Personnel of the Regina Rifles preparing to attack enemy in Moyland Wood near Calcar, Germany, 16 February 1945.

Regina Rifles about to attack German forces

They were farmers, students, northern fur trappers — ordinary young Saskatchewan men from all walks of life transformed into extraordinary warriors who helped end Nazi tyranny in Europe.

They were the men of the Regina Rifles Regiment, who were part of the invasion of Nazi-occupied France that began with the D-Day battle in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Their Saskatchewan origins meant other Canadian soldiers got their digs by dismissing them as “just a bunch of Farmer Johns.”

The men of the regiment, though, wore the nickname as a badge of pride.

THE REGINA RIFLES

Duncan Munro, a resident of Prince George, B.C., holding an anti-tank shell in France during World War II. The back of the photo reads: I delivered a few of these to Jerry. Got two tanks in five minutes one day. The same day we were one of three out of sixteen tanks to return!  
When I was a little kid back in the 1950's, Mr. Munro ran Munro's Hardware store in my neighborhood.  He had a full case of "Dinkie" toys on display in a glass case on the counter.  We used to go in and drool over these incredibly well made toys.  Any toys we got were cheap plastic toys purchased very cheaply from the big Kreskies department store downtown.  One day I and my good friend Dougie Harper went in and with great stealth stole every Dinkie toy in the display, a great achievement considering that we had to distract Mr. Munro, and open the sliding glass doors and make off with all twenty of the toys.  I was discovered playing with my share of the loot in my room by my mom, she was shocked and aghast.  She marched me down to Munro's Hardware, I was ordered to return the toys and apologize.  I will never forget Mr. Munro's sad, tired gaze as I tearfully appologized.  He simply smiled quietly, thanked me for my "honesty" and returned the toys to the case.  I think I now know why the fact of a little kid stealing a few toys did not register as a major event in Mr. Munro's life.  He had experienced things a lot worse in his lifetime.  I read Mr. Munro's obituary a year ago and it simply stated that he had "Served 4 years in the Canadian Army during the Second World War."  I found the photo in the archives of the Prince George, B.C. museum.  Prince George was the mill-town I grew up in during the 1950's.