)

John Gordon Kavanagh, ‘Jack’ to family and friends, was born in Toronto on 20 October 1921, the son of John and Cora Kavanagh. He was the youngest of four children. His brothers and sister were a lot older, the difference with his sister was 13 years, 19 years with his oldest brother. His father was a handyman at Eaton’s and died when Jack was only seven years old. Jack grows up on Sandford Avenue and after 4 years of high school at Riverdale Collegiate, he finds a job in the athletics department at T. Eaton Co Ltd making $18 a week.

On the 10th September 1939 Canada declares war on the German Reich independently from the British Empire. Jack joins The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada (QOR) only eight days after Canada’s declaration of war a month shy of the required age of 18. He may have fudged his date of birth by three months to get in as the date has to be amended in his paperwork later on. Initially The Queen’s Own train in ‘mufti’ because of a shortage of uniforms.

When the unit is mobilized in June 1940 he transfers from the non-permanent active militia to the regular force (CASF) and takes the oath to ‘be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty’. The regiment trains in Toronto before moving to the Dominion of Newfoundland for more training. Jack is part of the regimental boxing team and they win the Divisional Boxing Tournament in May 1941.

Finally in July 1941 The Queen’s Own cross the Atlantic by ship to Scotland where training and live fire exercises resume. The battalion moves to Southern England, first Aldershot then Pippingford Park, Sussex, south-west of London. The QOR boxing team, including Jack, is doing well again and wins the brigade and subsequently the divisional championship. The battalion keeps moving around Southern England in 1942 for training and exercises and during the fall Jack receives several reprimands and forfeitures of pay for short unauthorized absences.

Wedding Jack Kavanagh and Emily Jean Haddleton, 12 June 1943, London. (photo by permission J.G. Young)

History does not tell but it is very likely that these absences had something to do with a lady interest. Now a corporal Jack has to apply a second time to marry Emily Jean Haddleton as the first application had gone missing. Jean, who is a Red Cross nurse, grew up around the corner from Jack’s home in Toronto. He was probably frustrated by the two-month bureaucratic delay so he adds a cheeky note stating that ‘proposed wife is a member of the Canadian Red Cross Corps and has been granted permission to marry by her Commandant’, so get on with it! The wedding takes place in Kensington, London, on 12th June 1943 with comrades in arms and Red Cross nurses attending.

After that it is back to more exercises until 7th October when Jack, now an Acting Sergeant, is sent back to Canada for officer training at the Officer Training Centre in Brockville, Ontario. We can only guess how Cadet Kavanagh must have felt when the invasion in Normandy started and he heard the reports of the severe losses that The Queen’s Own incurred.

Jack is commissioned and reports for duty in England on 28 December 1944. He is ready to rejoin his unit, but disaster strikes and on 25 January 1945 he is hospitalized with pneumonia. After 11 days in hospital he discharges himself but continues to kick his heels until he is fed up waiting. He takes off without orders and makes his own way to The Queen’s Own who are in Germany just across the Dutch border. It takes some representations from the commanding officer of The Queen’s Own and the brigade commander to paper over this infraction but on 18 March Jack finally has his platoon in B Company.

Jack and his sister Mabel. (photo by permission J.G. Young)

The QOR had just come through another period of heavy fighting and heavy losses against a vicious, relentless enemy that included hand to hand combat where even the ‘rifleman’s swords’ (bayonets) were used. When Jack rejoins the QOR they are recuperating briefly in the Reichswald in home-made huts and underground shelters. On 23 March he writes an upbeat letter to his sister Mabel affectionately joking about his batman ’just a kid of 19’ and sends his love to ‘the gals at the big store’ (Eaton’s). It is to be his last letter. Coincidentally Mabel sends him an Easter card on the same day.

24 March and the QORs are on the move again as part of Operation PLUNDER. By 2 April they are back in The Netherlands, they cross the Oude Ijssel river and are getting a taste of liberating the jubilant Dutch population. On 5 April B Company is tasked to capture the hamlet of Pipelure, near Rha. The enemy had used forced labour to dig deep trenches and construct tank traps. The terrain is muddy and the trenches waterlogged. In those horrendous circumstances, without cover and supporting fire, Kavanagh advances with two platoons in the late afternoon and runs in to heavy mortar and small arms fire and is pinned down. During that action Jack is killed, it is said by a Panzerfaust, an anti-tank weapon. Four others die in the same action. The reserve platoon is now deployed to allow platoons 11 and 12 to withdraw. In the dwindling light The Queen’s Own have to fight hand to hand with the enemy before they can retire taking their wounded but leaving five dead, including Jack, behind.

Mabel’s Easter card is returned to her, the envelope is stamped ‘REPORTED DECEASED’ in capitals…

Aftermath?

Ring presented by T.Eaton Ltd (photo by permission J.G. Young)

Jack’s wife Jean and his family are advised of his death. But all they are told is that he was ‘for official purposes presumed killed in action’ in Western Europe and that his body was not recovered. He is honoured on the Memorial Wall at the Canadian War Cemetery in Groesbeek. T. Eaton Ltd. gives the family a gold ring engraved with his name in memory of their employee. Jack’s name is also included on the large bronze tablet that contains all the names of the 263 Eaton employees who sacrificed their lives. The impressive memorial has found a home at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The City of Toronto presents the family with a framed scroll and a votive lamp. Both the recognition by Eaton’s and Toronto are a testament of the support that employers and local government gave to soldiers and their families.

In The Netherlands…

Granite monument dedicated to QOR soldiers, Rha (by permission T. Vanderplas)

The people in the Eastern part of The Netherlands honour the fallen for their freedom every spring a month before the rest of the country as they were liberated earlier. Villagers in Steenderen have been

putting flowers at the war graves in the General Cemetery on 6 April for decades. The cemetery contains the graves of 9 RAF, RCAF and Polish aircrew that crashed in the area during the war at different dates. The date on the 10th headstone, that of the unknown soldier, states 16 April 1945, thereby adding to the confusion.

In 2001 the villagers of nearby Rha erect a little monument in a remembrance garden in honour of 8 members of The Queen’s Own Rifles who fell there on 5 and 6 April 1945. Jack Kavanagh is listed among his comrades.

2017 my research begins

After volunteering to do more research in May 2017 I started by writing to a brigadier general at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC). I ask the brigadier general where I can find John Gordon Kavanagh’s dental records and he refers me to another director general at VAC and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), Canadian Agency [1]. General Mart de Kruif had already mentioned that he had the Dutch War Grave Service standing by to assist in an exhumation. If we can match the dental records with the remains in the grave of the unknown soldier in Steenderen we will have a solution. DNA would be another option – if only we could locate any relatives. Others have gone before us though and failed to find members of Jack’s family.

Jack Kavanagh’s Silver Cross. (by permission JG Young)

I am in close contact with the Dutch defence attache and work with a good friend who is a Queen’s Own. The CWGC, Canadian Agency, gets back to me and confirms that Lt JG Kavanagh was killed by an anti tank weapon and that there are conflicting stories whether there was enough left to recover or that his remains were never recovered. I am told to prepare myself for a ‘very high burden of proof to be met before exhumation can be considered.’ He does not want to discourage me, but he has seen many cases where the identity of ‘unknowns’ have been confirmed, but even more unsuccessful attempts. His grim message is loud and clear…

In a reply to my update to General Mart and Colonel Christa, the defence attache, I receive Dutch material from a Dutch local historian, Karl Lusink. It is remarkable that some of his notes date back to 1984 when he tried to find out more from the farmer who owned the field in Rha where Jack fell. Unfortunately, the farmer has moved away to a nursing home and does not respond to letters. More importantly Karl provides me copies of official correspondence between the mayor of Steenderen and the Dutch Ministry of War: in November 1947 the mayor claimed expenses for the exhumation of remains on the land of farmer Garritsen at Pipelure on 10 April 1947, two years after the operation. Some personal items including a Canadian beret were also recovered.

Veterans Affairs Canada gets back to me with two more documents: a headstone change request and a document written by a Dutch-Canadian, Rev. Henkdrik Dykman, from Guelph. Both documents provide additional information about the other four soldiers who died in that location at the same time. The QOR War Diary is very clear about the number of soldiers that were killed in Rha: five. Four, riflemen Aiken, Crawford, McKenna and Woodruff are accounted for. They were buried in temporary graves at a neighbouring farm in Rha, according to said headstone change request. There is a photograph of the four temporary graves with the correct date on the crosses, 5 April 1945. I find that some dates used by various officials do not always match those in the War Diary, but these do. The four riflemen were re-interred in Holten Canadian War Cemetery in April 1946. Who can the remains in Steenderen belong to if not Jack Kavanagh? Karl Lusink sends more Dutch material from 1947 regarding a misunderstanding on the part of the Dutch War Ministry that the unknown soldier is English but which is quickly corrected by the mayor who replies that Steenderen was liberated by Canadians and the remains therefore cannot be English. It is now October 2017 and there is a new Dutch defence attache to brief. Colonel Christa has retired but continues to follow developments from The Netherlands.

Late November I receive another email from the CWGC Canadian Agency offering me to show Jack’s dental records but reaffirming what I had been advised before: the CWGC does not exhume for the sole purpose of identification. It also mentions that the location of Jack’s death is known but not if his remains were recovered. My QOR friend sends me a paper about relevant International Human Rights Law on war dead. This can get complicated.

Christmas 2017 I spend in The Netherlands and I take the opportunity to visit the location where Jack fell. It is a bleak field, flat with far horizons, next to farmer Garritsen’s farmhouse that has been turned into a bed and breakfast. It will have been different in 1945 but it is still flat with no natural cover. It would have been an infantryman’s nightmare.

Pipelure, location of Jack’s death, (photo F. Bleeker 2017)

Over the following months I conduct more research but have less time as I am in a new job. All the while I am encouraged by a few friends and some senior officers whom I meet and bend their ears at the Army Officers Mess, Ottawa, for the traditional Friday lunch. I search and find more information about Jack and his family, much of which is available online: census records, the War Diary, various books and literature. I start writing my paper and limit myself to what is essential for the identification and I include my translation of the Dutch official correspondence. A good friend who is a historian offers to review it.

