Clifford Henry Callcott was born in August, 1916 and served overseas with the RCAF as a mechanic from 1943 to 1945. The collection consists of nine letters, photographs, cards, and miscellaneous items. Callcott died in 1969.
Title
WWII
These collections contains all materials relating to Canadian from 1939 to 1945. Some individual collections may contain materials beyond this time frame. External links in collection descriptions are to casualty and burial information at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Corporal* Patricia Mary Jones Carter was living with her family in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the start of World War II. In August of 1941 the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Corps (CWAC) was founded (it was later integrated into the Canadian Army as the Canadian Women’s Army Corps). Carter was quick to enlist. Her service in the CWAC began on October 17, 1941, working as a clerk at District Depot, Military District No. 6, and then transferring the following January to District Headquarters, both located in Halifax, N.S. Further service details are unknown, other than a posting at Regina during 1943.
Collection notes:
Central to the collection is a memoir that was written by Carter recounting the first six months of her service in the CWAC, beginning in September of 1941. Her father, World War I veteran Gunner Albert Edward Carter, is mentioned often in her writing, and is the subject of two of the photographs. A link to his service record has been included below.
External links:
Cpl. Patricia Mary Jones Carter’s service record (Serv/Reg# unknown) is not publicly available at this time.
Gnr. Albert Edward Carter’s service record (Serv/Reg# 43972) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
[* The rank of Corporal has been used here as this was Carter’s rank at the end of her memoir in April of 1942. Her final rank on leaving military service is unknown..]
William Austin Cauthers was born in March, 1925, the son of William and Margaret Cauthers of Mansfield, Ontario. Cauthers served as a Pilot Officer with the 407 Sqdn. of the R.C.A.F. He and his crew went missing when their Wellington MK IV failed to return on a mission over the English Channel on June 22, 1944. The collection currently consists of fifteen letters and three photographs.
External links:
Pilot Officer William Austin Cauthers’ service record (Serv/Reg# J89129) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Burial infomation is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A memorial page honouring Cauthers can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
Frances Charman was born in Joggins, Nova Scotia. After graduating from Aberdeen hospital in 1926, she nursed briefly in Truro, Nova Scotia before joining the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She enlisted with the United States Nursing Corps in 1942. After service overseas during WWII with the rank of Captain she returned to work at the Massachusetts General. The collection consists of more than forty letters written between 1942 to 1945.
Wren Margaret (Peggy) Helen Chesney was born in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, on July 24th, 1922. She enlisted with the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) in the summer of 1943. She was first posted to H.M.C.S. Conestoga in Galt, Ontario, and then in September to H.M.C.S. Cornwallis in Nova Scotia. Her final posting was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, beginning in November of 1944.
The letters in the Chesney Collection were written to her friend Miss J. Eira Williams of Regina, Saskatchewan, between September of 1943 and June of 1946. (Williams was also a correspondent in the CLIP Collections of P/O Lloyd Wesley Cuming, Cpl. Eunice Frances Davies, and L.A.W. Jean Isabel Turner.)
External links:
Wren Chesney’s Service Record (Serv/Reg# W-2601) is not available through Library and Archives Canada at this time.
Lance Sergeant Clarence Verdun Courtney was born in Toronto, Ontario, on March 26, 1916, to parents (Police constable, was also Toronto police force “the late” CVWM clipping) James and Annie Courtney. He had one sibling, sister Ina Lena. Prior to WWII Clarence Courtney was a Police Constable with the Toronto Police Department. He married Margaret Galbraith Davidson on October 18, 1940.
Courtney enlisted for Active Service on June 8, 1942, in Toronto, Ont., with the 17th Brigade Group Company #22, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (R.C.A.S.C.). He shipped for England in July of 1943, where he joined the 2nd Armoured Brigade Company, R.C.A.S.C.
