39 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca BOUCHARD, Albert R. WWII Albert was born in McCreary, Manitoba in 1903. He enlisted in the Army and served in the RCOC as a Gunner in Canada during World War II. He received the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal. Albert passed away in 1976. BRACKEN, Robert Evans “Bob” WWII Bob was born on March 12, 1923 in Toronto, Ontario. He was a machinist at an auto plant prior to the war. Bob joined the Canadian Navy in Toronto in 1941. He was then sent to Halifax for training in October 1941. Bob was an Ordnance Artificer 5th Class, working with small arms, large guns as well as torpedoes, all aspects of weaponry. At 21 Bob was promoted to Acting Petty Officer. He was assigned to his first ship in the spring of 1942 on the HMCS Annapolis 104. The ship was part of a mid-ocean convoy that met the Royal Navy halfway from England. Bob witnessed damage to ships hit by U-boat torpedoes. He later worked in Saint John, New Brunswick for eighteen months, refitting merchant ships with protective guns, DEMS (defensive equipment merchant ships). He worked there until September 1944 on refits and gun trials on the merchant ships. Bob was then sent to Esquimalt, BC to work on British LST’s (landing ship tank) with the rank of Ordnance Artificer 3rd Class, helping train allies to fire their guns. He was in Vancouver ready to go to Japan when the war ended. Bob returned to Winnipeg on a train with Canadian soldiers just released from Prisoner of War camps in Japan. He was discharged in November 1945, re-joining the Navy in 1946 until 1959. Bob then served with the combined Armed Forces until 1973. He lived the last several years in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.
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