In May 2018 I am copied on another email from the CWGC reiterating the non-exhumation policy and attaching the email that was sent to me before. General Mart and a Dutch documentary producer had requested guidance for DNA testing. The policy has not changed so it is declined. Coincidentally my paper is finished, and I submit it to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as I believe that is has the circumstantial evidence that will tip the balance. Days later my paper is given a reference number, ID Case No. 428. If successful, the CWGC will arrange for a new headstone but I am asked to exercise patience. I know that general Mart would like to turn a change of headstone into a major event in 2020 when the Dutch celebrate the 75th anniversary of their liberation. I inform Karl Lusink of recent developments.

Mabel Young’s Easter Card. (by permission JG Young)

In July 2018 I meet the Dutch documentary producers in the suitably solemn ambiance of the library of the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto. Bart Nijpels, Ton Vanderplas and I compare notes and agree to work together. I send them documents that they did not have, and they send me an obituary of Isabel, daughter of Jack’s brother Robert, who had died in 2011. J.G. Kavanagh’s nephew Jack and family are mentioned as is their hometown Keswick. Ton spends a fruitless day there knocking on doors. My QOR friend and I start our own search and he finds that the contact person for Isabel died in 2016, another dead end. For months we scour the internet for the nephew, Jack Young, unfortunately not a unique name.

Kavanagh’s next of kin found

In November I meet a CAF major who tells me about his ambition to become a private investigator. ‘I have just the job for you!’ I say. He comes up trumps! Within days he writes to me with the contact details of a John ‘Jack’ Young. I am anxious as I dial the number and a man answers and I ask if he is indeed the nephew of John Gordon Kavanagh. When he confirms that I blurt out ’I have been looking for you!’. Coincidentally the documentary makers have found the family as well. Over the next few months we are in close contact with the family and we exchange information about their uncle. I provide them information and advice for their trip to The Netherlands as they have been invited by Bart and Ton. When I finally meet Jack Young and his wife they show an abundance of mementos of their uncle whom they never met.

General Mart, the Dutch Embassy, the Canadian Embassy in The Netherlands, and others are all keenly waiting for the next steps, 2020 is now a year away. A friend, a recently retired general, has an ‘innocuous’ chat at my request with the Directorate of History & Heritage of the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. DHH however immediately recognizes the case: without more information this case does not ‘pass the bar’. In my contacts with general Mart I raise the possibility of a QOR representation supported and complemented by our Limburgse Jagers (Rifles) Regiment at the commemoration – provided all goes well. We meet late January 2019 in The Netherlands to discuss progress and next steps.

Thrilled the Young family travels to The Netherlands in April at the invitation of the documentary makers, Ton and Bart, and visit the monument in Rha and the grave of the unknown soldier in Steenderen. It is an emotional pilgrimage as I can make out from the many messages that they send me. I put them in touch with a dear friend of mine who is a clergyman living near Steenderen and he organizes a special service for the family on the Sunday. The family is deeply touched by the attention of the locals and the fact that they have been caring for the monuments and graves for so many years.

‘The case has merit’

In May 2019 a full year after I had submitted my research paper the CWGC advises us that ‘the documentation from the local archives included in the submissions has provided an essential link between the field grave from which the casualty was exhumed and his reburial at Steenderen as well as showing the origin of the discrepancy in the date of death. Therefore, we believe that the case has merit and have forwarded the case to the Canadian Armed Forces for their review.’ The case has merit, BINGO! Once again we are asked to exercise patience. Time is running though; if we want to organize an event in April 2020, we need a determination as soon as possible. I talk or email with people and officials in my network to see what we can do to expedite the process. I also keep in touch with the Young family, Kavanagh’s next of kin and we become friends. We attend a military appreciation game of the Belleville Senators together.

Come October I am advised that the Casualty Identification Review Board (CIRB) will meet in November and I am asked to provide contact details of Kavanagh’s next of kin. In December 2019 I am told: the CIRB did meet in November but the results have to go to the chain of command. On New Year’s Day 2020 I receive another email from General Mart asking for an update. I bug DHH and they assure me they are acutely aware of the general’s and the local community’s interest. We are now less than three months away from the 75th anniversary. I email a very senior officer at DND and I am told to be patient another week: the Army will notify the family first and I will hear promptly thereafter. And so it happens! On 24 January 2020 The Queen’s Own Rifles notify Jack Young that his uncle Lt. John G Kavanagh has been identified as the unknown soldier resting in Steenderen. I receive a call from DHH with the good news and find it quite emotional. In a call next day General Mart and I immediately start firming up our plans.

The unknown soldier identified

On Saturday, 26 January, the Commanding Officer of The Queen’s Own, his Regimental Sergeant Major and an assisting officer present themselves in uniform with medals at the home of Jack Young and his wife Debbie to notify them officially their uncle has been identified. I receive a call after they leave and Jack and Debbie are deeply impressed. They are on the loudspeaker in the car and my wife can hear how touched and relieved they are – she seems to have something in her eye. It is the culmination of years of work by many people on both sides of the Atlantic.

A suitable commemoration

We change gears immediately. I have teleconferences with General Mart, the commanding officer (CO) and his deputy of The Queen’s Own, the Canadian defence attache in The Hague, Colonel Christa and others. A plan is put together: there will be a commemoration on 5 and 6 April, six family members of Kavanagh will attend as well as ten Queen’s Own. We need to raise money and see what Veterans Affairs Canada will support. My clergyman friend has been invited to conduct the Sunday service on 5 April in the church beside the General Cemetery in Steenderen. It is like divine intervention, we can have a church service conducted by a dear friend who has been close to the story and himself the son of a resistance fighter.
The Queen’s Own Rifles are responsible for the organization of the 2020 Garrison Ball at the Liberty Grand in Toronto on 8 February. Despite the short notice the commanding officer includes a stirring announcement that one of their comrades – lost for 75 years – has now been identified. The assisting officer reads out Jack’s last letter to his sister Mabel. When the colonel publicly recognizes the Young family who are in attendance the hundreds of guests rise and give the family a standing ovation that lasts many minutes.

Lt J G Kavanagh’s new headstone. (by permission T. Vanderplas)

It is like having another day job. Calls and emails to Veterans Affairs result in the department taking care of Jack and Debbie’s travel expenses. More calls and emails and people are generously offering financial support. The Queen’s Own raise money and will send a delegation of ten soldiers. A contact at a military charity puts me in touch with Air Canada who graciously offers help with the tickets for Jack’s daughters, granddaughters and the ten Queen’s Own. Strangers and friends of friends are stepping up and contributing with money, referrals and advice, it is fantastic. The municipality, that Rha belongs to, will take care of the Youngs’ stay at Garritsen’s farm, now a bed and breakfast, where their Uncle Jack had died. The Limburgse Jagers regiment is providing accommodation and transport for The Queen’s Own. They will also send a contingent to complement the Canadian delegation at the commemorative ceremony. Christa has put together a minute by minute plan with military precision. General Mart has multiple meetings with the municipality, Christa, the Canadian attache in The Hague and my friend the clergyman. The Dutch branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch No. 5, is roped in and will send a colour party. The CWGC and the Canadian Government are pushing for the new headstone to be ready for the commemorations on 5 and 6 April. The documentary makers, Ton and Bart, are present and shoot footage when the new headstone is being engraved. The final chapter of Jack’s story will be filmed at Kavanagh’s grave on 5 and 6 April. Everything is in place just weeks before it will all happen!

On 13 March 2020, the Chief of Defence Staff issues a directive banning non-essential travel because of COVID-19: The Queen’s Own cannot go. Within days disappointed and frustrated we have to decide to postpone the commemoration indefinitely due to the Corona virus. Canada is in lockdown and The Netherlands follows shortly after. We will resurrect the plans the moment we can either later this year or on the 76th anniversary.

Epilogue

On 5 April my friend the clergyman organizes a moving little ceremony at the General Cemetery of Steenderen in honour of Lt J. G. ‘Jack’ Kavanagh under COVID-19 restrictions. It was captured on video and available on YouTube  . The children of farmer Garritsen visit the grave and lay flowers. Others lay flowers, what else than tulips, at all ten graves as locals have done for decades. General Mart also drops by to pay his respects.

Sadly, Ton and Bart had to finish their documentary without the closing chapter with the new headstone in place. It is a must watch though, and can be seen on Vimeo  for a small fee part of which will go to a Canadian military charity. The documentary is a worthy tribute to a young Canadian who is emblematic for his generation of young men and women who answered the call of their country to fight for the freedom of others on the far side of the world. 7600 of them died in The Netherlands.

Lest we forget…

[1] – Note the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is based in the UK and the CWGC, Canadian Agency in Ottawa.

Second World War

The QOR’s Final Days of WWII

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Written by Assistant Curator, Sergeant Graham Humphrey, CD.

For The Queens Own Rifles of Canada, the end of the Second World War was drawing to a close exactly 75 years ago today. They had fought a ferocious enemy and kept up the fine traditions and demonstrated the Latin motto In Pace Paratus.

Their journey to war began at  University Armouries and Camp Borden. From there they traveled to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, England, Scotland, Normandy, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and ended in Germany. They were led by three Commanding Officers (and a number of short term acting COs from time to time):

During the war 563 Queen’s Own Rifleman were killed in action and buried throughout Europe. Almost 900 were wounded, with some being wounded two or three times. Through out Hong Kong, Italy, and Northwest Europe 60 other QOR personnel lost their lives and we must never forget their sacrifice.  You can read all their names on our Virtual Wall of Honour.

QOR action May 4-5, 1945 – Click for a larger image.

On May 4th 1945 at 0100 hours Dog Company started to move from its position at Mittegrossefehn to continue the attack into Germany leading The Queen’s Own advance. Their only obstacles were blown bridges and road craters so they achieved their objective by 0200 hours. Baker Company began to pass through Dog Company at 0300 hours and renewed the thrust West and North into the city of Ostersander, Germany. The opposition was comprised of a couple of rear guards and Baker Company met their objective by 0600 hours while taking 14 enemy prisoners.

