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Archive for the ‘World War 11 Mascots-Veterans' stories’ Category

This is the story of Salty, a white Maltese Terrier. His place of birth was Saskatchewan. He became our ship’s mascot in December, 1943. He arrived in the pocket of Lt. MacDonald.

Our ship, H.M.C.S. Blairmore, a Bangor class minesweeper, was being refitted in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, at the time. To cut a long story short, he was with us when we arrived in England, February, 1944.

We lost Salty when he jumped off the stern. At this time, three battleships had moved into position to shell the coast, and I believe the concussions from the 16 inch guns were too much for Salty.

We could not make any efforts to save him as we had our sweeping gear in play. Also at this time, hundreds of troops were heading for shore in landing crafts. The date was June 6, 1944, and he was our only casualty of D-Day. We all hoped that maybe he was rescued by a landing craft, which we doubted very much, or that he made it ashore and found a nice French Poodle.”

Mr. R. J. Keddie of Kingston, Ontario, served with the Fort Garry Horse and Tank Regiment from Winnipeg, Manitoba from Sept. 1939 to Sept. 1945. The Fort Garry Horse and Tank regiment was to become part of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade which was given a role as vanguard in the invasion of Normandy.

“Whitey was the regimental mascot who joined us in the Winnipeg Robinson Building on one cold October night in 1939. He appeared on the doorstep, was invited in to warm up, and stayed. Whitey became a Fort Garry Horse member with his own regimental number: H 26001/2”.

The regiment trained for duty in that building and also briefly in camp Shilo. In 1941 the regiment sailed for England where they continued an armoured role. After accompanying us everywhere in Canada, Whitey was smuggled into England in a box while under anaesthetic.

Mr. Keddie remembers: “He served with us throughout all our time in England , both at work or at play and the Collie was always there. He used to lead the regiment to church. They’d bring him in, and he would lie down in the aisle right by the front pew, and would stay there the whole time. If you couldn’t see him you wouldn’t know he was there. And when the service was over he would get up and lead them out again.”

Whitey lived with ‘B’Squadron, and at morning parade time, when the Sgt. Major shouted his orders to “fall in”, Whitey would literally herd the men into their various troop formations, all the while barking and rounding up the slow movers. He knew to be quiet when the Sgt. Major was about to give forth with subsequent orders, but would then give more barking, just to punctuate the situation.

Ted Brumwell, also of “B” Squadron, recalls: “He would attach himself to a Trooper as his master for a couple of weeks, then move on to another troop.”

Whitey was polite to any Fort Garry soldier but liked no others. Ever a democrat, he didn’t pay much attention to officers.

Shortly before D-Day this fine animal was accidentally hit by a truck while he was on duty. Whitey was buried with proper military ceremony at a spot code-named ‘Shangri-La’ near Fawley on Southapton Water, United.Kingdom in May 1944. He was much missed by his squadron and remembered for sixty years.

Adrian Whiteman of Keremose, British Columbia, was a Seaman Gunner during the Second World War. His job was to scrub the deck and fire the guns aboard the escort ship, The Lanark. This was a British ship that showed the convoys where to go and keep them protected from submarines.

“The ship the Lanark was named after Lanark County in Ontario where the town of Perth is located. The town adopted the ship because there was an English Royal Navy Ship called Perth. The town sent us a black Cocker Spaniel as our mascot and of course we named him Perth. The sick bay attendant (nurse) was his official keeper. The dog lived with him in the sick bay. But he also really enjoyed it up on deck with Gus who was a goose.

Gus the goose was was purchased off the coast of Ireland for two packages of cigarettes. We were going to eat him, but he was just a bag of bones. He was nice and tame so we decided to keep him. We hid him in the vegetable locker on the after deck. When he was discovered during morning inspection by the ship’s Captain, Zimmerman and I went to the ship’s office and put in a request to keep him as a mascot along with Perth. The Captain granted our request and named us his official sweepers. If you know geese you’ll know what that entailed. Up on the deck where he spent much of his time with the Perth and the crew, it was easy, we just grabbed a hose and washed it overboard; we had no shortage of help. Read the rest of this entry »

In September 1939, Mr. David Ward joined the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps at the age of 18. “We were the first Canadian Peacekeeping Force that was formed. That was the start of it all.”

It was right at the beginning that Dave and his buddies picked up a little terrier mix they called Tiger wandering around in Lansdown Park in Ottawa where soldiers were signing up for service. “They mobililized us pretty fast, just a quick medical to weed out the sick, the lame and the lazy. Pretty much everybody was signed on.” Those were the days, Dave said, when everybody had a nickname. The bald soldier answered to Curly, the British were called Limeys. “There were lots of ethnic jokes too.” Dave was named Froggy because his mother was French.

Tiger went with the boys to Camp Borden for basic training and then on to Debert, Nova Scotia which was the embarkation location before being shipped overseas. The camp was surrounded by bushland where the lumber camps were serviced by loggers and their horses. Tiget met his end when he was kicked by one of these horses while nipping at its hooves. The regiment was heart broken. Tiger was given a proper army funeral; David Ward was one of his pallbearers. Last Post was played. Through his untimely death, Tiger missed a trip to England on the Empress of Canada and ultimately landing in Normandy on D-Day where Dave, on ammunition detail, was one of the first batch that landed. Read the rest of this entry »

Larry Taverner was an Airman First Class Armorer serving on a fighter squadron (242) formed of Canadians serving in the Royal Air Force. They made up part of the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940.

“When the Germans started advancing on us, we received orders to pull up stakes from our camp near Lille and head for the French coast. We were several days getting to the coast but managed to keep our adoped dog, Champagne, concealed. She was like a very small Jack Russell Terrier and she travelled in the uniform shirts of several airmen, mine included.

Once on the coast we had a couple of days to wait for a small coastal freighter to take us back to England. We finally made it to Linconshire where we had plenty of re-organizing to do because we had lost a lot of our equipment. Champagne was glad we made it back to England too because she could finally get out from under cover and tear around. The sad part is that after a couple of weeks of freedom she lost an argument with a large truck. It was a sorrowful bunch of guys who made sure she had a decent burial. We sure missed our smallest recruit.”