L/Cpl Reinhold William Weind, 4th Field Company, Military Medal

L/Cpl Reinhold William “Roy” Weind, MM (Ret’d)
Military Medal GVIR
Contexte 

Roy was born in Winnipeg, MB in 1921. During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Canadian Engineers in Italy and Holland. After the war, Roy returned to Winnipeg and went to work for the Canadian Pacific Railways as a blacksmith in the Winnipeg Yards. He was a Scout leader with the 113 Scout Troop in Winnipeg, Seven Oaks Division for many years. He retired at age 50 to his property on Macara Lake in Ingolf, ON before moving to Vancouver, BC to spend his last 20 years with his grandchildren and family.

Roy died in Vancouver on 6 June 2014.  His Last Post entry at https://cmea-agmc.ca/lcpl-reinhold-william-weind-mm.

Citation 

During the day and night 30/31 August 1944 the West Nova Scotia Regiment was forced to withdraw from its positions in front of the Gothic Line in the vicinity of Borgo San Maria (Map Reference 0387, 69) due to heavy casualties in the minefield, which was under heavy enemy machine gun and mortar fire. The commander of 3 Canadian Infantry Brigade decided during the day that his infantry had to get through the line at this point. Therefore it was arranged to put out three engineer parties ahead of the infantry to give them gaps through the minefield. The operation commenced some, 600 yards ahead of the leading infantry and the gaps penetrated the minefield a further, 600 yards of enemy-held territory (in which the infantry had just previously been under heavy machine gun fire) to cut the lateral road running to Borgo on which the defences were built.

At the beginning of the operation at 2300 hours the three parties came under artillery file for a period of two hours causing casualties amongst the part and the infantry covering party. Whilst the rest of the group withdrew temporarily, H.95410 Sapper (now Lance-Corporal) Reinhold William Weind stayed with the wounded of his party, prodding a place in the minefield to make them comfortable and dressing their wounds. Later when the shelling ceased he went back to work in his gap and finally assisted in pushing it through. This allowed the infantry of 3 Canadian Infantry Brigade to pass safely through the minefields. They captured the town of Borgo, and thus secured a bridgehead across the Foglia River. Lance-Corporal Weind's coolness and courage in the fact of great personal danger was an inspiration to the men under his command, and helped make possible the gapping of the minefield.