In the early afternoon of May 4th 1945 Charlie Company commenced its attack toward Holtrop, Germany. The objective of the Company was a crossroads. To get there the men had to advance through a terrain that consisted of agricultural fields with hedgerows set against a backdrop of an imposing forest. Charlie Company was met with fierce resistance during their advance. Their opposition included small arms as well as a 20mm Anti Aircraft gun. The consolidation occurred at 1500 hours, this resulted in three wounded while known enemy losses were of one killed. These last casualties were Riflemen T.H. Graham, A.W. Holdsworth, and A. Rosen.

Ivo Kuijkhoven, Sergeant Graham Humphrey and Jork Zijlstra at the crossroads in 2015 where the QOR ended their war.

With this the combat of the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada came to an end for the Second World War.  A German Lieutenant Colonel named Harms accompanied by the Burgomaster, traveled from the direction of Aurich. They approached Charlie Company’s lines under a flag of truce to negotiate the surrender of Aurich. At 2000 hours the Battalion learned of the unconditional surrender of all German forces facing the 21st Army Group in Northwest Germany, Holland, the Friesian Islands, Heligoland, Denmark and all ships of the German Navy adjacent to the German General Staff Headquarters. Ceasefire was to begin officially at 0800 hours the following morning, 5 May 1945.

Take a minute today to remember the sacrifices of generations of the past and never forget.

We will Remember them.
In Pace Paratus

Turning in Rifles at the end of hostilities – June 1945
Arriving Home, Monarch of Bermuda, Halifax Dec 17, 1945
1st Battalion QOR walking out of the north side of Union Station on arriving back in Toronto
Captain Jack Pond arriving home after the war greeting his daughter.
Remembrance, Riflemen, Second World War

Ben Dunkelman Heritage Toronto Plaque Unveiled

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On the afternoon of Thursday June 8, 2017, a plaque was unveiled next to the site of the Tip Top Tailor building by Heritage Toronto, the Dunkelman family and the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, honouring the legacy of distinguished military officer and entrepreneur Ben Dunkelman.

Below are remarks given by Lieutenant Colonel Sandi Banerjee, CD, Commanding Officer of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada:

Major General Holmes,  Member of City Counsel and Heritage Toronto, The Dunkelman Family: Rose, Lorna, Deenah, Daphna, David, Jonathan, Members of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, Ladies and gentlemen. 

It’s an honour for me to bring greetings from Ben’s Regiment on this historic occasion.

On the day I took command of The QOR, I received a very appropriate gift from a friend and mentor. Like Ben, this gentleman was also a warrior and Brigade Commander – he sent me a copy of Dual Allegiance, which reminded me all too well of the challenges and the conflicting demands one faces as a ‘citizen soldier’.

In his book, Ben mentions a special parade in Toronto, one to honour returning soldiers from the First World War. Thought he never glamorizes warfare, he states, “…from the moment of that Toronto Parade I have been sure of one thing: I am a Canadian, proud of Canada’s heritage and proud – if need be – to fight for it.”

Today I stand before you equally proudly of the fact that our Regiment welcomed Ben and all Canadians equally those many years ago. Without thought to religion or family background, The QOR of C has been a home to tens of thousands of proud Canadians with the same thoughts as Brigadier Dunkelman: not to seek conflict, rather to serve those who cannot protect themselves.

Toronto and Torontonians have a rich history and association with Canada’s Armed Forces. We stand in front of HMCS York, steps from Fort York Armoury and historic Old Fort York. We are standing very near the grounds where The QOR of C gathered before stepping off for Ridgeway to protect southern Ontario from invading forces 151 year ago. Though our early days, sending expeditionary forces to the Nile and Boer Wars, the World Wars, the Korean conflict, peace enforcement missions and the war in Afghanistan, or todays’ deployments in the Middle east, Africa and eastern Europe: Toronto has always supported our men and women in harm’s way.

The Regiment recently returned from two very special events overseas: the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and just prior to that, our commemorations in Normandie, where Ben and his fellow Band of Brothers served. There we received not one but two honours: The Freedom of the City of Bernier sur Mer, where we were the only Toronto Regiment to land on D-Day, and the FotC of Anisy, where again, this Toronto Regiment was the only Allied unit to achieve their D-Day objective. These came at enormous costs, but as Ben showed by his personal example, the costs of freedom, of human dignity and decency, are borne by ordinary citizens accepting extraordinary responsibilities in times of great need.

I can also tell you that the people of Normandy, of France, have never forgotten the sacrifices of this Toronto Regiment and of the million Canadians who liberated them through two World Wars.

It is entirely appropriate then, that we gather here today to similar remember: to honour a proud Torontonian and Canadian who served twice to protect those in harm’s way. I would like to thank the City of Toronto and Heritage Toronto for bestowing this honour on a member of our Regiment and our city. May it serve as a reminder to all who come across it of a great man and our joint history together, a reminder of our City and her soldiers who have carried a part of Canada with them across the globe.

Thanks also to Captain Rob Chan and his family for their efforts in working with Heritage Toronto to make this happen.

You can read more about Ben Dunkelman here.

Dunkelman, Ben Heritage Toronto Plaque

Second World War

1998 Interviews with Three QOR D-Day Veterans

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On this 72nd Anniversary of D-Day, we’d like to share these interview transcripts. As part of a school project, Ryan Lutz and Andrew Brooks interviewed each veteran in his home on Sunday, November 15, 1998.  The interviews were recorded on audio tape and transcribed to this document by James Lutz. 

Other interviews with these three veterans:

  • Charles Dalton (and his brother Elliot Dalton) is interviewed on the DVD “Canadians on D-Day: The Juno Beach Centre”.
  • Rolph Jackson is interviewed on the DVD “D-Day: Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny” and in Lance Goddard’s related book “D-Day Juno Beach: Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny”.
  • Jack Martin is interviewed on the DVD “D-Day: Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny” and in Lance Goddard’s related book “D-Day Juno Beach: Canada’s 24 Hours of Destiny”.

Questions Asked of the Veterans:

  1. What was your rank when you landed on D-Day?
  2. What was your first reaction when you heard you were going to land on June 6?
  3. What were the days like leading up to the landing on D-Day?
  4. What was it like and what were your feelings when you were coming in on the landing craft?
  5. How did everyone else feel?
  6. What happened when the ramp dropped when you landed? What were your feelings at this time?
  7. When you first got onto the beach, what were your feelings and what did you do?
  8. What was the atmosphere like during the battle?
  9. What did you do when you got close to the enemy? Did you feel a sense of relief or accomplishment when you got near?
  10. What was your first reaction when you started taking prisoners?
  11. What was your first reaction when you looked back on what you had just done, after the battle?
  12. What did you do you after the battle?
  13. What are your feelings at the present day?
  14. Do you have any other comments on D-Day and your experience?

Interview with Charles Dalton

Major Charles Dalton receiving the DSO from General Montgomery
Major Charles Dalton receiving the DSO from General Montgomery

Charles Dalton joined the Cadet Corps of the Queen’s Own when he was 15.  He was a 34-year-old Major when he commanded B Company.  A and B Companies made up the first wave which landed at 0812 hours.  B Company was on the left, and A Company, commanded by his brother Elliot Dalton, was on the right.  Major Dalton was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O.) for his leadership in the war and later served as Honorary Colonel of the QOR. 

What happened when the ramp dropped when you landed?  What were your feelings at this time?

When I said “Follow me!” and dashed down the ramp into 12 feet of water, I disappeared.  I had an 85-pound pack on my back with ammunition and food and so on plus I had a life preserver on, so we all sank just like stones.  So when people say we ran up the beach, I say “Run?  I was barely crawling up the beach!”  And we were full of water because the impregnated battle dress we were wearing at the time kept the water from running out.

The man next to me was hit seven times down his arm.  I didn’t get touched.  We scrambled up the beach and when I looked back, I was horrified to see that there was nobody following me.  Now, one of the difficult things about leading is that you never can look back, because if you look back, the people behind you then get the feeling that you’re stopping and that the smart thing to do is get down out of the line of fire.  When I looked back I thought they had gone to ground, but in fact they were lying at the water’s edge and Germans were firing at them as they lay wounded.

So in 10 minutes, of the 120 men I had with me, we were all either killed or wounded.

When you first got onto the beach, what were your feelings and what did you do?

Of course you’re always frightened, no question about that, but all I could think of was that our Medical Officer had said “Now look, 50% of you are going to be casualties.  If you’re hit, one of two things will happen.  If you’re dead, your problems will be over.  If you’re wounded, you’re going to get better.  So just lie there and keep quiet and wait for the medical people to catch up with us, but nobody else will stop to help you, because if they do the whole thing will stop.”

So I kept thinking, what I’m really worrying about is whether I’m going to survive, but it looks as if you don’t have much choice in this whole thing.  So the important thing is that I can give the leadership that they’re expecting from me because I have their lives in my hands.  If I make the wrong decision, we’ll all wind up being killed or wounded, and if I don’t make any decision, we’ll have the worst chaos of all.  So I’d better just get on with the idea of doing the best job I can and forgetting about whether I’m going to be sacrificed as we land on the beach.

Maj. Dalton, Semple, Mr. Jackson, taken by Hugh Lamb
Maj. Dalton, Semple, Mr. Jackson, taken by Hugh Lamb

What did you do when you got close to the enemy?  Did you feel a sense of relief or accomplishment when you got near?

The pillbox I was assigned to attack was supposed to have been taken out by the Engineers and the Tank Corps, but that didn’t happen because it was too rough and the tanks tended to sink right off the landing craft.  So it wasn’t until later, after I had been hit, that I recognized that I wasn’t going to be able to get in this pillbox because it had a steel door and a 36 grenade wasn’t about to blow the door in.  So I finally decided that if I used my Sten gun at the two machine guns that were firing, but they had a shield over their guns so that nobody could fire in.  So I had a ladder that we put up the wall, and then I fired at the shield with the hope that the bullets would ricochet off them and fly around inside their pillbox.  And actually they did, so the machine guns stopped firing, but we were still no closer to getting in.