Deployed as part of Operation Overlord, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Courtney was aboard the S.S. Sambut. Crossing the English Channel loaded with men and supplies, the Sambut was struck by long-range German artillery guns and sank in the Strait of Dover. Severely wounded by shellfire prior to abandoning ship, Courtney was declared missing, presumed dead; his body was never recovered. He is ccommemorated on the Bayeux Memorial, Calvados, France.
Content notes:
There are two letters in the collection, both from 1944. The first was written by Courtney to friend and fellow Toronto City Police Constable Charles Gilbert; mentioned is Police Constable Stanley James McIlrath who was killed June 30, 1943. The second is from Courtney’s military service record, and was written to H.Q. in Ottawa in November by his still-hopeful wife Margaret during the time period in which Clarence had been declared as missing but not yet declared dead.
External links:
L/Sgt. Clarence Courtney’s service record (Serv/Reg# B80413) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A memorial page honouring Courtney can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
R.C.A.F. Flight Sergeant Stanley James McIlrath’s service record (Serv/Reg# R112735).
Norvin Smith Crawford served with the 8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars, R.C.A.C., 5th Canadian Armoured Division as a tank driver. Crawford was killed in Italy on September 1, 1944 at the age of 28. The collection currently consists of one photograph of Crawford and one letter from his commanding officer to Crawford's fiance Grace Fulton describing the circumstances of his death.
External links:
Trooper Norvin Smith Crawford’s service record (Serv/Reg# G117) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A memorial page honouring Crawford can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
George Elliot Creswell was born in Saskatchewan in 1924. He enlisted in the RCAF on June 8, 1942, the day after his 18th birthday. Creswell went overseas in the fall of 1943 and served as a Flight Officer with the 432 Sqdn. He was shot down and killed on his 15th mission on February 21, 1945. The collection consists of 95 letters, photographs, and other printed items.
External links:
Flying Officer George Elliot Creswell’s service record (Serv/Reg# J35134) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A memorial page honouring Creswell can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
Warrant Officer Stuart Marshall Cross was born on January 21, 1920, in Verdun, Québec. In 1934 he moved with his family to St. Andrews, Scotland. Prior to World War II he worked as an insurance clerk.
Cross joined Britain’s Royal Air Force in August 1940. In December 1941, with R.A.F. 15 Operational Training Unit, Cross was flying as second pilot in Wellington IC DV416, when a fuel shortage forced an emergency landing near Catania, Italy. All of the aircrew were captured as Italian prisoners of war. In September 1943 Cross escaped from P.O.W. Camp 59 (Servigliano). After many months spent in hiding, he successfully connected up with British forces the following June, and returned to England in July 1944. Cross continued to serve in the R.A.F. after the war.
R.A.F. aircrew flying with Cross on December 28, 1941: Sgt. Edward Ronald Ashton (1282755), F/O Samuel Beckett (106061), Sgt. Robert Charles Davis (644393), Sgt. Ronald Percy Holmes (1375674), and Sgt. Robert Veitch (1107337). All were captured as Prisoners of War; Holmes was later shot and killed following his escape from a detention camp in February 1944.
Stuart Cross’s sister Wilma also served during the Second World War. Photographs from her time with the Canadian Women’s Army Corps are held in the Wilma Cross Collection.
Content notes:
The collection’s letters and telegrams date from late 1941 to early 1942, and pertain to Cross’s status as missing/P.O.W. The January 1942 letter was written by Cross to his parents less than a week after his capture as a P.O.W.
External links:
W/O Stuart Cross’s British service record (Serv/Reg# 1051162) is not available for public access; his P.O.W. Escape Report is held by the British National Archives under reference code WO 208/3320/91.
Wilma Cross was born in Verdun, Québec, in 1926. In 1934 she moved with her family to St. Andrews, Scotland.
In 1944, at age eighteen, Wilma travelled to London, England, to enlist with the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Following the end of the war she returned to Canada in 1946 aboard the SS Île de France. She remained with the C.W.A.C. another two years, before leaving to enter business school in Montreal. In 1949, she re-enlisted, and served for a period in Goose Bay, Labrador. Her final rank and date of discharge is unknown.
