How Prince Edward Islanders helped turned the tide in the Second World War

From serving seemingly endless hours in field hospitals, to making long odysseys to escape from enemy territory, to conquering crucial ground with innovative strategies, many Prince Edward Islanders made their mark during the Second World War.

In a series of interviews with P.E.I. Regiment Museum curator Greg Gallant and museum researcher Joyce Phillips, Island Morning host Laura Chapinhas been markingthe leadup to the 80th anniversary of D-Day by learning more about the contributions of these Island veterans.

That anniversary is today, June 6. And here are the stories.

Angus MacLean

Angus MacLeanwas 28 years old when he was made first pilot of a Halifax class RAF heavy bomber. He wasthe oldest man in his crew of seven.

On the evening of June 8, 1942, MacLean was briefed on his sixth mission. His was to be one of 300 bombers conducting a raid aimed at manufacturing facilities in Essen, Germany. The plan concerned him. The raid involved fewer planes than usual, increasing the odds his own would be a target.

His concerns were justified. He kept the plane aloft through heavy flak in Essen but was shot down by a German fighter over Holland on the way back to England.

It was the beginning of a months-long odyssey through occupied Belgium and France to Barcelona in neutral Spain, before he could finally hop a ship back to the United Kingdom.

After the war, MacLean would become a member of Parliamentfrom 1951 to 1976, a federal cabinet minister in John Diefenbaker's government,and the 25th premier of P.E.I.

MacLean died in 2000.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Angus MacLean's story.

Charlie Trainor

Charlie Trainor was P.E.I.'s most decorated fighter pilot.

Born in 1916 in Charlottetown, Trainor enlisted after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

He flew Spitfires. During his initial training, he showed promise as an instructor and that was how his war started. But he wanted to see action, and was eventually assigned to flying escort missions for bombers leading up to D-Day. On June 6, 1944,he flew three D-Day missions over Juno Beach.

During patrols in the same month, he would shoot down five planes in four days.

On two separate occasions during the war,Trainor had to bail out of his plane and parachute behind enemy lines.

After the war ended,he flew for 30 years with Maritime Central Airways and Eastern Provincial Airways.

Trainor died on July 4, 2004, just days before his 88th birthday.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Charlie Trainor's story.

Harry Bishop

Harry Bishop, born in Summerside, enlisted with the P.E.I. Highlanders at the start of the war. He was29.

In advance of D-Day, Bishop was shipped to Tunisia for combat experience. Details of that experience came to light just a few months ago, with the discovery of a diary he kept at the time.

What Bishop witnessed in Tunisia would be essential to his experience on European battlefields, and would lead to him being awarded a Military Medal.

Bishop died in 1991.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Harry Bishop's story.

Kathleen MacLeod

Kathleen MacLeod was a nursing sister who worked at a casualty clearing station close to thefront lines after D-Day.

Raised in Kinross, she was a niece of famed Prince Edward Island author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Her medical unit was among the first on the Normandy beaches, and her experience of D-Day included 18 hours without a break in an operating room.

She went on to serve in Belgium and Holland.

MacLeod was awarded the Royal Red Cross medal by King George VI at Buckingham Palace for her service.

She died in 1980.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Kathleen MacLeod's story.

Robert MacMillan

Lt.-Cmdr. Robert MacMillan was born in Charlottetown and grew up there.

He would go on to captain two boats that sank after coming under German attack.

MacMillan joined the war effort at the age of 24, and captained one of the trawlers that swept for mines for convoys of allied ships. He won the Distinguished Service Cross for that work.

He was doing the same work during the Siege ofTobruk in North Africa when his boat was struck and sunk.

He somehow survived, but he ran into trouble again while captaining the HMCS Esquimault off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Esquimault was the last allied ship sunk by enemy fire in the Second World War.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Robert MacMillan's story.

Douglas McGowan

During civilian life in the 1930s, Maj.Douglas McGowan of Kilmuir had been a truck driver, mechanicand salesman, so it was a natural fit for him to take tank training before heading overseas with the Canadian Grenadier Guards.

In the Battle of the FalaisePocket, during which the allies hemmed in a significant German force near the town of Falaisein northwestern France, the grenadier guards found themselves running short on tanks. On the night of Aug. 14, 1944, McGowan was sent behind enemy lines to recover what battle-damaged Sherman tanks he could.

He returned with nine, bringing the strength of the guards back up to 40 tanks. He was awarded the Military Cross for his work that night.

Back on P.E.I. after the war,McGowan was elected twice to the P.E.I. Legislature, in 1959 and 1962.

He died in 1989.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Douglas McGowan's story.

