Dr. C.M. Johnston's Project

Robert D. Heard

Upon graduation from McMaster University, it was customary for a classmate to write up a friend's “obit”, which would then accompany a head and shoulders picture in the student yearbook, the Marmor. In its 1942 edition, the obit of graduand Robert (Bob) Heard appeared:

This silver-voiced tenor, who lurks around the lower hall, came to Mac in '39 and entered the first course he found listed in the syllabus. Leaving the academic work to scholars, Bob turned to that which he could do best - sing - -- and immediately walked off with the male lead in the Mikado. This year Bob has two more worries - running the Operatic Society and hoping to find time to graduate and think about a future.

Bob duly graduated with the wartime class of '42, in the company of three others fated to be listed on McMaster's World War II Honour Rolll: Gordon Holder, Charles MacDonald, and James Young. As for his immediate future, it was, like theirs, bound up with the Canadian Army.

The McMaster graduate and soldier-to-be was born in London, Ontario on 20 November 1917 to Homer Nesbitt Heard and Edna (Holcombe) Heard, who had been married in Woodstock on 11 June 1911. Bob joined a sister, Marion, five years his senior, and would be followed in 1919 by a brother, Donald. Their father was an employee of the Bell Telephone Company. Together with his future brother-in-law, Charles Holcombe, he had helped to restore telephone service in the temporary quarters occupied by the many Toronto businesses devastated by what was aptly called the Great Fire of 1904. Later Homer Heard worked on other projects in the restored city centre and for recreation appears to have, among other things, played on a company baseball team on Toronto Island.

He subsequently became a Bell construction superintendent, which meant periodic transfers for him and his growing family to various points in Ontario. The process had begun at St, Thomas, where Bob's siblings were born, and then continued in London and Kitchener before finally ending in Hamilton. A church-going family, like most families of that generation, they transferred from their previous place of worship, Knox Presbyterian in Kitchener, to Hamilton's Central Presbyterian Church, where Bob, already an accomplished singer, became a welcome member of the choir.

Bob's early education had thus unfolded in various locales, and his high school days were divided between Kitchener (KCI) and Westdale Collegiate Institutes (WCI). At the former, which he apparently entered in 1931, he early on displayed a theatrical bent, performing the following year in KCI's major play, “The School Children”. On the other hand, he seems to have kept a low extracurricular profile at Westdale because a search of the relevant editions of the school's yearbook, Le Raconteur , yielded no references to his stay there or to possible choral or theatrical performances. In any case, following his matriculation from WCI in 1937, he immediately entered the work place, on the payroll of his father's employer in Hamilton.

In the late summer of 1939, however, Bob decided to leave his job and return to the books. He registered at McMaster in September, coincidentally the very month that Britain and Canada declared war against Nazi Germany. Within the year Bob, like all military age male students, was required to enroll in the McMaster Contingent of the Canadian Officers' Training Corps (COTC). There he joined Holder and Young in the weekly lecture and drilling program and during the two weeks of summer training at Niagara-on-the-Lake, the historic though otherwise undistinguished village at the outlet of the Niagara River.

Unlike those slated for the auxiliary unit, the often denigrated “awkward squad” that envisaged no lofty army careers, Bob opted for the full program of officers' training and was subsequently appointed a “platoon commander”, as recalled by one of his fellow students. The compulsory service instituted in the COTC was bluntly ushered in by the ugly turn the war had taken for the Allies when the Low Countries and France succumbed to the German Blitzkrieg and Britain herself was threatened with invasion. Over the next two years other disasters would follow as German forces cut deep into the Soviet Union and closed in on the Suez lifeline in Egypt. To make matters even more catastrophic, a triumphant Japan, after crippling the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, extended her sway over south-east Asia and the islands of the Pacific.

This global cataclysm may have been far removed from isolated Hamilton but it nonetheless cast a long shadow over Bob and his fellow students whose COTC requirements were a constant reminder of what eventually lay in store for many of them. Meanwhile they sought in the interval to complete their studies and engage in whatever extracurricular activities were still available in wartime. In Bob's case they would involve, first of all, singing in the choir and contributing his talents to quartets performing at student functions. He, like the gifted Robert Edgar [HR] before him, quickly progressed to playing the lead in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Bob was acclaimed a “tried performer”, to quote the weekly Silhouette, which reviewed his role as Marco in “The Gondoliers”. He was also called upon to serve on the executive of both the McMaster Music Association and the Operatic Society.

