08/08/2025
Captain Ernest Reginald Waldie
8 LAA Regt RCA, Royal Canadian Artillery
College of Pharmacy, PhmB 1933. Killed on active service in North-West Europe, 8 August 1944. Buried in Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery, France.
Excerpt of letter to his brother written Nov. 12, 1943: "Well, Ralph, I have been living under a lucky star. I was on the assault wave in the Sicilian show and the first five days was with front line fighting. We were trapped twice and under direct heavy fire, also under fire for 12 days straight. We lived through the lizards, flies, malaria, typhoid etc. One morning we were advancing with the infantry piled on our trucks and guns...Jerry had prepared a trap and we walked right into it. All hell broke loose just at dawn..we were on a mountain road and only one way to go. We were mortared and 88mm from up front and machine gunned from all sides including the rear. We put the guns into action right on the road and shot out 3 pill boxes and cleared a whole ridge of machine guns ..One day I was catching up on a little sleep when 5 FW 190s came over and threw mud in my face from their cannon fire, but two of them will never fly again. We haven't shot many down but we've kept them high and they've only been successful in placing their bombs twice in the whole show. We are on board ship again and this time tomorrow, if I can keep my head down, I'll be in Italy. I'm in on the first wave again but don't have to go over the side, the guns and trucks are with us this time so we drop the ramp and drive off - our job is the beach this time so we will be first in to give them ack-ack cover while the rest are landing. We are due to land in 7 hours - there isn't the same excitement this time - just another exercise. The radio is blasting away - a hot orchestra is playing - there is a poker game with very high stakes beside me and the sea breeze is very welcome - what a war! Tomorrow morning you wouldn't recognize them as the same men. They are sure a tough lot going into battle."