Meanwhile, one of the German officers got his 9mm revolver out and fired at me and it drilled through my helmet and down the ladder I slid.  One of the stretcher bearers was there and said to me, “Sir I thought you were smarter than that, to stick your head over the top of that wall”.  I said, “I wasn’t trying to be smart, I was just trying to find some way to stop these people from firing, and at least I’ve accomplished that much.”  So when the tanks came up, they did just that.

What did you do you after the battle?

It was about 8:30 in the morning, I guess, and I was walking along the beach trying to catch up with the rest of the company.  A medical officer saw the bandage on my head and he took the dressing off and put another bigger one on.  He said, “You will be back in England by tonight,” but I wasn’t back in England that night, I was lying on stretcher on the beach until 3 o’clock in the morning.  People came along and put cigarettes in my mouth and gave me some rum, but after a while you realized you were terribly uncomfortable with all that sand inside your clothes.

So on the third day we were put on a tank transporter which was large landing craft, and we were stacked up three high in stretcher. By that time, cigarettes were getting pretty scarce, but here’s the kind of comradeship we had.  I would light a cigarette and take two puffs and then pass it to the man above me who took two puffs.  And if nobody cheated it would go all the way up to the top rack and back down and I would get the last puff.  Well, most people would say “Here I am, and I don’t even know if I’m going to be alive by morning, so I’m going to take a really good drag on it,” but nobody did.  And that’s what people missed when they got home, and that’s why a lot of them signed up to go to Korea.

Interview with Rolph Jackson

Rfn Jackson in Belgium Oct 1944Rolph Jackson was a 23-year-old Lance Corporal on D-Day.  He was in charge of a Bren Gun Section of B Company which was in the first wave, landing at 0812 hours.

What was your first reaction when you heard you were going to land on June 6?

We figured it was the only way we could get home.  We were awfully tired of being away from home.  We’d come over in ’41 in the summer and the English got used to us and we got used to the English, but it was an awful lot of training.  It was a job.  We knew it was going to be tough.  You people are not brought up with Canadian history, but we had our forefathers, our fathers’ generation’s reputation to live up to from World War I.  And we did it.

What was it like and what were your feelings when you were coming in on the landing craft?

Let’s get it over with!  When we first saw the beach, it was on the dark side of dawn.  It was British war time which is two hours ahead of solar time.  It was double daylight, if you follow me.  You could see outlines against the dark side.  The beaches were under bombardment.  You could see the ships at sea, a massive flotilla, the most ships I’d ever seen.  We landed while part of the bombardment was still going on.  Many of us that survived felt it would have been better to land without the bombardment because the beaches were manned when we got there.

We had rocket craft that had 1400 rockets.  They fired them in batteries of 20, and they killed a lot of cows.  Unfortunately a Yankee Thunderbolt [aircraft] was patrolling the beach and they took out one of their Thunderbolts.  That was the first casualty we saw.

What happened when the ramp dropped when you landed?  What were your feelings at this time?

Our landing craft had two sections of infantry, about 20 men, and a section of engineers.  They were demolition engineers.  We landed at the sea wall.  I’ve seen the Yankee beaches and they were very shallow, but ours was very steep.  I was – if you’ll pardon me – up to my balls in water.

We hit the beach and it was a slaughterhouse.  They cut us to ribbons.  Of the 10 men in my section, 7 were dead and 2 of us were wounded.   Two of us crossed the wall.  In our platoon, there were 6 men left by 2 o’clock the next morning, 6 out of 36.  I was hit in the hand in the water and knocked off my feet.

I lost a lot buddies.  I seen them go down.  The sea was red with blood.  Most of them went down in the water, and I think quite possibly drowned rather than was shot.  We had to walk 25 or 30 yards in the water.

Lance Corporal Roph Jackson
Lance Corporal Roph Jackson

When you first got onto the beach, what were your feelings and what did you do?

How did we feel when we were on the beach?  Fairly angry.  We were carrying a lot of assault equipment.  If you were carrying anything but a rifle, you didn’t make it.  Was I scared?  You didn’t think about it.

We cleared one dugout.  We presumed it was cleared – they didn’t come out after the 36 [hand grenade] went down there.  German grenades were concussion, and ours were shrapnel.  I have a piece of German grenade in my shoulder still.  The doctor gave me some sulfa because I had been shot in the hand.

We did what the Americans didn’t do.  We had Dieppe for training.  At Dieppe the soldiers stopped to help the wounded.  We learned you can’t stop under fire because a moving target is harder to hit.     We were told under no circumstances to stop and help the wounded.  No way.  Get in behind the enemy and take him out.

Was I scared?  I guess maybe we were.  We didn’t think about it.

What did you do you after the battle?

That night I wasn’t looking forward to having to dig in with one hand.  I saw the M.O. [Medical Officer] and he evacuates me because I have bones smashed.  I spent most of the night getting back to the dressing station.  I fell asleep against a stone wall and maybe got 3 hours sleep.

Interview with Jack Martin

Jack Martin was a 20-year-old Rifleman (private) on D-Day.  He was from Toronto, and his father and 4 brothers had all served in the QOR.  Rifleman Martin was with the mortars who landed with C Company in the second wave at 0830 hours.

What were the days like leading up to the landing on D-Day?

We were confined to barracks – that was C.B. – waterproofing the Bren Gun Carriers.  We had scissors and were cutting each others’ hair.  I got a beaver cut.

What was it like and what were your feelings when you were coming in on the landing craft?

I was on a Landing Craft Tank with the Bren Gun Carriers.  I was lying on the gunwale looking onto the water for mines.  This was all new to me . . . I was just a kid of 20!

How did everyone else feel?

I never gave any notice to anybody else.  I was just looking after this guy [meaning himself].

What happened when the ramp dropped when you landed?  What were your feelings at this time?

When the ramp went down, we landed on dry sand and we ran right off.  There was a captain giving us directions and he had blood streaming down his face.  That scared me more than anything else.  We were ordered to run right up to the wall for protection.  I ran like hell.  One of the other landing craft had flipped in the water.  I couldn’t see what happened to the men because we were told we couldn’t stop on the beach.  I thought it was a great accomplishment that we had gotten that far.

What was the atmosphere like during the battle?

It was hectic!  This was our first time in battle.  It means something if it’s permanent when they hit you.

What did you do when you got close to the enemy?  Did you feel a sense of relief or accomplishment when you got near?

We were the mortars, so we didn’t get too near the enemy.  We had to support the infantry.  We were near the self-propelled guns which were firing at a German 88 [88mm gun].  An SP was hit, and it was loaded with ammo, so it blew sky-high.  It was the worst explosion I ever heard, and I served from D-Day through to VE Day.  The gun from the SP came whizzing through the air at me and right over our heads.  It sounded like a freight train.

What was your first reaction when you looked back on what you had just done, after the battle?

I was tired.  I got into my slit trench and went to sleep.  We were in a barnyard, and during the night a German staff car pulled into the barnyard.  The men in it went to sleep.  In the morning, some of our soldiers woke the Germans – there were 2 officers and an NCO – and they were really surprised when we woke them up!

What are your feelings at the present day?

It was something to have lived through.  I’m one of the few left.  We were all volunteers, you know.  I have no regrets.  I had lots of great friends.

Further Information about these Veterans

Charles Dalton died in 1999 – see below for his obituary from the Queen’s Own Rifles website (qor.com).

Rolph Jackson died in 2006 – see below for his obituary from the Queen’s Own Rifles website (qor.com).

Jack Martin died in 2016.

Charles Dalton’s obituary from the QOR website:

Colonel C.O.
Charles Dalton DSO, KStJ, ED
OC ‘B’ Company
D-Day
1910 – 1999

Colonel Charles Osborne Dalton, the last surviving D-Day company commander of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada who was recognized for his gallantry with the Distinquished Service Order by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, has died aged 88.

As Company Commander of B Company, then-Major Dalton, along with his younger brother, Elliot – who commanded A Company – led the two front line assault battalions on Juno Beach for The Queen’s Own Rifles – Canada’s oldest continuously serving infantry regiment.

The brothers, who had developed a strong bond, were known in the Regiment as “Mark I and Mark II” to distinguish the elder from the younger brother.

“The Dalton brothers were legends, everybody was devoted to them and had tremendous respect for them,” said Barney Danson, chairman of the Canadian War Museum’s advisory committee and colleague of Col. Dalton. “You always had confidence in what they were doing and they always had the human touch. But they both commanded great respect.”

At his brother Elliot’s funeral service in 1994, Col. Dalton said as D-Day approached and he began to realize he may never see his brother again, he tried to come up with some parting words.

But as they parted on their respective landing crafts he said quite simply: “I’ll see you tonight.”

As the landing craft ramp dropped in front of Bernieres-sur-Mer, Major Dalton turned to his men shouting, “Follow me!”, as they plunged into two to three metres of water, trudging their way to shore.

As they made for the seawall, Maj. Dalton turned back to see his men laying on the sand.

“I thought they had gone to ground for cover, then realized they’d been hit,” he remembered.

The company had landed directly in front of a concrete strong point and were immediately met with fierce machine-gun fire. Almost half of the company was lost in the initial dash across the beach. As he and his men tried to capture a German gun emplacement, Maj. Dalton was shot in the head, the bullet ripping off his helmet and peeling off his scalp.

Despite severe wounds, Maj. Dalton continued to lead his men across the beach and was personally instrumental in knocking out one of the pillboxes.

“With blood pouring down the side of his face, he still encouraged us to continue on,” said Joe Oggy, a retired Corporal, who was under Maj. Dalton’s command at the time.

His greatest fear, he once said, was not being wounded or killed but failing to lead his men. The citation of the DSO read, in part: “By this officer’s example of leadership and bravery, and his coolness in the face of stiff opposition, the enemy fortified position was quickly overrun, and the company which followed in the landing on the beach suffered no casualties from the beach defences.

“The casualties were the heaviest suffered by any Canadian unit that day. In the end, 56 other ranks had been killed in action; seven died of wounds. Six officers and 69 other ranks had been wounded.

As Maj. Dalton was evacuated to a hospital in England, his brother Elliot was mistakenly told that Charles had been killed.

“While I was sad to hear my brother had died, I didn’t really have time to grieve, as we were still fairly busy,” Elliot Dalton recalled.

