Richard “Dick” Wilson was born on December 21, 1920, the son of Norman J. Wilson and Vera H. Wilson, of 135 Penrose Street, Sarnia. Richard was a member of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Parish. He attended Sarnia public schools and Sarnia Collegiate. In high school, he played junior and senior WOSSAA Rugby, and one year, he was on the Editorial Staff for the Collegiate Magazine. Dick was very interested in music and was a piano player in a local orchestra. He was a member of the Central United Church and Century Club, and played softball for the club. After graduating from Sarnia Collegiate, he worked two years at Imperial Oil Limited, before going to University. While at Western University, he played on the football team and, in February 1943, single at the time, he left the University to join the O.T.C. at Brockville as a cadet.
On graduating in May 1943, Richard was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Artillery. He was transferred to Brandon, Manitoba, at Camp Shilo, and after receiving another pip, he instructed at Brandon until April 1944. He volunteered his service and was loaned by the Canadian Army to the British Army, and upon returning to Brockville, he took his full Lieutenancy in the Infantry. On June 8, 1944, Dick left for overseas and landed in Scotland. He was stationed at Barned Castle in England for six or seven weeks, where he took an Advanced Armoured Infantry Course and was in charge of a tank.
After landing in France, Richard Wilson was attached to the Queen’s Royal Regiment, (West Surrey) 1st/7th Division. A member of the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, he served in Belgium and Holland and took part in fighting around Arnheim, where Allied Paratroopers had been trapped. In mid-September of 1944, the Canadian (Sarnia) Observer printed portions of two letters that Richard Wilson had written home to his mother Vera telling of some of his experiences.
The first letter received reads in part:
We left camp in England and marched about 2 ½ miles to the station, with something like 60 pounds on our backs. It’s a bit tiring at first, but you get numb and don’t notice it. A band played for us at the depot and as we pulled out they played, ‘In the Mood’. The quarters on the ship were excellent and the meals wonderful. The next day we saw Normandy. At first all you could see were hundreds of ships and barrage balloons which really says a lot for our superiority when you realize the Allies can leave that much shipping riding at anchor unmolested. We went from the ship to landing craft and then marched another seven or eight miles to the first position. The British Tommies are small and some were just about whipped. In this section of the country there was not much in ruins. It was all in good shape and the army has made new roads.
In his second letter, he described a section of the country 70 miles inland. One morning, he got 20 Germans for a work party from a local prison camp:
They were a scruffy looking lot, most of them about 15 years old. They seemed very happy though. The Germans left this area just six days ago. On our way in we passed towns where there was absolutely nothing standing except the odd bit of jagged wall lurching into the air. The remainder was nothing but brick and rubble. You have to see this to know what I mean by rubble-it is sort of dust. I saw a few rather peculiar things such as a bombed house with nothing in it but a silly looking yellow chandelier, undamaged, hanging precariously from a split timber.
Among the roads and in the fields, are blown-up tanks and armored cars and vehicles of every type. Occasionally I saw a German grave and the Iron Cross on its marker. The roads are clear of mines, but in most cases they guarantee no safety anywhere more than three feet either side of the road. Many fields are pock-marked with huge bomb craters and I often saw many abandoned positions where Jerry had dug in. Along the roads there is an incessant stream of traffic. Besides army traffic, there are hundreds of French families returning to their homes, although I fear most of them won’t find any. They have two-wheel cars loaded high with every domestic article. Two or three horses pull these carts, and others are behind cows and goats. Baby prams and bicycles are also used for transportation.
It was in Holland on October 2, 1944, during the Liberation of the Netherlands, while serving with the Queen’s Royal Regiment as a CANLOAN Officer, that Richard “Dick” Wilson would lose his life. In mid-October of 1944, parents Norman and Vera Wilson in Sarnia would receive a telegram from Ottawa informing them that their son, Lieutenant R.N. Wilson, was reported missing on October 5. No other details were given. His parents suspected that whatever happened to their son likely occurred in Belgium, as they had received a recent letter from him telling of some of his experiences in Belgium. In late July of 1945, more than two months after VE-Day, Richard Wilson’s name was mentioned in a newspaper story on the 7th Armoured Division (Desert Rats), and was described as “missing presumed dead”. Norman and Vera Wilson had not received any notification of their son’s death at that point but received the news later that their son, Richard Norman Wilson was officially listed as, For official purposes, presumed killed in action, in the field (Western Europe). Twenty-three year old Lieutenant Richard Wilson has no known grave. His name inscribed on the Groesbeek Memorial, Netherlands, Panel 10.
SOURCES: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, N, S, 2C, 2D