In the society's production of “Iolanthe” in the spring of 1942 the Silhouette reported that “Bob Heard, who thrilled you as Marco last year, will sing a rather different but still colourful role as one of the noble peers”. That same year, his final at McMaster, Bob was gratified to be named President of the society he had helped to invigorate.

Bernard Trotter, an appreciative freshman at that time, who later became the Silhouette's editor, was presumably one of many undergraduates impressed with Bob Heard's “performing and singing accomplishments”. Bob combined these comparatively mild indoor activities with a more violent outdoor one, football, for which his agility, height - 5'10” -- and weight of 170 pounds stood him in good stead. He qualified for the backfield on the varsity squad though he was obliged to play in the more modest intramural competition that wartime circumstances had summarily substituted for the intercollegiate variety.

Bob had registered in the three-year General Course, which, as its name suggests, involved no specialty or major, a point that his Marmor obit jokingly makes plain. He satisfactorily completed the requirements and achieved mostly third class standings. His term work grades in his final year were deemed sufficient to exempt him from the final examinations so that he might enlist for active service, a wartime formula followed in other cases. Bob made his declaration of attestation and formally enlisted on 8 May 1942, within days of his graduation from McMaster. By virtue of his COTC training he was taken on strength as an officer cadet. On 12 May, accompanied by other fellow graduates and cadets, Jim Young and Gord Holder among them (see picture, James Young biography) he found himself on his way by train to the West Coast and the officers' training facility at Gordon Head, British Columbia. The drill they underwent there was described by one of the McMaster cadets as “tough and rigorous”. It so happened that Bob's path would cross and re-cross Jim Young's over the next two years.

On 7 August, after meeting the necessary requirements, Bob was granted the rank of 2nd lieutenant and a week later left Gordon Head for the next stage of his training at the School of Infantry at Camp Borden, the country's main training installation, dating from the Great War. Within a month he passed the course and was formally qualified as a lieutenant. On 24th September he was detached as an instructor to a training course in Brantford and remained there until 17th November, returning to Borden the following day. On 13th January 1943, after enjoying a Christmas leave, he was posted once again to British Columbia, this time to the picturesque Okanogan Valley town of Vernon, the home of No. 9 Battle Drill Course, which sought, in part, to simulate battlefield conditions as then perceived by the Canadian military. Bob may have shared other officers' high regard for the proper state of physical fitness the demanding course cultivated. In any case, he spent a little over a month in Vernon before reporting back to Borden.

In the last two weeks of March Bob was granted what amounted to an embarkation leave and he took advantage if it to visit family and friends in Hamilton. On 31 March he returned to Borden and was introduced to the Bren Gun Carrier, a versatile, lightly armoured, and highly manoeuvreable vehicle that had become a popular workhouse for the Canadian Army. The training, reminiscent of the kind Gord Holder received, formally qualified Bob on 27th April as a Class III Driver (tracked). Unlike his classmate, however, he would not be called upon to use this new found expertise.

On 11th May Bob was dispatched to a transit camp - quite likely Debert, Nova Scotia -- a sure sign that he would soon be bound for active duty overseas. Indeed a scant two days later Bob, like so many before and after him, embarked from Halifax in a convoy carrying thousands of his fellow servicemen. After an apparently uneventful though comparatively slow ten-day voyage, he disembarked at an unnamed port in the UK - probably Greenock, Scotland -- and reported for duty on 22nd May. Like his fellow passengers he probably wired his parents the news of his safe arrival.

Following a few days spent gathering his gear and undergoing routine medical examinations, Bob was ordered to a Canadian Infantry Reinforcement Unit (CIRU), which would determine the regiment and destination to which he would ultimately be assigned. In the interval he was required to take a number of courses to reinforce or augment his Canadian training, including one in wireless operation from which he emerged with the gratifying assessment of “good'. The singer and operetta performer might have marveled at the hidden talents the war was bringing out.

