Remembrance Day - Home Town Heroes

PILOT, OFFICER

EDMUND RAY TAYLOR R.C.A.F.

WORLD WAR II

An outstanding student at Cherrywood Public School, Pickering Continuation School and Whitby High School. He graduated from Whitby High school in the spring of 1940 with high enough marks in mathematics and science to be accepted at the University of Toronto for it’s course in Aeronautical Engineering which, along with Engineering Physics were the most difficult courses in Applied Science and Engineering at the University.

In the fall of 1940 he was accepted as a pilot recruit in the R.C.A.F. On November 15th 1940 he joined the air force in Toronto. He did his ground school training in Toronto, Picton and Rockliffe. He did his elementary flying school training in ``Fleet’’ and ``Yale Finch II ‘’ training planes at Mount Hope Ontario and more advanced training in ``Harvard’’ training planes at Dunneville Ontario. He trained in Spitfires and Hurricanes in England. In all of his training courses he was always near the top of his class.

On January 6th 1942 he was assigned to Spitfire Fighter Squadron # 412, which was one of the most famous fighter squadrons in World War II. On his first tour of operations he was forced to belly land his Spitfire in a farmer’s field due to the fact that an engine malfunction caused the engine to use about twice the normal gas consumption and the plane ran out of fuel. He was not injured and there was very little damage to the plane. On March 17th 1942 Ray was transferred to R.A. F. station at Speke- (near Liverpool England) to train on `Sea Hurricane fighter planes’’. These were Hurricane fighters that were adapted so that they could be catapulted from convoy ships to chase away or shoot down German Bombers, which attacked the convoy of ships. During this training period, on April 15th 1942 Ray’s Hurricane Fighter plane collided with a Tiger Moth training plane and both Ray and the Tiger Moth pilot were fatally injured. Ray was buried in Kirkdale Cemetery, Liverpool England where flowers are placed on his grave on a fairly regular basis. We have good reason to believe that they were placed by his girl friend, Sheila Kennedy. His parents placed a beautiful memorial window in Cherrywood United Church for him. With the closing of Cherrywood Church the window has been moved to Whitevale United Church.

At every school that he attended Ray Taylor was an outstanding student and athlete, a fun guy to be with and well liked by everybody. He was the goalie on the Cherrywood hockey team, the catcher on the softball teams, an excellent tennis player, an avid hunter and handler of guns and good in track and field. He was always proud to be from Cherrywood, Ontario.

information provided by : Bob Morrish

Some links to Canada in WWII
Juno Beach Centre
Canada's Role in WWII
Veterans Affairs Canada

Ruby Rogers

Ruby Rogers was born in 1917 in Cherrywood, Ontario. At a young age, she moved to Agincourt. When she was 19 years old, she went into training to be a nurse at Toronto General Hospital. Shortly after the Second World War began, she enlisted with the Canadian Army and was sent to England. . . . (Story continued here)

Other Home Town Heroes

Ray Taylor, John Teefy & Ruby Rogers are not the only one from Cherrywood to serve. Far from it. Its unfortunate that there isn't time to do a piece on each and everyone of them. They are all heros. Below is a list of others that did come from Cherrywood that did serve.

Albert Maynard
Lloyd Petty
Art Petty
Alan Petty
Annie Petty (McGill)
Alvin Pilkey
Stanley Pilkey
Clarence Udel
Art Thompson

Canadian Statistics from the Wars we have been involved

World War I:
1. 628,736 Canadians served.
2. 66,573 died and 138,166 were wounded.
3. 2,818 were taken prisoner of war.
4. 175 merchant seamen died by enemy action.

World War II:
1. 1,031,902 Canadian men and 49,963 Canadian women served.
2. 44,927 died and 43,145 were wounded.
3. 8,271 were taken prisoner of war.
4. 1,146 merchant seamen died by enemy action.

Korea:
1. 26,791 Canadians served.
2. 516 died and 1,558 were wounded.
3. 33 were taken prisoner of war.

The Gulf War:
1. 3,837 Canadian men and 237 Canadian women served.
2. There were no Canadian casualties or prisoners of war during the Gulf War

" A Pittance of Time "

On November 11, 1999 Terry Kelly was in a Shoppers Drug Mart store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At 10:55 AM an announcement came over the store's PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00 AM to give two minutes of silence in respect to the veterans who have sacrificed so much for us.
Terry was impressed with the store's leadership role in adopting the Legion's "two minutes of silence" initiative. He felt that the store's contribution of educating the public to the importance of remembering was commendable.
When eleven o'clock arrived on that day, an announcement was again made asking for the "two minutes of silence" to commence. All customers, with the exception of a man who was accompanied by his young child, showed their respect.
Terry's anger towards the father for trying to engage the store's clerk in conversation and for setting a bad example for his child was later channeled into a beautiful piece of work called, "A Pittance of Time". Terry later recorded "A Pittance of Time" and included it on his full-length music CD, "The Power of the Dream".

"Music Video here!"

Try to watch it . . . . its good !