249 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca WEBSTER, Roy Clayton WWII Roy Clayton Webster was born on September 19, 1919, then grew in Sperling, Manitoba. He enlisted in the Army, Canadian armour, with the Manitoba Dragoons, in May 1941. Training in Winnipeg in mechanics, sidelined for appendicitis, then overseas, continuing training every course offered, he landed near Juno 8 days before Caen liberated. Fighting was intense, losses high, against German Armored divisions. To Masse Sanctuary area by September, to Holland, into Germany, Arnhem and beyond, Dragoons came back into Holland including Rotterdam and liberations. Roy was a brilliant mechanical mind. Designing improvements forwarded by Major Roberts, Roy much improved manufacture of the Staghound. Likewise, Roy gave to manufacturers in peacetime. Receiving usual medal honours, he did not want to make big deal of them. A devout Christian, he knew the words “Give” and “Love”. Roy married Kathy from nearby Graysville, and they, she still, lived in Carmen. He operated his own caterpillar into his 90’s. Roy, a 40-year member of The Royal Canadian Legion Sperling Branch 155, died in 2015, and is buried at Sperling Cemetery. WHARF, Grant WWII Grant enlisted on February 7, 1941 in the Fort Garry Horse Regiment. He took training in Winnipeg for about one and a half month, then went to Camp Borden, Ontario until November 1941. They were sent back to Winnipeg to the Immigration Hall then left Winnipeg in April 1942 for England.They travelled by train to the East Coast and boarded the Banfora Ship.They boarded the ship in the morning. At noon, the meal was so poor that they decided to go uptown in the afternoon to get a decent meal. An M.P. Officer told them that any man that left the ship would be shot. About 1,800 soldiers did leave the ship and stayed on land for about eight hours because all they were getting to eat was boiled liver and sausages, cooked by East Indian cooks.They finally got Canadian cooks and they discovered that there was lots of frozen chicken on the ship. There were so many rats on the ship and they ate holes in the men’s kit bags. There was about eight inches of water on the ship floor and the men used to make bets as to which rat could win swimming from one side to the other. There were 22 ships in the convoy. Two ships were sunk by German submarines. They arrived in Greenock, Scotland after 21 days on the ocean. They went by train to Blockdown, England, Canadian 3rd Base Reinforcement Unit for about eleven months. From there, they went to Crookham, Crossroads for two months then to Bearsdon, Scotland for thirty days. They sailed for Sicily on the LTS 21 in a very big convoy. He saw a hospital ship torpedoed and it sank in about ten minutes. This happened about two days past Gibraltar. They landed at Algiers, North Africa after thirty days on the ocean. They stayed there for about fourteen hours then sailed to Malta. From Malta, they went to Sicily. He joined the Three Rivers Regiment and went to Italy where he saw his first front line action at Iramolia. They fought through Italy, including Rome, right up to Florence. He left Italy on March 4, 1945. They went north through France to Belgium. He had 28 days of special training in Meenen, Belgium and went from there to Nijmegen, Holland then on to the Reichwald Forest in Germany. They went back to Arnhem, Holland. Grant was in Apeldoorn, Holland when the war ended. He spent five months in Holland at Dokkum. He went back to England for about twenty days then boarded the Queen Elizabeth at Southampton on November 25, 1945, sailing for Canada. He was discharged on December 14, 1945.
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