B/46911 Rifleman Harold Francis Goldsmith was born on 20 February 1923 in Clarksburg, Ontario. His Irish father Leonard Roy Goldsmith married his English mother Violet Alice Knibbs at Clarksburg, Ontario in 1915 after she came from the USA to Canada. The couple moved to the Oshawa area where Leonard farmed and they had seven children, of whom Harold was the middle one. Eldest was his only brother Cline, plus five sisters Evelyn, Olive, Ruth, Eileen and Mary.

Harold did not receive much in the way of formal education and was partly illiterate. He was working in the tool room at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario and described his trade as being a truck driver when he joined the army.

Harold enlisted in Toronto, Ontario 6 May 1942, at age 19. His medical examiner noted him as having blond hair, and blue eyes, being 6 feet tall and underweight at 135 lbs. He also commented that Harold had an “indifferent education”. Harold undertook his basic training at Brantford, Ontario where he spent four days in hospital for pharyngitis in June.

Harold was assigned to a Defence Platoon at Niagara in July, where he quickly distinguished himself and was appointed Lance Corporal on 1 August 1942. He was attached to the 17th Canadian Infantry Brigade at Sussex, New Brunswick in September and remained there for a few months.

Harold’s lack of literacy became apparent and his rank was reduced to Private in January 1943, followed by a transfer to the Canadian Army Educational Basic Training Centre at Fort Chippewa Barracks near North Bay, Ontario 11 February 1943. There he and other soldiers received classroom instruction that most never had at school, and Harold was re-appointed Lance Corporal the next month.

Following nine months at Fort Chippewa, Harold returned to Sussex in October 1943 and was re-evaluated. The Army Examiner wrote on Harold’s personnel record: “His educational and military instructors stated that he was nervously quick, lacked power of concentration, but is very aggressive and over-willing. On numerous occasions he has volunteered for extra duties which he performed in a very cheerful manner. This recruit is friendly, very polite and always well-groomed… Goldsmith has no health complaints but admits being somewhat restless and experiences difficulty in learning educational subjects”. Harold again reverted rank to Private, this time at his own request, and was stationed at Camp Utopia, New Brunswick.

Harold served as an officer’s batman at Utopia, with Captain H. T. Douglass making an entry on his personnel record on 7 July 1944: “This man has been very satisfactory as a batman. He is outstanding in bearing, appearance and cleanliness. In view of very excellent reports of his company officers and his eagerness to serve O/S (overseas), he was referred to the psychiatrist for up-grading. He has now been graded M-2 and is being released to the reinforcement stream”. Captain Douglass made another entry in Harold’s file on 17 August 1944: “Training progress is good. Leadership is good but handicapped by illiteracy; steady, well disciplined. Attitude is very good. Stamina and energy are good, no complaints. Very neat and clean. One of the best soldiers in his platoon”.

Harold was sent to Camp Debert, Nova Scotia in October 1944 in preparation for overseas deployment, disembarking in the U.K. on 28 November where he was assigned to the Canadian Infantry Training Regiment. However, Harold was involved in an incident on the journey across the Atlantic that landed him at 22 Canadian General Hospital in the U.K. on 29 November 1944, where he remained for the next 45 days.

Harold had been standing in a lineup for a meal aboard the ship when the soldier in front of him was jostled by someone else. He turned around and punched Harold in the face, breaking his jaw. A subsequent Court of Inquiry cleared Harold of any “improper conduct”. Harold was finally discharged from hospital on 12 January 1945 and sent across the English Channel that spring to Northwest Europe, where he was taken on strength by the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada (QOR) on 31 March 1945.

The QOR was part of the 8th Brigade, along with Le Regiment de la Chaudière and the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, 3rd Canadian Division. They had been among the Commonwealth units attacking Normandy beaches in France on D-Day, 6 June 1944. They helped drive the Germans out of Normandy and clear the Channel ports before engaging in the Battle of the Scheldt at Breskens Pocket in Belgium. 8th Brigade was then stationed near Nijmegen, Netherlands for static operations in November.

After wintering around Nijmegen, 3rd Canadian Division was on the move in February 1945 as part of the Allied Operation VERITABLE. 8th Brigade was held in reserve around Cleve, Germany for the first and second phases of the Rhineland offensive, before crossing the Rhine on a pontoon bridge in late March. The QOR and 8th Brigade were involved in mop-up operations following 7th Brigade’s capture of Emmerich, Germany when Harold joined them as a replacement Rifleman. The battalion participated in the liberation of Bergh on 1 April and after fighting at Wehl the next day, was given some rest time in Laag-Keppel in the afternoon of 3 April. The next day the order came to liberate the hamlets west of Steenderen, a region enclosed on three sides by the Ijssel River.

Spread over a broad front, the QOR entered the area and encountered strong German resistance at Rha. Heavy fighting occurred over the next two days, 5 and 6 April. As “A” Company approached Rha from the north side late at night, Harold was hit in the abdomen by several machine gun bullets. He was bandaged, given a morphine injection and taken to the Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in the Patersklooster at s’Heerenberg. He was operated on 7 April but did not survive long after, dying in the early morning of 8 April 1945 at age 22.

Rifleman H.F. Goldsmith was temporarily buried at s’Heerenberg Cemetery and later relocated to Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery near Nijmegen, Netherlands, grave reference XVII. F. 2. His epitaph reads:

GREATER LOVE
HATH NO MAN THAN THIS
THAT A MAN LAY DOWN
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS

From biography by Jim Little, Research Team Faces to Graves.