Canadian Members of Combined Operations

A Work in Progress

Surely, the names of Canadians who volunteered for special duties in the Combined Operations organization, starting in 1941, will run into the hundreds, then thousands. I have not seen, however, a final tally in any Canadian book or Navy record.

["Photo may have been taken in Toronto in Dec.1943 or Jan. 1944*]

The five men who appear in the title photo were among the first to volunteer:

1. Don Linder, Kitchener, Ontario

2. Doug Harrison, Norwich, Ontario

3. Joe Watson, Simcoe, Ontario

4. Buryl McIntyre, Norwich, Ontario

5. Charles 'Chuck' Rose, Chippawa, Ontario

More to follow.

*These men returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia in December, 1943 upon the Aquitania after two years of 'Hostilities Only' or HO service overseas, which included manning the invasion barges during the Dieppe raid in August, 1942 and the subsequent invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In Dec. 1943 or Jan. 1944 they dressed to the nines and boarded a train bound for more Combined Ops duties at a Navy base called Givenchy III on The Spit, near Comox, Vancouver Island.