On 11th August 1943 Bob was struck off strength from the CIRU and along with Jim Young, transferred to the 2nd Battalion (the one and only battalion) of the Irish Regiment of Canada (IrRC). It had started life in the Great War as the Toronto-based 110 th Regiment, the last numbered unit in the Canadian Army. The IrRC would form part of 11th Brigade, which was attached to the 1 st Canadian Corps, and would soon be bound for the Mediterranean theatre of operations, which had opened with the invasion of Sicily that very month. The decision to commit the Corps to this new theatre did not originate, however, with the Anglo-American leadership in the Mediterranean. Indeed had they had their way no Canadian troops would have been encouraged to take part because their presence in Italy was deemed unnecessary, at least at that particular juncture.

Rather the eventual dispatch of the 1st Corps to the Mediterranean was determined by almost purely Canadian considerations. The feeling had been growing for some time both at home and overseas that the Canadian forces long stationed in the UK were stagnating for want of action and becoming demoralized in the process. The opening of the Mediterranean front thus afforded a welcome opportunity to banish the troops' enervating boredom and provide them with the action for which they had long been training. in other words, “battle seasoning”. All the same, the Canadian political and military leadership still had to pressure the dubious British to make this possible.

For Bob, who was probably unaware of these high level discussions, the time to move out finally came on 24th October when he and the bulk of his regiment -- Jim Young and others sailed a short time later - were loaded aboard the S.S. Monterey on the Mersey and then sent north to the Clyde, where their ship joined 23 others bound for Italy, in an operation dubbed “Timberwolf”. Though hardly expecting a holiday cruise, Bob and other delighted Canadians were nonetheless treated to shipboard fare that far surpassed the ration-stricken food they had endured in England. When their heavily escorted convoy departed the Clyde it went on a course well out into the Atlantic, thus avoiding the even more hazardous Bay of Biscay, which was within easy reach of the Luftwaffe. Even so, Bob and his fellow Canadians were reminded en route of their other potential assailant when several U-boat alerts were sounded. Thankfully they remained alerts only and on 4th November the unscathed convoy swung in to enter the welcoming Straits of Gibraltar.

The Canadians' luck changed dramatically, however, once they ventured into the broad waters of the Mediterranean. In the early evening of 6th November the violence of war caught up with them for the first time. A genuine peril materialized literally out of the blue when a squadron of German torpedo bombers (most likely Dornier DO 22s) boldly swept in at masthead level and discharged their ordnance at the convoy. They struck three ships, among them, the American liner, Santa Elena, which was carrying some 1800 Canadian service personnel, including a hospital unit complete with a contingent of nursing sisters. Fortunately no lives were lost. The liner stayed afloat long enough to allow the evacuation of all on board though they had to row a considerable distance in a heavy swell to the Monterey, which had stopped to pick them up.

Bob and others gathered at the ship's rail to greet the first boatloads. To his considerable surprise he spotted a Kitchener school boy acquaintance, Lieut. T.D. Joslin, in one of the lead boats. Along with others, including the nursing sisters, who had also done their share of the rowing, Joslin scrambled up rope ladders to the Monterey's deck. When they finally managed to meet up, he and Bob must have excitedly swapped impressions of the harrowing experience and hailed the news that three of the attacking aircraft had been shot down by the escort's anti-aircraft gunners.

The rest of the voyage was mercifully uneventful and the convoy ultimately dispersed, some of the ships heading for Sicilian ports while the Monterey and the 11th Brigade, with the Santa Elerna's survivors still on board, set course for Naples, arriving there on 10th November. Bob and the rest of the military passengers disembarked at the Allied controlled though battered port the next day, the 11th . This was the day still observed in far off Canada as Armistice Day, which ironically marked the end of the Great War a generation earlier, in all likelihood an irony not lost on Bob and his fellow passengers, including Lieut. Joslin. Incidentally he parted company with Bob at that point when he and his rescued unit were sent off to their own marshalling grounds outside the city.

