Branch 11


No Image

Veteran recounts family tradition of service in the military

The man after whom James LeRoy is named, was wounded in the last month of the Great War.

“He was in a lot of pain,” LeRoy said of his grandfather.

James A. LeRoy, an 18-year-old from a farm near Belleville, Ont., served and was wounded in the second battle of Cambrai, in France, in October 1918.

“He had never experienced … combat and the life in a trench wasn’t easy,” his grandson added.

James LeRoy Jr. serves as chaplain with the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 11, in East York, where members staged a parade and remembrance service on Nov. 6.


No Image

Vet remembers sudden end to wartime mission

It happened on a night in May of 1944. Fred Davies remembered the cannon shell from an enemy fighter aircraft flying past his face. It ripped into the engine of his bomber. “The engine and wing… blew up,” he remembered, “(creating) an immediate ball of constant flame about 20 feet or higher.”