However, Elliot was wounded a few days later and sent to the same hospital as his brother. As the nurse wheeled Elliot to the bed marked Maj. Dalton, he noticed a patient lay there with the sheet pulled over his head.

When the nurse asked the patient why he was in the bed, Maj. Charles Dalton replied; “Because I’m Major Dalton.”

During his recuperation, Maj. Dalton had the honour of meeting Queen Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

By August, Maj. Charles Dalton had recuperated well enough to return to combat with the Queen’s Own and served through the Channel Ports campaign as second-in-command of the Regiment during the fighting of the Scheldt in Belgium in the fall of 1944.

He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and appointed to command the Non-Commissioned Officers School at Ravenstein, Holland. He returned to Canada in March, 1945, to command the Small Arms School at Long Branch, Ont., and retired from active service in September, 1945. From 1968 – 1975 he was the Honorary Colonel of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada.

Born in Toronto, Col. Dalton enlisted with The Queen’s Own Rifles Cadet Company in 1925 and the 2nd Battalion Militia a year later at the age of 16.

He volunteered for active service and was sent to England in March, 1940, as an instructor to the Canadian Infantry Training Unit. In 1943, he rejoined the Regiment and was soon promoted to Major and made Officer Commanding B Company.

“He and his brother were very distinguished guys. Charlie was the archetypal dashing young officer,” said Cpl. Oggy. “He really had a lot of style. He was elegant and acted the part of a fine officer.”

“He was fantastic. He was a buddy. His brother was the same way, very down to earth. We would follow him to hell if we had to. His friendliness and rank meant nothing to him as far as we were concerned, he was a buddy and we respected him. He never talked as an officer ordering this and that, he and his brother were good leaders.” Cpl. Oggy said.

His command responsibilities followed him to civilian life. After the war he joined Canadian Breweries Ltd. as Assistant to the Vice-President of Sales and was appointed Sales Manager of the Carling Breweries Ltd. in 1946. He was made President of Carling Breweries Ltd. in 1951. He was appointed Executive Vice-President Canadian Operations, Canadian Breweries Ltd. in 1964 and Executive Vice-President of Canadian Breweries Ltd. in 1965.

He also became Vice-President of Canadian Executive Overseas from 1969 to 1971. He was a popular and much sought after-dinner speaker.

“He was a reserved person. And yet he was amazingly articulate and spoke exceedingly well and he was asked to speak a great deal because he could express and talk about the war with a light touch and good humour but didn’t treat it lightly,” said Mr. Danson, who served as a Liberal Minister of Defence.

Colonel Charles Osborne Dalton was awarded the Distinguished Service Order by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery for “leadership and bravery, and his coolness in the face of stiff opposition.”

During his recuperation from a head wound, Colonel Charles Osborne Dalton had the honour of meeting Queen Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Rolph Jackson’s obituary from the QOR website:

Rifleman
Rolph Jackson
“B” Company
D-Day
1921 – 2006

Rolph Jackson was born April 6, 1921, in Toronto, a ninth generation descendant of Loyalist settlers from the U.S. Originally, the Jackson family came from County Armagh in Northern Ireland. His mother died when he was age six and his sister Lenore, two. The family struggled as their Dad had work only occasionally, especially during the lean Depression years. Rolph was sent to live with his uncle at age nine in 1930 on a farm in Grey County, near Holland Centre. His sister went to live with an aunt in the West.

Life on the farm in the 1930’s was difficult and the harsh environment in which he was raised significantly shaped his life. Rolph moved back to Toronto in 1937 to be with his father and to look for work. Rolph joined The Queen’s Own Rifles militia in December 1939, shortly after WW11 began. When the Third Division was mobilized for overseas service, he “went active” on 5 June, 1940, at age 19, enlisting in Baker Company of the 1st Battalion. He trained with them in Newfoundland and Sussex, N.B. prior to departing for England in the summer of 1941.

During embarkation leave, Rolph came back to Toronto and had a visit with Olive Lipski and family. She wrote him faithfully and he wrote back when he could.

On D-Day, his Baker Company was especially hard-hit, only Rolph and two others (Doug Hester and Bob Nicol) in his section survived. Rolph was wounded in the hand and after recovery remained in England until the end of the war.

Following Rolph’s return, he and Olive were married on 9 October, 1945, at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Toronto. Their daughter Chrystal was born in late 1947 and they soon decided they needed more room. They bought their first house: an “ugly four room” one and lived there from 1948 to 1952. After working at a variety of temporary jobs, Rolph got work at The Toronto Star in 1950 as a pressman and he worked there until retirement.

The Jackson family moved to a larger six-room bungalow in Scarborough (Pharmacy and Eglinton-St. Clair) just one block away from a public school that Chrystal attended beginning that Fall. Olive and Rolph lived there from 1952 until 1966 when Chrystal graduated from Grade 13 and they moved to the house on Roosevelt in East York. It was reasonably close to downtown for work for Rolph and a good community to live in.

The family attended Emmanuel Lutheran for a number of years in the 1950’s and early ’60’s where Olive taught Sunday School. She was also involved with the women’s group and helped with Christmas pageants. They had a lot of fun and liked to go to dances, shows and played cards a lot. Olive and Rolph were members of RCL Branch 344 from the 1970’s, when they met in a building on Elm Street (long since demolished), before moving to its current Lakeshore Avenue location.

They also took many interesting vacations: to the eastern United States, California, Mexico, Caribbean, Hawaii and to Europe four times, including memorial trips to Normandy as well as tours to Greece and the former Yugoslavia.

Rolph loved the out-of-doors. For many years he would take a friend and go canoeing and fishing in Algonquin Park, even into his 70’s when his friends weren’t able to go any longer.

After his wife died in 2001, Rolph lived as a widower in the house with his black cat, Midnight. His health declined and he eventually sold the house at 53 Roosevelt Road in 2005. He moved into Sunnybrook Hospital, Hees Wing, where he resided at the time of his death, just three days after the 62nd anniversary of D-Day.

—————————————————————–

This document may be cited as:  Lutz, Ryan and Andrew Brooks.  Interviews with Three D-Day Veterans of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada.  Toronto, 1998. 

Version of May 15, 2016

Events, Exhibits, First World War, Second World War

Launch of the “From Vimy to Juno” Travelling Exhibit

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On Thursday March 31, we were pleased to host the launch of the “From Vimy to Juno” travelling exhibit and education program. The exhibit was created by the Juno Beach Centre in partnership with the Vimy Foundation and with funding support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Thanks to the Liberty Entertainment Group, operators of Casa Loma, the reception was held in the beautiful Casa Loma library with about 150 people present through the evening.

The formal remarks phase of the event was MC’d by Juno Beach Centre Executive Director Jenna Zuschlag Misener and included remarks by Jeremy Diamond, Executive Director of the Vimy Foundation; Major Shawn Stewart, Deputy Commanding Officer of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada; and the Juno Beach Centre Association President Mr Don Cooper. The formal portion of the evening was concluded by the Honorable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs who spoke and formally announced the Government of Canada’s support of this project.

QOR Brass Quintet at Vimy to Juno launch

We were also pleased to have three regimental skirmishers present and a brass quintet from the Regimental Band which performed throughout the evening.

A contingent of re-enactors from both WWI and WWII also provided excellent displays and contributed to the exhibit atmosphere with their period dress.

_MG_7438

Thanks also to our museum volunteers who helped through the evening.

At the end of the night the exhibit was moved to the Austin Room on the third floor and accessible from our Museum area where it will remain until April 17 when it will then move on to its next location.

The exhibit includes a major educational component and JBC has worked with Lisa Kaplan at Casa Loma on how this can be effectively used by visiting school groups over the coming weeks.

You can see more photos of this event on our Flickr site.

Artifacts, Regular Force, Research, Riflemen, Second World War, Uniforms

History of the Lance Corporal Rank in The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada

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The practices throughout the history of the Regiment come and go, and over time you see reference to “Lance” rank but only used in the Regiment as an Acting Corporal. During the Second World War you see the use of Lance Corporal on parade states and promotion list but you will not see a photo of the wearing of a one chevron on the uniforms of any QOR Rifleman. Simply they just wore the rank of Corporal since it is an Acting Corporal rank in a Rifle Regiment. Below is a write up of a Memo that was written for the Regiment in 1942 but rewritten in 1954.

MEMO: RE: LANCE CORPORALS

ARMY HISTORICAL RESEARCH, VOLUME V, 1926

This book contains quite a lengthy and comprehensive article entitled “The Lancespessade and the History of Lance Rank” in the British Army, and covers a period of several hundred years, giving quotations from many authoritative sources on the subject.

The following are several quotations taken from the article:

“The term lance as a qualifying prefix to non-commissioned ranks, is peculiar to the British Army today, and is an interesting link with that period which the Military Organization of the Middle Ages was being transferred into that which, in its essentials, is still current: that is to say, with the end of the 15th, and the beginning of the 16th centuries. The word is derived from the italian lancia spezzata, literally a broken or shattered lance, Lance Corporal usually defined as the title of that rank which was granted to the lowest officer that “hath any commandment” and “signifies Deputie Corporal.”

“By the beginning of the 17th century, in England at least, the Lancespessade had become and Infantryman only, and almost exactly the equivalent of the Lance Corporal of present day.”

“Lance the Corporal of the Cavalry unit is to supply and do all duties of the Corporals and Lancespessades of the Foote.” The definition of a Lancespessade is given as “he that commands over ten soldiers, the lowest officer in a foot company.”

The article makes it quite clear that the rank of Lance Corporal was peculiar to the Infantry alone in the British Army, until long after the organization of Rifle Regiments, and it contains no reference to this rank ever having been introduced into Rifle Regiments.

REGULATIONS FOR RIFLE CORPS.

These Regulations were originally issued in 1800, by Colonel Coote Manningham, who is usually referred to as the originator of rifle regiments, and has become the first Commanding Officer of the Rifle Corps, now the Rifle Brigade. They are reprinted in a book bearing the same title, published in 1890, with certain amendments added.

