The June 2025 article covered the changes happening in the Ontario Regiment in June 1945. The tanks were turned in to the Ordnance Corps, a training program was set up to prepare the soldiers for civilian life, and spare time was spent with sports. The Ontarios had moved to Harlingen, Netherlands on 29 June. For the rest of summer, and until the Regiment could be repatriated back to Canada, the challenge was to keep the soldiers busy.
The education program continued and now made use of the Harlingen Technical School. Two hours per day were set aside for education, with the courses proving to be very popular. There were classes in carpentry, machine shop and standard classroom subjects. The educational department began working on a Regimental newspaper in late August. The paper, titled “The Cat,” was led by Major J.E. Slinger. Its first issue appeared in early September.
Major J.E. Slinger and Captain Dunstan McNichol spent several weeks writing a history of the Regiment’s efforts in the war. The 44-page book was published in September and was titled The Ontario Regiment in the Field 1939-1945. It eventually became the foundation for the full regimental history published in 1951.
Sports and leisure took up a significant amount of time. Sports meets at the brigade, division and army level tested the athletism of the Ontarios. Tennis, volleyball, ping-pong tournaments, horseshoe pitching, and swimming at Leeuwarden filled the time. Baseball was the most popular activity. It was played between the squadrons but there was also a Regimental team that played other units.
The Salvation Army ran regular movie nights and there were many stage shows. Educational tours through the southern Netherlands were offered beginning in August.
The Ontarios said good-bye to Harlingen on 5 October when they moved to Nijmegen where the remaining vehicles and stores were turned in. There were more moves in the Netherlands and then to England before sailing for Canada on 22 November.
Despite the war being over, the Ontario Regiment suffered three deaths while waiting to sail home. Trooper Francis Davieaux died on 14 July of injuries suffered in a jeep accident the evening before. He was the driver and didn’t see a concrete roadblock in the dark. Some newspaper articles erroneously reported that he was killed in Germany. The accident took place near Harlingen, Netherlands. Francis Arthur Davieaux was born on 4 March 1923 in Sault Ste Marie, ON. He was working as a commercial fisherman with his father before joining the Canadian Army in August 1941. Davieaux was originally trained as a cook, but requested to remuster. He was retrained as an armoured crewman and taken on strength of the Ontario Regiment in July 1943.
Sergeant Thomas Reid died by drowing when he crashed his jeep into a canal on 22 July 1945. He had only been taken on strength of the Ontario Regiment on the previous day. Thomas Clayton Reid was born on 14 August 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of eight. He joined the army in September 1940 and spent most of the war in the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment.
The final death happened a long way from the battle area. Sergeant Leonard Osborne died 8 October 1945 at Christie Street Hospital in Toronto where he was receiving treatment for a head injury suffered on 31 March 1944. Osborne was a dispatch rider and on that day was tasked to meet some of the Regiment’s tanks to lead them to a new harbour area. When the tasking was cancelled he was returning to his own harbour area in wet weather when he crashed his motorcyle on a wooden bridge. Leonard Osborne was on born in St. Thomas, ON on 26 September 1920. He grew up in Windsor and was living in Delhi and working as a trucker when he joined as one of the original Ontarios in September 1939. Osborne was discharged from the army in Feb 1945 due to his injuries.
The photos below have been represented as taking place on different dates in various documents. A bit of research indicates that this event took place on 14 September 1945 in the Grote Bredeplaats, Harlingen, Netherlands. The war diary notes the presence of a Canadian Women’s Army Corp pipe band being on parade. It also refers to an inspection by Brigadier I.L. Cumberland, acting commander of 5th Canadian Armoured Division. He and the burgemeester (mayor) of Harlingen were on the reviewing stand. The photos in this collection reflect all of this. Finally, the Google street view of Grote Bredeplaats shows the same triangular monument and adjacent buildings.
Rod Henderson is the Regimental Historian of the Ontario Regiment. He served as a Sergeant in the Regiment and is the author of “Fidelis Et Paratus: A History of The Ontario Regiment (RCAC), 1866-2016”.