Wilma Cross’s brother Stewart also served during the Second World War. He was a pilot in Britian’s Royal Air Force; several of his letters and other materials are held in the Stuart Marshall Cross Collection.
Content notes:
The collection contains several 1945/1946 photographs of Cross overseas, as well as later images from her time at the airbase at Goose Bay, Labrador.
External links:
Wilma Cross’s service record (rank and serv/reg# unknown) is not publicly available at this time.
Desmond Ivan Crossley was born in 1910. Crossley joined the RCAF in 1940 and served as an instructor in the Commonwealth Air Training Program until his discharge in 1945. The collection currently consists of two letters from former students written to him, as well as numerous photographs.
Signalman Raymond (Ray) William Culley was born in Calgary, Alberta, on June 27, 1925. In early 1943 he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. He served on the corvette HMCS Summerside until his demobilization at the end of World War II.
The collection’s only letter was written by Ray Culley while his ship was in harbour at Milford, Haven, Wales. He had just received news from his mother telling him that his younger brother Donald (Don) was thinking about joining the Navy, and as their father was away with the Army in Sicily, Ray was writing to advise Don that he was likely needed more at home with their mother. But shortly after he finished writing Ray was handed a telegram sent by his uncle with two messages: that his brother Don had been fatally injured in an accident at home; and that his father was in an Army Hospital in Birmingham. The letter to his brother was never mailed.
In 2003 Ray Culley published a book of memoirs of his time in the navy, titled His Memory Can Survive. The book was dedicated to his brother Don.
External links:
Sig. Culley’s Military Service Record is not open for public access at this time.
A review of the book His Memory Can Survive can be read in the Canadian Naval Review, Spring 2005, p. 33.
Pilot Officer Lloyd Wesley Cuming was born in Kipling, Saskatchewan on June 9, 1918, to parents Gilbert Edwin and Sarah Adeline (née Callin) Cuming.
After completing his initial thirty-days training with the Winnipeg Light Infantry in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, in November/December of 1940, Cuming was working as bank clerk the time of his enlistment with the R.C.A.F. in Regina, Saskatchewan, on August 1, 1941. After training in Canada he proceeded to England in April of 1943 where he was attached to 61 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force, serving as a Bomb Aimer.
On a mission over Germany on January 27, 1944, the Lancaster #DV 400 on which Cuming was flying went missing. It was later determined that it had collided with another Lancaster. Cuming was reburied at the Hanover War Cemetery (also known as the Limmer War Cemetery), Hanover, Germany. The initial burial locations of the crew members killed was uncertain until after the war.
Content notes:
The collection’s letter was written by Lloyd’s mother, Sarah Cuming, to her friend Miss J. Eira Williams. (Williams was also a correspondent in the CLIP Collections of Wren Margaret Chesney, Cpl. Eunice Frances Davies, and L.A.W. Jean Isabel Turner.)
External links:
Pilot Officer Lloyd Wesley Cuming’s service record (Serv/Reg#s J87849; R116184) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A memorial page honouring Cumming can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
Able Seaman Bill R. Curtis served with the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. While stationed in England he served aboard a Landing Craft Infantry vessel, HMCS LCI(L)-285. In 1944 he returned to Canada where he served on a Boom Defense Vessel, HMCS BDV 19, in Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Collection notes:
The letters in the collection were all written by Curtis to his sweetheart Miss Audrey Addison of Nanaimo, B.C., between January 1943 and November 1944.
Transcriptions of the postcards have been included in the letter section. Due to funding constraints, only twenty-five letters have been transcribed at this time.
[Collection update August 2023: Thirty-five new letters added (as jpgs only).]
External Links:
A/B Bill Curtis (Serv/Reg# V69246) survived the war; his service record is not open to public access at this time.