Storied Naples with the ominous Vesuvius looming in the distance presented an exotic sight, a far cry from any North American or British city Bob and his companions had laid eyes on and it would take some getting used to. Indeed the disenchanting slum outskirts of the city, which they soon encountered, were judged unfit as a marshalling and training ground for the units in 11th Brigade and as a result a more suitable site was sought and taken over some miles northeast of Naples

There were other unrelated problems at the outset. The Canadians had been obliged to leave their vehicles in the UK when they embarked for Italy. Consequently they initially had to make the best use they could of vehicles and other heavy equipment supplied by the British 8 th Army, to which 11th Brigade and units like the IrRC were attached. In a good many instances this supply was found unsuitable by Canadian standards and appeals were issued to have their own equipment dispatched from England. This was eventually done but in the interval the Canadians had to contend with the reconditioned British vehicles, many of which were the worse for wear after their prolonged service in the Western Desert campaign. Some indeed had been restored from the cannibalized parts of written off vehicles. For a time too the Canadians were short of artillery and the necessary ordnance.

While these matters were being sorted out in the closing weeks of 1943, the IrRC was preparing to move into position on the Moro River front running southwest of the Adriatic town of Ortona, a battleground which also featured two other river valleys, the Arielli and the Riccio. During this period, however, the state of Allied fortunes generally had declined sharply after the deceptively successful landings on the toe of Italy the previous September. Even though Italy was knocked out of the war at this early stage the Germans more than filled the gap created by their Axis partner's collapse and they set about devising murderous defensive positions. Even when they did retreat their skillfully executed rear guard actions often stalled and checked altogether the advance of Allied forces, including the Canadians.

The IIrRC, for its part, was not immediately committed to a major action but rather “eased” into the fighting by way of patrolling and scouting the enemy's position as a means of familiarizing themselves with the scene and to give them some inkling of what was to come. As one officer put it, the exercise was designed to “break us in easily. We shall soon see whether it's easy or not”. Arguably, compared to a full scale pitched battle complete with aircraft and tanks, it may have been easy but this reconnoitering of enemy positions could be potentially harrowing in its own right, depending on the nature and ferocity of any ensuing confrontation with the enemy.

On some occasions, to be sure, the patrolling, when carried out in good weather and circumstances favouring the intruder, could provide gratifying results - for example, the gathering of key intelligence and even the occasional capture of a prisoner - with little or no loss of life or limb. This appears to have been the case in mid-January 1944 when the IrRC participated in three nights of vigorous patrolling against the Germans' 1st Parachute Regiment, one of the crack units deployed to blunt the Allied advance.

By early February,1944 Bob Heard had been appointed a Scout Officer and his regiment was stepping up its patrolling forays into enemy lines even while the front itself had paradoxically become “static”, in the sense that no large full scale assaults were undertaken by either side that might have dramatically altered the military boundaries separating the combatants. As a result the contest virtually become stalemated and took on the appearance of a Great War scenario, marked by dug-in troops, artillery and mortar duels, the exchange of machine gun and small arms fire, and, of course, the constant scouting and patrolling undertaken by on both sides. There was even a “No Man's Land”, crisscrossed by the ravines, hills, ridges, and shallow river valleys that rival patrols were ceaselessly negotiating by day or night in their search for information on the enemy's strength and intentions. “Listen, Observe, and Search” had become their watchwords.

For those so engaged, like Bob Heard in due course, it was in large measure a war within a war, a microcosm of the expansive campaigning that over time came to engulf all of southern Italy. The contracted world of those on patrol seemed far removed even from the action at Anzio on Italy's west coast, where an Allied amphibious force landed in the hope of entrapping German forces only to face near entrapment itself.

Sometimes, as Bob Heard discovered, patrolling operations had to be put on hold when heavy fog, which proved impervious to flares, enshrouded the front lines. Another limiting factor was the weather, which acted like a pendulum, bringing sun and warmth one day and cold, freezing rain and snow the next. Often the cloying mud or sodden clay that resulted hamstrung the movement of tracked and wheeled vehicles, forcing the combatants to resort to mule trains for bringing up supplies and ammunition, another unpleasant reminder of a standard Great War practice. And often those supply trains became a special target for the more aggressive patrolling parties, both Allied and German.

