July 1941

Dominion Day was a holiday for all Canadians. Divisional sport's day held in Redhill. HM the King visited the Canadians at the meet and also presented new colours to the Carelton and York Regiment and the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. On 3 July the unit received word that a selected group of soldiers in the unit had been selected for a special job which was classified secret-but everyone seemed to know about it. The CO inspected this group on 4 July and then word was received at BHQ that the arrangement was canceled and the men were returned to their various companies.

The entire unit was present at Walton Hill to witness a drop by members of the Parachute Corps from aircraft. Very impressive but the impression was they were very vulnerable to small arms fire while free falling through the air. The CO confined all troops to barracks and at 1800hrs 9 July the unit set out on a forced night march of 27 miles in 9 and a half hours. We were back at barracks or billets by 1830 hrs 10 July. I was one of the men who suffered from blistering of my feet.

CO was returned from Aldershot to take temporary command of the 1 Cdn Inf Bde. Unit of exercise Albert on 20-21 July in the Petworth area. Major Speagge of the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada was attached as an observer for the exercise. The butter ration on leave ration cards was cut to 1 oz. We were allowed to open up our collars of our battle dress while on leave.

Most of the church parades held during this month were on a voluntary basis. Pte. Garvis was awarded a distinguished conduct commendation for rescuing two people from a bombed house. Exercise Spruce held in London on 27 July against GPO Battalion of the Home Guard. BHQ required to submit causality returns on personnel killed and wounded, by umpires, on the exercise in order to practice causality reporting procedures. Enemy air activity almost completely ceased at night and the activity at night was confined to the RAF flying ground. I was promoted to Lance Corporal and awarded the 2 year good conduct stripe.