Article 11 dealing with the Formation of the Corps, in so far as it relates to Sergeants and Corporals states as follows:

“The four Sergeants are to command a half platoon or squad each. The senior Corporal of each company is to act as Sergeant in the first squad.

The four Corporals are to be divided to the four half platoons. One soldier of peculiar merit is to act in each company as Corporals, and to belong to the third squad.

The Acting Sergeant and Acting Corporal are to be the only non-commissioned officers transferable from squad to squad.

In every half platoon one soldier of merit will be selected and upon him the charge of the squad devolves in the absence of both non-commissioned officers of it. As from these four Chosen Men (As they are called) all Corporals and Acting Corporals are to be appointed, the best men alone are to be selected for this distinction.

The graduation of rank and responsibility, from the Colonel of the Regiment to the Chosen Man of a squad, has how been detailed, and on no instance to be varied by whatever officer may command it.”

STANDING ORDERS OF THE RIFLE BRIGADE

These Standing Orders issued in 1911, make no mention of Lance rank, wither in the text or in the various sample forms of parade states, reports, etc., in the back of the book. Acting Corporals are shown.

Article 11 – Formation of the Regiment, section 18 states:

“Corporals and Acting Corporals are responsible to the Sergeants of their respective sections.”

A copy of the Standing orders referred to above was received by me from the O.C. The Rifle Brigade in 1925, and he states at that time that they were the last published Standing Orders, and that no material changes or amendments had been made since date of issue.

THE KING’S ROYAL RIFLE CORPS

In several volumes of the above covering a period of from 1820 up to some time in the 1890’s. There are a number of parade states, casualty lists, awards of various kinds such as good conduct badges, marksmen’s badges, etc., I could not find in these volumes any reference to Lance rank, but Acting Corporals are mentioned.

THE QUEEN’S OWN RIFLES OF CANADA

RE: LANCE RANK

REGIMENTAL ORDERS

Regimental Orders are complete from the first R.O. Issued in 1860 until the present date, and are on file in the records of the Regiment.

From the first R.O. Issued in April 26, 1860 until 1866, there is no mention of Lance rank in any form whatever. There were, however, appointments made as Acting Corporals.

R.O. May 19, 1865 states “The proper regulation chevrons for NCO’s of the QOR are as follows and will be worn on both arms:

For Corporals – 2 black stripes on a red ground.”

There is no mention of Lance Corporals, or the chevrons that they would wear.

In R.O. January 22, 1866, the promotion of a private to the rank of Lance Corporal appears for the first time. Further promotions to that rank appear in subsequent orders up to the year 1874, when they cease, and from that year on appointments to be Acting Corporals appear again, and continue to the present time. There has not been an appointment to Lance rank since 1874, a period of 68 years.

No R.O. Appears in 1865, 1866 or any subsequent year authorizing Lance rank, nor does any R.O. Appear in 1874 or subsequent years abolishing them.

NOMINAL ROLLS FOR ANNUAL MUSTER

The nominal rolls of all companies and units of the Regiment for the Annual Muster parade each year are complete from 1860 until the present time, and are on file in the records.

On these Muster Rolls Acting Corporals appear from 1860 until 1865 inclusive. In the years 1866 to 1874 Lance Corporals appear, and commencing with the year 1875 until the present time Acting Corporals are shown, but no Lance Corporals.

REGIMENTAL STANDING ORDERS

Regimental Standing Orders were issued only in the years 1862, 1872, 1880, 1883, and 1925. Copies of all these are on file in the records.

There is no mention in any of these Standing Orders of Lance rank, not even in those issued in 1872, a year in which some Lance Corporals existed in the Regiment. The lowest rank mentioned is that or Corporal, and the lowest rank badges provided for this is of Corporal.

CONCLUSIONS

  1. Lance rank originated in the Foot Regiments, later Infantry, of the British Army, and was peculiar to that branch of the service for several hundred years. During the 19th century it was adopted by some other red-coated regiments of other branches of the service, but not by Rifle Regiments.

  2. Lance rank was not in force in The Rifle Brigade in 1925, as will be seen by their Standing Orders issued in 1911, and the statement of the [Officer Commanding] that unit in 1925, and it is extremely unlikely that it now exists in that regiment.

  3. Lance rank was not in force in The King’s Royal Rifle Corps as will be seen from their chronicle up to the South African War.

  4. The Queen’s Own Rifles, when authorized as a rifle regiment, on organization in 1860, undoubtedly adopted the “Regulations for Rifle Corps” as was practised at the time by The Rifle Brigade and The King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

  5. The deviation from Regulations for Rifle Corps and the Standing orders of the Regiment, in The Queen’s Own Rifles from 1866 to 1874 is hard to account for now.

    It is possible that the Officer Commanding in 1866, through carelessness or otherwise, permitted this unauthorized deviation from the Regulations to creep in. It is quite clear, however, that he did not provide for the change in Regimental Orders, nor did he change the Standing Orders to provide for it.

    By 1872, another Officer Commanding was in command of the Regiment. He revised Standing Orders in 1872, but again no provision was made for Lance rank.

    By 1874, the late General Sir William Otter has assumed Command of the Regiment, and was, as is well known, a great stickler for regulations of the service and tradition. It is quite evident that it was he who abolished the unauthorized Lance rank in the Regiment no doubt to conform with the standing Orders of the Regiment which were based upon the “Regulations for Rifle Corps.”

    He did not issue an order abolishing Lance rank, probably because there had never been a regimental order authorizing it, but just let it fade out.

  6. With the exception, therefore, of the short period 1866-1874, when Lance rank was entirely unauthorized in The Queen’s Own Rifles, it has not existed in the Regiment. Nor has there been at any time during the Regiment’s 82 years of existence, and order authorizing it in the Regimental Standing orders.

  7. It is quite clear from the foregoing, that The Queen’s Own Rifles, in having Acting Corporals instead of lance Corporals, is following not only a Regimental custom, but a Rifle custom which was duly authorized on the organization of Rifle regiments in the British Service, and is still the practice in two of the best known Rifle regiments in the British Army.

I hope you enjoyed this article as it shows reflection into the history and traditions of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and our sister regiment’s in England. Throughout my research and studying of photos of The Queen’s Own Rifles throughout the history I have only found one photo (pictured below) that shows the wearing of one chevron and this photo was taken when the Regiment was deployed to Korea in 1955. After the above article was written you will see in photos the addition of a QOR Collar Dog above the Corporal Chevron (pictured below) which would be the present “Master Corporal” or meaning the Section Commander.

Sincerly,

MCpl Graham Humphrey

 

Seen here is an Acting Corporal during the Deployment to Korea in 1955
Seen here is an Acting Corporal during the Deployment to Korea in 1955 – QOR Museum Photo
Rifleman in line to call home - QOR Museum Photo
Rifleman in line to call home – QOR Museum Photo
Second World War

Regimental Museum acquires medals of Lt Col Stephen Lett, DSO

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Thanks to the tremendous generosity of several members of the Regimental family, the museum has recently been able to acquire the medals of Lieutenant Colonel Stephen McLeod Lett, DSO who commanded the 1st Battalion, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in Europe from 25 August 1944 to 30 November 1945.

Lett was invested in the Distinguished Service Order at Buckingham Palace 4 July 1945 in recognition of a personal reconnaissance on 20 September 1944 while planning for an attack on Fort de la Creche.

He was awarded the Bronze Lion (Holland) 22 December 1945 for his leadership and initiative leading The Queen’s Own Rifles and at times the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade. He was also Mentioned in Despatches, 9 March 1946.

We’ll be creating a more detailed profile on Lt Col Lett in the coming weeks but its worth noting that he had served in The Queen’s Own Rifles prior to the Second World War. He also came from a somewhat military family as his father had served in both the Boer War and the First World War with the Canadian Field Artillery, and his grandfather Dr. Stephen Lett, had served in the artillery with the Volunteer Militia and was on Active Service at Port Colborne, Welland and Fort Erie during the Fenian Invasion of 1866.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen McLeod Lett, DSO
Lieutenant Colonel Stephen McLeod Lett, DSO

 

Artifacts, Remembrance, Second World War

Rolph Jackson artifacts return to Normandy for Colonel-in-Chief visit

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As Colonel in Chief of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, The Duchess of Cornwall met veterans and serving members of the regiment on Thursday June 5 and toured the Juno Beach Centre.

At Juno Beach Centre, 5 June 2014 from L to R: the Prime Minister's wife Lauren Harper, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, and Lieutenant Colonel John Fotheringham, CD
At Juno Beach Centre, 5 June 2014 from L to R: the Prime Minister’s wife Lauren Harper, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, and Lieutenant Colonel John Fotheringham, CD

Former QOR Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel John Fotheringham is a Director of the Juno Beach Centre and recently passed on a request from them. They asked if it might be possible for us to make available some artifacts that related to D-Day and the Queen’s Own that the Duchess could see during her visit.

We checked around our collection and decided that items which had belonged to Lance Corporal Rolph Jackson might fit the bill. They had to be fairly small and easy for John to pack in his luggage when he headed to Normandy so we settled on six items.

  1. Identity tags
  2. A French “invasion” 5 franc note
  3. A new testament
  4. A bundle of pay books
  5. A separate pay book
  6. A letter written to his girlfriend (and eventual wife) just before D-Day
Lance Corporal Rolph Jackson's New Testament
Lance Corporal Rolph Jackson’s New Testament
Last letter from Rolph Jackson to Olive Lipski before D-Day
Last letter from Rolph Jackson to Olive Lipski before D-Day
Rolph Jackson identity tags
Rolph Jackson identity tags
French 5 franc "invasion" notes from Rolph Jackson Collection
French 5 franc “invasion” notes from Rolph Jackson Collection
French 5 franc "invasion" notes from Rolph Jackson Collection
French 5 franc “invasion” notes from Rolph Jackson Collection
Inside of one of Rolph Jackson's pay books with a photo of Olive Lipski, who he would later marry.
Inside of one of Rolph Jackson’s pay books with a photo of Olive Lipski, who he would later marry.
Combat, Events, General, Remembrance, Riflemen, Second World War, Uniforms

D-Day Rifleman

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Here is a visual of what a Rifleman would have looked like on D-Day.

