203 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca SELLEN, Richard F. WWII Richard was born in 1920 in Oak Bank, Manitoba. He joined the RCAF and flew Lancasters with 426 Squadron, Bomber Command, Linton-on-Ouse in York, England. He recalls April 20, 1944 on a bombing run in Koln when they were hit by eight incendiary bombs from one of their own planes, setting fire to their starboard engine and the port wing, knocking out the trim tabs and making a hole through the wing and the big gas tank. A JU 88 fighter then attacked them while they were on fire but Richard took evasive action and lost the fighter. They finished the bombing run and headed for the emergency aerodrome on England’s foggy coast. Richard did an instrument landing right on beam with two engines on one side, no trim tabs and one engine cut on the port side. He was to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross but asked that it be given to his bomb aimer as he had lost a brother on a raid a week earlier. Richard has been a member of Springfield Legion Branch 146. SHARPE, Edward Gerald “Eddy” PEACETIME Eddy was born in Pine Falls, Manitoba in 1948 but left in 1954 when his father took employment at a paper mill in the USA. He was eighteen when he enlisted into the Marines as a Canadian citizen and was later posted to Vietnam. Private First Class Sharpe, after serving in Quang Nam Province, was killed in action in 1967, five days before his nineteenth birthday. He is interned in Calhoun, Tennessee. Eddy’s awards were many, including the Purple Heart, the National Defence Medal and the Vietnamese Service and Campaign Medals. He was also posthumously awarded the Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Military Merit Medal from the Republic of Vietnam. Members of the Sharpe family have erected a plaque on a concrete cairn in his memory and it sits at the foot of Manitou Rapids in Pine Falls, at the extreme end of a point of land called Sharpe’s Point. SIMPSON, Luther E. “Lou” WWII Lou was born in Miami, Manitoba in 1914. He joined the Army in 1940 and served with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals during World War II. After serving in Italy and Holland, Sergeant Simpson was discharged in 1946. Lou was a member of Miami Legion Branch 88 for nine years and Carman Legion Branch 18 for forty-six years before he passed away in 2002. SHEFFIELD, John Sidney WWII John was born on July 18, 1919 in Waskada, Manitoba and he farmed in the Pembina Valley following his father’s death in 1943. He enlisted in the Canadian Army in March 1941, did his basic training then entered the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps on October 9, 1941. He was sent to England in 1942 and served in France and Holland from 1944-45. After the cessation of hostilities, he returned to England where he married in November 1945 and returned to Canada a month later for his discharge on February 7, 1946. His wife immigrated to Canada in June 1946 and they resided in Swan Lake where he became the owner of Swan Lake Garage. John was a member of Swan Lake Legion Branch 126 before he died of cancer in 1974 at the age of 55. He was the recipient of the 1939-45 Star, the France and Germany Star, the Defence Medal, the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal with Clasp and the War Medal 1939-45.
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