J. David Stewart

J. David Stewart was born in Georgetown in 1910. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the Prince Edward Island Highlanders as a private.

He was a captain by the time the war started, and a lieutenant-colonel in command of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in August 1944, when he was ordered to lead the Argylls in the taking of Hill 195. That wasthe highest piece of ground on the road from Caen to Falaise in Normandy.

Taking over that high ground was key to closing the Falaisepocket, surrounding German troops in Normandyand eventually driving them back. But Stewart was aware that two regiments had already been slaughtered trying to take the hill.

Stewart's plan for taking the hill was unorthodox, moving silently into enemy territory at night, but it turned out to be a spectacularly successful strategy.

After the war, Stewart was a prominent businessman, president of Northumberland Ferries, and chairman of the Georgetown Shipyard. He served as mayor of Charlottetown from 1951 to 1958, and was later elected to the legislature and served as minister of tourism.

Stewart died in 1988.

• LISTEN HERE for more of J. David Stewart's story.

William Wright Reid

Bill Reid got an early start in army life. He joined the #20 West Kent Cadet Corps in 1924, when he was just 11 years old.

When the Second World War started, he was a captain with the Prince Edward Island Highlanders.

Reid served some time on protective duties in Atlantic Canada. Eager to see action, he transferred to the Princess Louise Fusiliers and was soon on his way to Europe.

Fighting in the Italian campaign, he was wounded three times from May to August of 1944. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and ended that campaign as a lieutenant-colonel.

Reid continued to serve in the military until 1954. In 1946, he was appointed the first commanding officer of the 17th (P.E.I.) Reconnaissance Regiment, and in 1948 he was promoted to brigadier-general.

Following his military career, Reid joined the provincial civil service, including serving as the deputy minister of labour.

Reid died in 1987.

• LISTEN HERE for more of William Wright Reid's story.

Samuel Leaman Caseley

Samuel Leaman Caseley was born in 1911 and joined the militia as soon as possible, at the age of 17 or 18, having made an agreement with his family to keep up with work on the farm if he did so.

Despite his decade of experience, Casely was not immediately consigned for active service when the war started in 1939. His work on the farm took priority, as Canada strove to help feed civilians and the Allied troops in Europe.

Eager to serve on the front, he transferred to the Manitoba Dragoons and spent six months patrolling the West Coast on the lookout for Japanese landings.

With no action on the West Coast, he transferred to the South Alberta Regiment, a tank corps, and went overseas in August of 1942.

Still, years would pass before he would see battle, since he was assigned to training in England. Months after the D-Day landings, Lt. Caseley was offered a promotion but turned it down in favour of being shipped across the English Channel to fight.

Days after arriving, he was engaged in a 30-hour battle for the Hochwald Forest Gap. His persistence during that battle led to him being awarded the Military Cross.

Caseley died in 2000.

• LISTEN HERE for more of Samuel Leaman Caseley's story.

The fallen

Three Islanders are known to have died during the D-Day landings onthe Normandy beaches.

They were three of 14,000 Canadian soldiers who landed on Juno Beach on June 6, 1944, part of a 155,000-strong allied force.

Born in Charlottetown in 1921, Lance Cpl. Francis Trainor was a baker. He enlisted with the 3rd Canadian Infantry at the start of the war. Trainor was initially reported missing after D-Day. His death was not confirmed to his parents until January of 1945.

Pte. Ora McEwan was born in New Brunswick in 1912, but was a barber in Summerside when the war started and he signed up to serve. McEwen was reported missing on D-Day. There are reports from others on the boat with him that he jumped into the sea before the landing craft hit the beach. His wife did not receive confirmation that he was dead until late August.

Sgt.-Maj. Daniel Yeo was born in Alberton in 1916. When the war started, he was working as a farm labourer in Saskatchewanand joined the Regina Rifles. Just days before D-Day, Yeo learned he had fathered a son while on leave in Scotland. He was in the midst of a failed marriage to another British woman, whom he was trying to divorce.

In a June 2 letter to the Scottish woman, May, Yeo professed his ongoing love for her and instructed her to use the letter as evidence that he wished to leave all he had to her should he die.

Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

Yeo was killed on June 6, and all that he had to give did indeed go to May, despite his estranged wife's attempt to claim the estate.

LISTEN HERE for more about the conditions soldiers faced on Juno Beach on D-Day.

D-Day anniversary commemorated on bus shelters

6 months ago

Duration 1:22

A series of posters on bus shelters in Charlottetown is marking the D-Day contributions of Islanders on the 80th anniversary of this pivotal moment in the Second World War. Island Morning host Laura Chapin talks to P.E.I. Regiment Museum curator Greg Gallant about them.

More stories about P.E.I. veterans of the Second World War