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Field Service Marching Order with respirator slung. Gas cape rolled on Belt. Veil camouflage around neck. Shell dressing under netting of helmet. Emergency rations in hip pocket.

A.V. Battle dress will be worn, patches, (Canada & QOR), sewn on, when other collected.

The A.V. Battle dress will be worn for a minimum of 48 hrs, as soon as possible. If any effects on body are noticed, they will be reported immediately.

HAVERSACK

  • Mess tins
  • Holdall (towel, soap, razor, etc.)
  • Knife, fork and spoon
  • 24 hour rations
  • Cardigan
  • Beret
  • Boot laces
  • 4 x 2
  • Cigarettes
  • Pair of socks
  • Brown mug

LARGE PACK

  • Leather jerkin
  • Boots (anklets if required)
  • Cap comforter
  • Towel
  • Boot brush, dubbin & polish
  • Canvas shoes
  • Shirt, Angola
  • Boot laces
  • Drawers, Celular
  • Writing kit
  • Vest, Summer
  • 3 pairs socks
  • Housewife
  • Cigarettes
  • Greatcoat packed on outside of pack, held on by kicking straps

Other

  • Respirator of Assault marching personnel only attached to pack.
  • G-1018 blanket, folded as for kit layout rolled in ground sheet, strongly lied and properly labelled. (This makes a roll about 2 ½ feet long.)
  • All packs, Haversacks, Greatcoats (inside belt), ground sheet, to be marked with Rank, Name, Number and Coy mark.
  • Assault troops are all that land on “D” day.
  • 1 suit of denim to be collected at a later date.
  • Serge suit for all assault personnel, both riding & marching, less those with coys, will be turned in when notified to coy stores. They will be marked as laid down. They will be returned after “D” day.
  • Serge suit for those on follow up vehicles will be put in their Blanket rolls.

Here are some Pre Invasion photos from our Archives:

May 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
May 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo
Pioneer Cpl 1944 - QOR Museum’s Photo
Pioneer Cpl 1944 – QOR Museum’s Photo

To see the War Diaries for Pre and Invasion visit the link below

https://qormuseum.org/history/timeline-1925-1949/the-second-world-war/war-diaries-1944/

Cheers,

MCpl Graham Humphrey

Second World War

1945 Baseball Team

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Thanks to Master Corporal Humphrey’s research, we’re able to share a program from the September 1945 Softball Championship of the Canadian Forces in the Netherlands. Inside the program we find the team lines ups for The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and the Perth Regiment.

Cover of September 1945 Baseball Championship of the Canadian Forces the in Netherlands
Cover of September 1945 Baseball Championship of the Canadian Forces the in Netherlands
Line up of September 1945 Baseball Championship Team of the Canadian Forces the in Netherlands
Line up of September 1945 Baseball Championship Team of the Canadian Forces the in Netherlands

The following photo posted in our last blog includes almost all the members listed above and would suggest they won this game!

04143 - The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Baseball Team September 1945 Canadian Army Champions and Canadian Armed Forces Champions (Click the photo for team member names)
04143 – The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Baseball Team September 1945
Canadian Army Champions and Canadian Armed Forces Champions
(Click the photo for team member names)
Second World War

Enlisted Uniforms of the Queen`s Own Rifles of Canada in World War Two

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The Queen’s Own mobilized for the Second World War on 24 May 1940. The Regiment’s first assignment was the defence of the two strategic airfields of Botwood and Gander, Newfoundland then a posting to New Brunswick for additional training and integration into 8th Brigade. Eventually, the Regiment was posted to England, in July 1941, as a part of the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Division. During the Regiment’s training in the UK, the Colonel-in-Chief, Queen Mary, visited the battalion in Aldershot.

The Queen’s Own’s first action came forming part of the assault wave of the D-Day invasion, 6 June 1944. The Dalton brothers — Majors Charles O. and H. Elliott– were the assault company commanders in the landing. The Regiment hit the beach at the small Normandy seaside resort of Bernieres-sur-Mer, shortly after 0800 hours, on 6 June 1944. They fought through Normandy, Northern France, and into Belgium and Holland, where they liberated the crucial channel ports. In capturing the tiny farming hamlet of Mooshof, Germany, Sergeant Aubrey Cosens was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

The last action of the war for The Queen’s Own Rifles came at 1200 hours on 4 May, when C Company attacked a cross roads just east of Ostersander, Germany. It was taken by 1500 hours, and the order came to discontinue fire on the enemy unless fired upon. Unfortunately, two members of The Queen’s Own lost their lives on this the last day of the war in Europe. The official cease-fire came at 0800 hours on 5 May 1945 followed by VE Day on 8 May. The battalion paraded to a church at Mitte Grossefehn and Major H.E. Dalton, now the acting Commanding Officer, addressed the Regiment. During the war 463 Queen’s Own were killed in action and are buried in graves in Europe and almost 900 were wounded, many two or three times. Sixty more QOR personnel were killed serving with other units in Hong Kong, Italy and Northwest Europe.

Mobilization

During the mobilization of the Regiment in 1940 the regiment was sent straight to Camp Borden (CFB Borden). There, the Regiment got its first issue of uniforms which consisted of; Canadian Battle Dress trousers and blouse, shirt, ammo boots, Anklets,  and the pre-war QOR wedge cap. The QOR has been using the Rifleman green wedge cap ever since roughly the 1870s. The cap is a green melton wool with a scarlet Pom-pom attached to the front as well as two Rifleman small buttons. Scarlet piping is added along the top seam of the cap as well the QOR cap badge mounted on the left side.

Wedge Cap 1 - Graham
Pre war QOR Wedge cap – QOR Museum

Request for approval of the wearing of Coloured F.S. Cap NDHQ 14 October 1940

Coloured F.S. Cap

Reg H.200-1-17 of 7 Sept.

The coloured F.S. Cap worn by this Regiment, both 1st and 2nd battalions, is described below. It has been in use for many years but it is not known whether or not details are in possession of N.D.H.Q.

The pattern of the cap is slightly different from the issue cap, being more rounded in front.

Officers

Colour of cap, flaps and crown – Black

Piping top, front and back seems – Black

No piping on flaps.

Scarlet grenade 1″ in diameter attached at front of top where two top seams meet.

Height of flap at back……………….. 2 1/4″

Height of crown seam, midway….. 4″

Height of crown seam, 1/4 way back

from front seam……………… 3 3/4″

Height of junction of top seams

at front…………………………2 1/2″

Other Ranks

Colour of cap, glaps and crown – Rifle Green.

Piping top, front and back seams – Scarlet.

No piping on flaps.

Scarlet wool ball 1″ in diameter attached at front of top where two top seams meet.

Height of flap at back……2″

Height of crown seam, midway…… 3 7/8″

Height of crown seam, 1/4 way back

from front seam………3 3/4″

Height of junction of top seams

at front…….. 2 3/4″

May the above be forwarded for approval,

Please.

Lt Col

Commanding 1st. Bn. Q.O.R. of C. (CASF).

Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Camp Borden – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
QOR cap badge 1940
QOR cap badge 1940 made of white metal – Graham Humphrey’s Collection

Regimental Orders by Major MacKendrick E.D. Comd 1st Bn QORofC

Camp Borden, Ontario 12 July 1940

Dress, Officers & Other Ranks

Extract C.A.S.F. R.O.521

  1. The collar of the battle dress may be worn open on all occasions during the summer season.
  2. The regulation Khaki shirt will be worn with battle dress. The wearing of various coloured shirts and collars is not permitted.
  3. Other ranks will not wear ties
  4. The collar of the blouse may be lined to protect the neck.
  5. The ribands of orders, decorations, and medals will be worn in undress, service dress and battle dress in the prescribed manner.
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum Photo

1940

7 August 1940 Botwood and Gander, Newfoundland

6 December 1940 Sessex, New Brunswick

Before leaving Borden in August 1940 the Regiments dress was fresh new stocks of the new Canadian made battle dress uniform. Consisting of ankle boots, ankle gators, wool trousers, suspenders, wool tunic, and wool greatcoat. As well, Canadian-made Pattern 37 webbing which consisted of basic front pouches, web belt, cross straps, canteen and holder, entrenching tool and sheath, bayonet frog, and the chest respirator were included. Additionally, Canadian-made denim working uniforms were adopted for use in training and work around camp.  The headdress was the QOR pre-war Rifleman green field service cap, the Mk1 helmet, or a wool winter toque. Shoulder insignia was a black pin-on QOR title or a worsted black QOR on a wool slip-on worn on the epaulette of the battledress.  The standard rifle was the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk. III* with the long bayonet (termed a ‘sword’ in Rifle regiments) which had been in use since the First World War. Transferring from Newfoundland to Sussex, New Brunswick several changes occurred with the exchange of the Mk1 helmet to the new Mk2 helmet, and the adoption of a winter wool cap. This was worn squarely on the head with the Regimental cap badge fixed centre on the front of the front flap of the cap.

Regimental Orders by Major MacKendrick E.D. Comd 1st Bn QORofC

Camp Sussex, N.B 11 mar. 1941

Wearing of Chevrons on Greatcoats; Chevrons will be worn on both arms of greatcoats in the following manner: – above the elbow, the points of the 1 bar chevrons 9 inches, the 2 bar 9 ½ inches, and the 3 bar 10 ½ inches from the top of the sleeve, point downwards.

Regimental Orders by Major MacKendrick E.D. Comd 1st Bn QORofC

Camp Sussex, N.B. 21 dec 1940

Dress – Winter Order

Attention is drawn by the Brigade Major to the following Brigade Orders.

(a) Winter caps will be brought into wear for all purposes with effect from 27 Nov. 1940

(b) Greatcoats and/or overshoes may be worn in camp and on training parades at the discretion of Officers Commanding units.

(c) Until further orders greatcoats and overshoes will be worn on all parades, both training and ceremonia,l at which more than one unit is present.

(d) Greatcoats will be worn on all occasions in “Walking-Out Order” on duty in the town of Sussex and on leave or pass until further orders. Overshoes may be worn at  discretion of Officers Commanding units in “Walking-Out Order”.

