ARTHUR – Driving north on Highway 6 where it meets Wellington County Rd. 109, there is a sign calling Arthur Canada’s most patriotic village.
The Arthur and Area Historical Society is working to ensure the reasons behind this title aren’t forgotten.
At the forefront of this is 94-year-old Arthur resident John Walsh who served in the navy during World War II.
Walsh was part of an overwhelming response to both world wars from the small village.
Arthur was on the front page of the Toronto Star in 1942 which shared the town’s contribution of sons, daughters and money to aid in the war effort.
With a population at the time of 890, more than 100 enlisted in the military. This was the largest percentage of citizens who joined from a single town.
This front page hangs up in the Arthur’s war museum, which is a part of the Arthur and Area Historical Society that takes up a few rooms in the local chamber of commerce building.
Walsh said by the end of the war and when the surrounding area is considered, there would have been 363 who signed up.
He said at the time a lot of those were children of World War I veterans which may have been a reason for the high enlistment.
“It probably carried on from the First World War, a lot of relatives and family served,” Walsh said. “Twenty years later, they enlisted and carried on the tradition.”
In 1944, Walsh and two friends decided to go to London to sign-up because he said he felt it was his duty to serve and be part of the village’s response.
“There’s three of us enlisted together, it’s when we kind of figured we could,” Walsh said. “I just turned 18 and I found out one of the lads I enlisted with was underaged.”
He ended up in the navy on the HMCS Wallaceburg which escorted supply ships across the Atlantic ocean. Walsh was part of a team that used early SONAR equipment to find submarines.
Back home, the local citizens also led the country in the first war bond campaign by reaching their target first in the country and continued to lead the county in the next nine.
Jack Benham, who grew up in Mount View just outside of Arthur, was in public school during the war and remembered his own contribution.
“We would bring a dime to school ... and that would go to a war bond,” Benham said. “We collected milkweed pods and we would put that in a bag and they would go someplace we had no idea.”
He said he later learned the pods were waterproof and used for lifejackets for people in planes that were shot down.
Through the course of World War II, 25 from Arthur were killed in action.
The Arthur and Area Historical Society put together a book in 2017 that tells the story of many veterans from both world wars.
Some passages read:
Harry Doyle trained for two months at Brampton. On August 3rd, 1944, he arrived overseas, where he trained two months at Aldershot. After shipping to France that year, he was reported wounded on October 5th. A local paper reported that he had gone to the aid of “a buddy” and was shot in the arm and stomach. “I just felt numb,” he is quoted as saying.
Michael Gaffney did his basic training in Canada and was then sent over to England. He was with the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, 27th Armoured Division, in France and was wounded near Falaise. He died on August 12th, 1944.
After the war, Walsh went to university to become a pharmacist. He later opened Walsh’s pharmacy, still open today but run by his son and grandson.
“I wouldn’t have been a pharmacist if I hadn’t joined,” Walsh said. “They paid for all of mine (schooling) except the last $60 room and board.”
Benham pointed out that Walsh is the one who catalogued and did the work to put the war museum together although Walsh called it a combination effort of society members.
Walsh said they think it is important to carry on these stories to a younger generation. Before the pandemic, groups of school children would come to visit and he said it is worth it if just one is at all interested.
Benham and Walsh both said it’s important for children to understand the conditions that led to World War II.
“It could happen again,” Walsh said.