Meanwhile the IrRC sought as best it could to make itself reasonably comfortable in an otherwise uncomfortable environment, especially in the rest area to the rear. It had been cleared to accommodate the companies that were routinely rotated to it for “rest and recreation”, which included, among other amenities, a coveted shower, a hot meal, and sometimes even a “picture show”. The troops were also visited periodically by the “brass”, senior brigade and divisional officers who gave them “pep talks” and sought to bring them up to date on the progress of the campaign.

Thankfully most of these days on the front line were comparatively quiet, apart from the occasional heavy to medium shelling and mortaring that the enemy laid down to remind the Canadians of their very real presence. The Germans were also reported to be routinely laying land mines to discourage intruders. By this time the IrRC had been joined interactively on its right flank by the Perth regiment, which Bob's friend and classmate, Jim Young, would shortly join, after being transferred from the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment.

For much of February the IrRC suffered virtually no casualties, lethal or otherwise in spite of the intermittent enemy barrages and their own dangerous and intrusive patrolling that in turn reminded the Germans of their presence. Indeed on 6th February the war diaries reported almost triumphantly that “we established the fact that we could get a crack at him when we pleased”. Two days earlier a sobered German paratrooper all but confirmed this in a diary entry: “I have changed a good deal. I cannot smile now. Here one must run for one's life. … One cannot feel safe here”. Bob Heard may well have shared the German's apprehension when he embarked on his own patrols. On one such, the war diaries reveal, he and his men spotted and safely set off an enemy “booby trap”.

By this date, 19th February, the IrRC, described as “in good shape and spirits”, had left their position near Orisgnas and moved by road to take up a new one north of the town of Frisa, where they relieved another Canadian unit, the Cape Breton Highlanders. They were soon greeted by one of the Germans' favourite weapons, dubbed the “Moaning Minnie”, a heavy mortar that sent routinely sent the Canadians to cover. On the 18th , the day before Bob led out his patrol, an IrRC company had scored a direct hit on a German outpost while another had successfully broken up an enemy patrol.

Two days after he coped with the booby trap, Bob and other elated members of the regiment finally received their overdue though considerable Christmas mail, long held up by poor roads and limited forwarding facilities. The war diaries wryly commented that “we celebrate Christmas as the boxes and gifts bearing the symbol ‘Not to be opened until the 25th 'Dec. … [keep] pouring in …..”

Bob barely had time to enjoy his own Yuletide parcels before he was ordered out the next day on another patrol. The hazardous operation proved to be his last. His luck ran out when he fell afoul of one of the land mines the Germans were constantly planting to catch the unwary. The war diaries recorded his fate on 22 Feb. 1944:

Our Scout … Officer Lieut. R.D Heard lost his life today after stepping on an enemy mine. He was doing a daylight recce [reconnaissance] … when the accident occurred. The CO was visiting the forward companies at the time and was on hand when the stretcher party returned from picking Lieut., Heard up. The CO and1st aty [artillery] 17 FD laid on a memorial shoot of 4.2 and 3 in[ch] Mortars for Lieut. Heard. Pte Ruck E.T. who accompanied Lieut. Heard is to be commended. He was blown back ten feet from the force of the explosion but immediately on recovering picked up the injured man and carried him back to a place of safety. From here he ran back to forward Co[mpan]y for stretcher bearers and then returned with them. It should be observed that the accident occurred almost in the enemy lines ... [Emphasis added]

Over sixty years later a regimental veteran clearly recalled the action taken by the “commendable” Evan Thomas Ruck, who went by the nickname, Tupper. For his “gallant and courageous” efforts on Bob Heard's behalf, he was awarded the Military Medal (MM), the citation for which supplements what the ware diaries recorded. It also poignantly reflected the bonds that could be forged by the shared challenges of war:

Although stunned and suffering from shock, Pte. Ruck carried the officer [Robert Heard] for two hundred yards back through the minefield and dressed his wounds. He then ran three-quarters of a mile uphill to the nearest company, collected a stretcher party and led then back to pick up the officer. Before being evacuated to hospital, he passed on all information gained. All this action took place within one hundred and fifty yds. of known enemy positions and under spasmodic mortar fire.

Ironically the very next day, 23 rd February, Bob Heard would likely have been among those IrRC officers given an 8-day leave. His fate closely paralleled that of former classmate and fellow cadet, Jim Young [HR], a scout officer with the Perth Regiment, who died on the Cassino front.