Wearing of Winter Caps; Winter caps will be worn squarely on the head. (Bde. Order 176)

Newfoundland – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
Newfoundland – 1940 Rfn Jim Wilkins Personal Photos
QOR in Newfoundland 1940
QOR in Newfoundland 1940 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in Newfoundland 1940
QOR in Newfoundland 1940 – QOR Museum photo
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum photo
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940
QOR in Sussex, New Brunswick 1940 – QOR Museum photo

1941

With the transfer of the Regiment to England in July 1941, a number of changes to the accoutrement of the Regiment occurred. The change from the QOR pin-on or worsted QOR slip-on to a red stitched “QUEEN’S OWN RIFLES” on a rifle green backing occurred. Since the shoulder title didn’t include “CANADA”, the QOR adopted the white-stitched “CANADA” title – either curved or straight – which was stitched below the Regimental shoulder title. Also, we see the addition of a QOR Decal on the Mk II helmet which consisted of a red, green, red, green, and red. At this time, each Regiment in the Canadian military was permitted to adopt a lanyard colour. The QOR retained their red lanyard, which differs from the the black lanyard worn by today’s Rifle regiments. This red lanyard was worn until the end of the war.

Canadian made 1940
Canadian made 1940
British made 1943
British made 1943 – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
Canada shoulder title curved made in 1940
Canada shoulder title curved made in 1940 – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
Canada shoulder title straight made in 1941
Canada shoulder title straight made in 1941 – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
QOR Helmet decal seen here in 1942
QOR Helmet decal seen here in 1942 – QOR Museum Photo

22 May 1925 Standing Orders and Instructions

204. WHISTLE CORD shall be of red cord worn around left arm under shoulder strap.

QOR Red whistle lanyard
QOR Red whistle lanyard – Graham Humphrey’s Collection

15 Dec.  1942 Standing Orders and Instructions

  1. Dress

Officers

(b) Officers will wear black anklets and boots and black ties with battledress, in field service dress, black shoes and socks, black tie and F.S.Green.

Other ranks

(e) A red whistle cord will be worn on the left shoulder by all officers, warrant officers and sergeants.

(i) Some of the irregularities noticed in the dress of the Cdn. Corps are as follows:

The wearing of canvas shoes when walking out. The battle dress blouse undone at neck, except when marching easy. Men either without F.S. Cap or carrying it under shoulder strap.

(j) Badges – On joining the unit each man will be provided free with regt. Badges, cap, shoulder badges Q.O.R., Canada and Div. Patch also cap F.S. Green. From then on he will be held responsible that he is always in possession of these articles.

(k) The F.S. Cap green will not be worn when on duty with troops, but will be only worn off duty, church parades or when walking out.

(o) Chin straps and regimental flashes will be worn on the left side of the helmet.

(p) Good conduct Stripes are awarded after two years good service and are worn on the left arm below the elbow.

QOR Officer looking over the channel
QOR Officer looking over the channel – QOR Museum Photo
QOR Sgt in Holland 1945
QOR Sgt in Holland 1945 – QOR Museum Photo
  1. Order of dress

Uniformity of dress is to be stressed at all times.

(a) Battle Order

  • Battle Dress – anklets
  • Steel Helmet (With of without net as ordered)
  • Web Equipment (braces to be worn)
  • Respirator (slung over right shoulder under waistbelt. Mounted personnel will wear respirator at alert)
  • Water Bottle (on right side)
  • Haversack (with ground sheet or gas cape as ordered)
  • Sword under left arm
  • Gas cape (on shoulder if ordered)
  • Entrenching tool
  • G1098 ammunition.

(b) Marching Order

  • As above except – pack carried in place of haversack.
  • Haversack slung at left side.
  • Respirator at “Alert Position”.

(c) Fatigue Order

  • Battle dress, denim and boots.
  • Other equipment as ordered

(d) Church Parade Order

  • Battle Dress and anklets.
  • F.S. Green Cap.
  • Respirator and helmet (if ordered)

(e) Guard and Picket Order

  • Battle Dress and anklets
  • Steel Helmets
  • Skeleton web
  • Respirator at “alert position”
  • Gase Cape (rolled on shoulder)
  • Detector sleeves

(f) Walking Out Order

  • Battle Dress
  • F.S. Green Cap
  • Anklets – (may or may not be worn).
  • Black shoes and socks may be worn by those in possession of them in lieu of boots.

(g) Drill Order with Pouches

  • Steel Helmet
  • Web braces, belts & pouches
  • Sword at left side of the belt
  • Battledress and anklets

(h) Piquet Order

  • F.S. Khaki cap
  • Waistbelt and sidearm
  • Battledress and anklet

With the formation of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, the QOR was place in its 8th Brigade with Le Regiment de la Chaudiere and the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment. The Divisional formation patch was of French Grey Melton wool fabric which measured 3 inches by 2 inches. A number of shades of this French Grey were seen throughout the war.

Canadian made 1940 Third Division flashes
Canadian made 1940 Third Division flashes – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
British 1943 made Third Division flashes
British 1943 made Third Division flashes – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
QOR 1943 tunic
QOR Riflemans 1943 tunic – Graham Humphrey’s Collection

Starting in 1941, the headdress of the Canadians changed from the pre-war QOR Rifleman Green Wedge to a Khaki wool “Field Service Cap”. This was worn with a slight angle to the right and centred on the head. The location in which the QOR cap badge was mounted was on the left side similar to the QOR rifle green wedge cap.

Canadian made 1941 Field Service Cap
Canadian made 1941 Field Service Cap – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
QOR Rifleman England 1942
QOR Rifleman England 1942 – QOR Museum Photo

1943 In mid 1943, the headdress of the Canadians changed once again with the adoption of the beret. In keeping with rifleman tradition, the wearing of a rifle green backing behind the cap badge was authorized. The backing was of Melton Rifle Green wool and roughly measured 25cm by 25 cm with the Cap Badge centred within the patch. The wearer would have the leather band of the beret two fingers over the eye brows with the Cap badge over the middle of the left eye. The excess material was draped over the right side and pulled back.

Canadian made 1944 Beret with QOR Badge and Backing
Canadian made 1944 Beret with QOR Badge and Backing – Graham Humphrey’s Collection

In 1943-44, a different QOR cap badge was introduced. Mainly seen on replacements of this time period, the cap badge contains less detail and the Arabic number “2” less defined.

1943-44 QORofC Cap Badge - Graham Humphrey's Collection
1943-44 QORofC Cap Badge – Graham Humphrey’s Collection

1944 With the coming invasion of France, the 3rd Division was issue additional kit and equipment. The most noticeable was the Mk III “turtle shell” helmet which offered more protection for the wearer than the Mk II helmet.

The second most noticeable change was the adoption of the high-top buckle boots which were tried in Italy and widely issued to the 3rd Division. This lead to the term “3rd Div boots” or “Invasion boots”. Constructed with 9 eyelets and a buckle at the top of the boot, these boots put on a more modern look and were sought-after boots.

British made Mk III “Turtle shell” Helmet with Canadian helmet net, scrim and Dressing
British made Mk III “Turtle shell” Helmet with Canadian helmet net, scrim and Dressing – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
Rfn Jim Wilkins “Invasion boots” – Rfn Jim Wilkins Collection
Rfn Jim Wilkins “Invasion boots” – Rfn Jim Wilkins Collection

Invasion Boots or High Boots - QOR Museum's Collection Invasion Boots or High Boots - QOR Museum's Collection

“Invasion boots” – QOR Musuem’s Collection

QOR in England 1944 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in England 1944 with “Invasion boots”  – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in England 1944 – QOR Museum Photo
QOR in England 1944 with “Invasion boots” – QOR Museum Photo

Introduced around mid-1944 was the British-made canvas insignia. Examples of this come in the 3rd Division French Grey flashes, Canada titles, and “QUEEN’S OWN RIFLES” shoulder titles. These had a tendency to fade and fray.  This characteristic was not desireable.

British made Canvas QOR title 1943
British made Canvas QOR title 1943 – QOR Museum’s Collection

1945 Introduced to all Companies of the Battalion on March 19 1945 was the “Windproof Smock” which is know as today. “Coys issued with sniper jackets which beside being good camouflage are quite serviceable and waterproof” (War Diary March 19 1945 Reichswald Forest, Germany)

IMG_6870
Windproof Smock worn by this Reenactor

With the war coming to a close, the QOR was put onto occupation duty in 1945-46. To display that they were an occupation force, a single 2 cm wide occupation bar was added at the base of the 3rd Division patch. With the QOR being the senior Regiment in this Brigade, a green occupation bar was added on top of the 3rd Division patch as well.

Battledress number A is a 1945-46 occupation blouse. Notice the addition of the occupation stripe and the tailored collar with black cloth.

Battledress number B is the Battledress of the Commanding Officer of the Occupation force, Lt. Col. J. N. Medhurst OBE ED 4th Bn, QOR of C (CAOF) 8 June 1945 – 25 December 1945.

A
A – QOR Museum’s Collection
A
A – QOR Museum’s Collection
B
B – QOR Museum’s Collection
B
B – QOR Museum’s Collection

As well, a new QOR shoulder title was introduced with a more foliage green backing and hand-embroidered “QUEEN’S-OWN-RIFLES”. As well the custom of blackening web gear is seen again during 1945-46 period mainly walking out belts, pistol, pistol ammunition pouches and ankle gators.

1945 British made QOR title and Canada title
1945 British made QOR title and Canada title – Graham Humphrey’s Collection
QOR Holland 1945
QOR Holland 1945 – QOR Museum’s Photo
QOR Holland 1945
QOR Holland 1945 – QOR Museum’s Photo

Thank you for reading! Any additional information, questions or correction please send to museum@qormuseum.org

Cheers,

MCpl Graham Humphrey

First World War, Second World War

Regimental Christmas Cards from the First and Second World War

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As we approach another holiday season, we’re sharing some of the Regimental Christmas Cards that will be on a temporary exhibit at the Museum starting 1 December. This first series is primarily from the First World War with one from 1941. The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada perpetuate the 83rd, 166th and 198th Battalions represented below.