A.T., Gordon and Roderick
Gordon Harding
Lorne Shaw
Ronald Roy Palmer
Sargent Edwin Retallick
William and Donald Kerr
Meeting in September at the Legion, the sponsoring families were given a preview of the veteran banners that honour their relatives and exchange stories about their service to the nation. Here are a few of their stories.
A.T., Gordon and Roderick Armstrong:
The Armstrong brothers are uncles of Margaret, Paul and ___ Tinney formerly of Millbrook. A. T. was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII and died at age 25 in service to his country. Gordon returned from the war, got married and had a family in Peterborough, where he rana lumber business. Roderick also returned from the war and married, moving to Cobourg, where he lived until his death at 51.
Gordon Harding:
Gordon Harding was a member of the peacekeepers and was a paratrooper stationed in Germany from from 1954 to 1960.
Upon his return, he married and had three children. He and his wife purchased a beef farm outside Omemee. He also worked at a woolen mill in Peterborough and later at Sar-gent’s Hardware. A heart attack in 1991 forced him into retirement. He was an enthusiastic member of the Omemee Legion and was a long time member at the Millbrook branch, where he took great pride acting as the Chairman of the Poppy Campaign the year he passed away in 2000, after a life well-lived.
Lorne Shaw:
A resident of Paris, Ontario, Lorne joined the reserve army in 1942 at the age of sixteen and two years later joined the army, undergoing basic training in Brantford. He was a member of the 1st Canadian Special Wire-less Group and deployed in the South Pacific, where he intercepted and analysed Japanese military messages. Due to the nature of his work, he was only given permission to discuss his duties in 1996 after a mandatory 50 years of silence. That silence suited him well as he prefers not to talk about those years which can still trigger nightmares.
He returned home to marry his pen-pal Joyce and moved to Port Perry, spending his civilian career as an accountant for firms including General Electric. Ashe approaches his 100th birthday, he remains sharp, continues to drive and golf, and supports his local legion. A member for more than 30 years, he continues to support his military family by selling poppies each years on behalf of the Royal Canadian Legion.
Ronald Roy Palmer:
Ron Palmer signed up for duty in September 1939 in his home town of Ingersoll and continued in service until April1945. He trained in Kingston before heading to Aldershot, England, on the HMS Acquitaina in December 1949. He was a member of the 1st Canadian Signals which was the first signals unit to deploy in the United Kingdom. This unit was responsible for radio communications on land and aircraft, as well as radar and navigational aid equipment. Before Canada joined the war effort in 1939,members of this unit were active setting up radio equipment and signaling infrastructure at Camp X in Oshawa.
During his six years of service, Palmer accumulated a variety of service medals including a Canadian Silver Marksman medal, a Canadian and Italian star, and a voluntary service medal among others. Much of his service was performed in Italy.
During his service, he became friends with some Millbrook residents including Keith Blair. Together they decided to move to Millbrook at the end of the war and were instrumental in the early days of Docon Telephone which evolved into Nexicom.
The family has secured many original documents from Palmer’s years of service, including copies of telegraphs sent home, providing many memories of their late relative who passed away in 1997.
Sargent Edwin Retallick:
Edwin grew up in his grandparent’s home in Perrytown just south of Garden Hill after the early death of his father. He joined the war effort in 1942 at the age of 19, signing up in Port Hope. After training in Camp Borden, he joined the Cameron Highlanders regiment out of Ottawa and traveled by ship to England where he began to serve on the front lines. According to his son David, the first battle in which Retallick’s regiment of 110 men engaged was hard hit-only eleven men returned at the end of the day. It was shortly after this battle that Retallick was named Sargent.
The Cameron Highlanders operated three battalions during the Second World War, and was the one of the regiments to land on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, and Retallick was among them. According to military records, the Camerons were the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division’s heavy weapons and supported all units landing on the beaches. From there the regiment supported the war efforts primarily in France in the vicinity of Caen, continuing through North-West Europe and into Germany. At the end of the war, Retallick was selected to remain in Europe for a year as a member of the occupying forces in Germany. This delay allowed him the opportunity to witness part of the Nuremberg trials in which 22 Nazi party officials, high-ranking military officers and industrialists were prosecuted for war crimes by judges from the Allied powers.
A shadow box containing a military jacket and two military caps owned by the late Edwin Reid Retallick is now on display along with a wide variety of military artifacts on the second floor of the Millbrook Legion where members are establishing a museum of local military history.
William and Donald Kerr:
One banner includes the name of two brothers from Mill-brook who served in WWII: William Oscar and Donald H. Kerr, underwritten by their family now in Toronto.
Lance Corporal William Oscar (Bill) Kerr was the son of Hubert Anderson Kerr and Sarah Kathryn Kerr of Millbrook, where Hubert was the manager of the TD Bank. Corporal Kerr was a member of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, a unit that participated in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944 and was a dispatch rider for the Signals, a role where he delivered urgent messages between bases and from “listening stations” in enemy territory where intelligence was collected, some of which was sent to Bletchley Park to anticipate the next moves. Corporal Kerr he was injured in action near Calais, with injuries requiring the amputation of his right leg. He succumbed to his injuries a few days later, on September 21st at the age of 21. He is buried at the Canadian War Cemetery outside Calais. His name appears on the Cenotaphas one of Millbrook’s fallen heroes.
According to his niece Christine, her father Donald and his parents rarely mentioned Bill’s name, the memory was so painful.
Christine’s father, Private Donald Kerr, tried to enlist early because he was keen to help win the war, but was turned a way until he became of age. By the summer of 1944, he was in action in France during the Normandy invasion but in October he was relocated to England where he trained to be a paratrooper. In this new role he dropped into enemy territory from small planes under cover of darkness, as part of the first group of soldiers penetrating anew area to do reconnaissance before the troops arrived.
Like so many vets of his vintage, Donald never complained about his war time experiences and downplayed his role in the victory, saying he was just a kid from Millbrook doing his part. Later in life, he opened up about some of his war time experience, describing it as the most exciting time of his life. Donald returned after the war and passed away last year just a few weeks shy of his 100th birthday. Hs spent the last five years of his life at Sunnybrook Veteran Hospital in Toronto.