In due course Bob's obituary appeared in the watchful McMaster Alumni News and his name was formally added to the University's growing Second World War Honour Roll. Throughout the News had kept careful track of his Army career, noting his dispatch to Gordon Head, BC, his promotions, and his voyages to the UK and Italy. The obituary also reminded its wartime readers that the person whom the Marmor had acclaimed as the “silver-voiced tenor”, was “especially well known for his work in the Operatic Society”. Memorial services were also held for him in those churches regularly attended by his family at one time or another, Knox Presbyterian in Kitchener and Central Presbyterian in Hamilton. A year later a still grieving Homer Heard mailed a sympathy card to the family of Gordon Holder, Bob's McMaster classmate and fellow cadet at Gordon Head, who had recently been killed in Germany. After expressing condolences and supportive sentiments, the card's message simply and accurately summed up with the words, “We know how you feel”.

Robert Dalton Heard is buried in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, Italy.


 
C.M. Johnston

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: John Aikman, Karen Ball-Pyatt, James Cross, Ann Denneny, Barbara Dunbar, Harry Ennis, Velma (Heard) Hall, Trevor Hamilton, David Holcombe, Lorna Johnston, Burtch Morgan, Emily Murphy, James Reaney, Melissa Richer, Paul Ruck (no relation to E.T. Ruck), Bernard Trotter, Sheila Turcon, and Clifford Weimeir, all provided much needed assistance. James Reaney and Barbara Dunbar at the London Free Press were instrumental in locating relatives of Robert Heard, notably Velma Hall and David Holcombe, both of whom supplied welcome family information. John Aikman at the Educational Archives of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (EAHW) unearthed relevant Westdale Collegiate information and Karen Ball-Pyatt at the Kitchener Public Library did likewise for Kitchener Collegiate (see below). Trevor Hamilton, a peacetime member of the IrRC who supplied leads and regimental information, was reached through Legion Magazine. So was Clifford Weimeir, who is researching those regimental members killed in action. He too kindly furnished information, including the Military Medal citation quoted in the text. As well, he sought out others who could provide more data. Among the sources consulted, G.W.L. Nicholson’s Official History was invaluable. (It also provided the map displayed in the text.)

SOURCES: National Archives of Canada / Wartime Personnel Records: Service Record of Lieut. Robert Dalton Heard, War Diaries of the Irish Regiment of Canada, 1 Feb. - 23 Feb. 1944, Record Group 24, vol. 15085; Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Commemorative information on Lieut. Robert Dalton Heard; Kitchener Public Library / Special Collections: Grumbler, 1932 (KCI yearbook), 71; EAHW: Ontario School Office Record Cards (OSOR), furnished information on Robert Heard’s attendance at Kitchener and Wetstdale Collegiate Institutes; Hamilton Public Library / Special Collections: Le Raconteur (WCI yearbook), 1934-37, 1940, 53; Canadian Baptist Archives / McMaster Divinity College: McMaster University Student File 7649, Robert D. Heard, Biographical File, Robert D. Heard (contains newspaper and magazine clippings); McMaster University Library / Special Collections: Silhouette (front pages), 31 Oct. 1940, 7 Feb., 7 Mar.1941, 6 May 1942, and 2 Oct. 1942, 3; Marmor, 1942, 20, 74, 75, 98, McMaster Alumni News, 15 June 1942, 28 Apr. 1944, 2, 12 Oct. 1944,1; G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, II: The Canadians in Italy, 1943-1945 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1956), 338 (facing map: “Adriatic Sector”), 350-64, 387, 388, 729; Hamilton Spectator, 28 Apr. 1944.

Internet:
www.toronto.ca/archives/fire1.htm, City of Toronto Archives: “The Great Fire of 1904”;
www.answers.com/topic/list-of-world -war-II-military--aircraft-of-Germany, (Dornier DO 22, torpedo bomber/reconnaissance flying boat);
www.regiments.org/regiments/na-Canada/volmil/on-inf/110Irish.htm, (“Irish Regiment of Canada”).

[ For related biographies, see Robert John Edgar and James Allan Young ]