Spr Walter Richard Coveyduck, 5th Field Company, Distinguished Conduct Medal

Distinguished Conduct Medal
Background 

In an article published on 5 June 2019, the Globe & Mail describes the experiences of Sapper John Schaupmeyer who landed with Sapper Walter Richard Coveyduck in the 5th Field Company. To add some perspective around Sapper Coveyduck's actions that morning, parts of that article are repeated below.


"Half an hour after they had set foot on French soil on D-Day, Sapper John Schaupmeyer and his fellow combat engineers remained stranded on the beach, pinned down by German machine guns, mortars and artillery.

From the cover of a seawall, they saw an LCI, one of the larger models of landing craft, touch ground. Soldiers aboard tried to disembark but the rough waves tangled up their gangway. Trapped on the LCI deck, the men came under enemy fire. At that moment, one of the combat engineers, Sapper Walter Coveyduck, left the seawall’s protection to go save the men of the LCI."

.....

"Sapper Schaupmeyer’s company had to hit the beach at low tide to blow up hedgehogs, defensive obstacles made of metal rails welded into tripod shapes.

However, the rough sea had delayed their landing. “We are coming in now but the tide waits for no man. Our hedgehogs are half underwater as we touched down to do our job. Our barges hit bottom and we had to hit the water. Boy! Did it feel cold.”

The sea rose as they fastened explosive charges to the metal beams. They only managed to breach a small gap before the tide covered the remaining hedgehogs.

They ran to the beach with the infantry and took cover behind the seawall. He rued that they had left their rifles behind, in their bulldozer, while they dealt with the hedgehogs.

Sapper Schaupmeyer saw shrapnel from a German landmine tear into one soldier, “a terrible sight.” Another man “was shot straight through. What made him carry on, I don’t know … someone with that much spunk is too tough to die.”

He then noticed the approaching LCI. “Every second man was shot coming down the gangplank,” he wrote. “The big waves of water pushed the gangplank aside and all the soldiers were huddled together on the deck. Easy picking for a German.”

That was the moment when Sapper Coveyduck intervened. “Coveyduck saw this situation, waded in the water, up to his waist, and put this gangplank into place, holding it while the remaining soldiers scrambled down, away from that deadly spray of bullets.”

Sapper Coveyduck, who survived the war and became a miner in Sudbury, would earn the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his action.


Walter Coveyduck was born and raised Vaughn, ON. After the war, he worked in the mines in Sudbury. He died on 1 December 1989 in Chapleau, ON.

Citation 

At 30 minutes past H Hour on "D" Day, 6 June 1944, Sapper Coveyduck was in a position on the seaward side of the sea wall on the extreme left of Nan Red Beach taking cover from enemy fire from a position on the left flank. A Landing Craft Infantry (L) touched down immediately in front of Sapper Coveyduck's position and lowered its ramps. Infantry commenced to disembark but the leaders were shot down. At the same time the action of the surf turned over the starboard ramp which then became entangled with the port ramp preventing the remainder of the infantry from disembarking. Sapper Coveyduck, seeing the oerilous position of the remainder of the troops on board the craft, with great presence of mind and disregarding enemy small arms and mortar fire, ran to the craft and disentangled the ramps, turning the port ramp right side up, anchoring it to the ground with his own weight, at the same time shouting to and waving to the infantry on board to get off quickly and remainded with the ramp till the infantry commenced to disembark.999Approximately an hour after the above incident, Sapper Coveyduck was accompanying Lance-Sergeant Killah in the latter's search for the remainder of his section and came upon a blazing Sherman tank which was filled with shells and mines. A soldier was lying prone beside the tank and Lance-Sergeant Killah and Sapper Coveyduck noticed movement of this body. Completely disregarding the danger from this exploding and blazing tank and also enemy aimed small arms fire, Sergeant Killah and Sapper Coveyduck picked up a stretcher, ran to the side of the tank, placed the wounded man on the stretcher and took him out of danger.