Valerie - You may be perfectly correct with the location of the 4th CAD - BUT - they did not rush off to war in Nov '43 but rather in June of '44 - and the questions is - where was the 5th CAD which did rush off to Italy...? Cheers
Vallysue: First, thanks for posting the link to that Canadian document about the location of units in the UK. Unfortunately, it was so badly cut up and full of snippets from pastel-colored pages (!) that I couldn't make head or tail of it. Second, I checked the Canadian official history and found that both the 4th and 5th Cdn Armd were doing exercises in Norfolk in the autumn of 1943. Anne's corner of Suffolk was just over the county line, so it's possible that Vernon simply wandered over. Third, I think you and Anne may need to be a little skeptical of Vernon's explanations. He said he was going overseas, but a man who impregnates a girl and then imshis off elsewhere is quite capable of fibbing. The 4th Cdn Armd remained in the UK until the summer of 1944, when it went to Normandy. When Vernon said he was going "overseas," he may have been hiding the fact that his outfit (4th Cdn Armd?) was simply leaving East Anglia to go elsewhere in the UK. Fourth, the 5th Cdn Armd was part of I Cdn Corps, which also left the UK for Italy in late '43. Vernon could have belonged to a unit of I Canadian Corps corps troops. Fifth, does Anne remember anything about Vernon's arm of service or the badges and patches he wore on his uniform? Those would be important clues, as would his conversation. Did he ever discuss guns or artillery? Tanks? Infantry training? Sixth, have you looked at the Canadian census yet? That would be a huge task, but you may have to do it sooner or later. Seventh and most harshly, I think you have to consider that Vernon may even have been lying about his name and the province he came from. I hate to say this, but there were a lot of stories like Anne's during the war. Many, many young men of all armies lied to girls, got them pregnant, and then scuppered off. If there was no truth in anything Vernon said then your search is fruitless, but I very much hope that it isn't and that you finally do learn something.
TTH I am thinking that you have the wrong end of the stick - Anne is the result of the liason of her Mother and some unknown Canadian Soldier who may or may not have the name of Vernon and who spoke with a French- Canadian accent and who further claimed that he was of to war- thus with Anne in the womb is probably the reason he imshied off saying he was off to war, and so she would have had great difficulty in noting any marks on his uniform.....I myself was trained initially in Bury St Edmunds - but at that time I was also reclining in North Africa - before joining 1st Canadian Corps - in Italy Cheers
I appreciate the fact, as does Anne, that Vernon may not have been truthful with her mother, whose name was Beryl, by the way. However, Vernon never knew that Anne's mother was pregnant. Beryl did not discover this until after Vernon was gone. TTH, I don't know what happened to the link. It works fine on my end, and as it is a black and white text document, I don't know where the pastel comes in. Perhaps you could copy and paste the address into your address bar? Thanks for all of your suggestions. We need all of the help we can get!
