Sapper Peter Charbotte was born in 1916 in Golden Lake, ON. After attending one year of High School he had been working in the mines near Timmins, ON as a Transport Driver and Machinist Helper. He enlisted in 2nd Field Company in Toronto on 13 September 1939 and commenced training with them. Peter was qualified as a Driver when he embarked from Halifax for England on 12 May 1940.
By the winter of 1943, the German armies in Italy were defending a line stretching from the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Naples, to the Adriatic Sea south of Ortona. The Allies prepared to break through this line to capture Rome. For its part, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division was to cross the Moro River and take Ortona. In January 1944 the Canadian Corps selected this site, intending that it would contain the graves of those who died during the Ortona battle and in the fighting in the weeks before and after it.
Edward Prokop was born in Kitchener, ON, the son of Leo and Mary Prokop. He joined the Army during the Second World War and served in Canada, England and Italy in the Royal Canadian Engineers, first as a Sapper and later as a Cook attached to the 3rd Field Company, RCE.
Sapper William Albert Brown was born in Toronto in 1919, the son of Albert and Florence Brown. He had a brother and three sisters and was working in Toronto as a carpenter when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Engineers on 5 March 1940. He was immediately assigned to 2nd Field Company.
James ‘Jim’ Schan was born in 1917 Grassy Lake, AB, the son of immigrants Leonard and Mary Schan of Port Alberni, BC and formerly of Lethbridge, AB. He was the oldest of 13 children.
On this day in 1944, A/Cpl George Wilson and L/Cpl Carl Overby were awarded the Military Medal for repairing a kapok footbridge across the Leopold Canal under fire thus helping the Canadian Scottish Regiment maintain their hold tenuous bridgehead they had seized and fought for since the opening of Op SWITCHBACK to clear the Breskens Pocket
| By the last week in September, the First Canadian Army had moved into the Antwerp area in preparation for the Battle of the Scheldt. The 2nd Infantry Division began the task of clearing the Beveland approaches north of the city on the second of October. Shortly afterwards, on the sixth, the 3rd Infantry Division, with support from the 4th Armoured Division, would assault across the Leopold Canal and begin clearing the Breskens Pocket. |
On this day in 1944, the Battle of the Scheldt began with divisional engineers of the 2nd Canadian Division clearing mines and building bridges over the Antwerp-Turnhout Canal to prepare the approaches for Operation VITALITY and the clearing of South Beveland in Holland. M L/Sgt William Hurd Gunness of the 11th Fd Coy was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry under fire.
On this day in 1944, during the opening blows of the Battle of the Scheldt, the 7th Infantry Brigade assaulted across the Leopold Canal in Belgium on kapok bridges assembled in the dark pre-dawn hours.