GRACE UNITED CHURCH
Edward Louis Terry
Name: Terry, Edward Louis
Born: June 29, 1909
Died: November 14, 1942
Family: Son of Louis and Jennie Terry. Husband of Marjorie Rainey Terry of Ottawa, Ontario
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Service Number: Capt. (no service number)
Age:
Force: Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps
Rank: Captain
Cemetery: Sai Wan War Cemetery in Victoria, Hong Kong
Grave Reference: VIII. F. 14.
Edward Louis Terry was born on June 29, 1909 in Peel Region to Louis and Jennie Terry.
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The Brampton Book of Remembrance says Edward enlisted in the Winnipeg Grenadiers. He served in Canada and Oversea. He was taken prisoner in Hong Kong and put into the Prison Camp in which he died on June 1943, which is incorrect as multiple sources confirm his death on November 14, 1942. Most likely the family was not informed until June of 1943.
He enlisted into the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps on August 1, 1940 and sailed from Vancouver on October 27, 1940 and arrived in Hong Kong on November 16th. The Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association web site shows that he was wounded with multiple wounds down his back on December 12, 1941. He was hospitalized at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong until he recovered. He was captured and sent to Shamshuipo POW Camp in Kowloon, Hong Kong. He was transferred to North Point POW camp on January 22, 1942. Edward was then sent back to Shamshuipo POW Camp in Kowloon on September 26, 1942 where he got a serious leg infection. He was sent to Bowen Road Hospital in Hong Kong where he died three days later.
His Ontario Registration of Death says the place of death was “IN THE FIELD (HONG KONG).
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At the time of his death his last known address was 235 Charlotte Street, Ottawa in Apartment 26. He worked as an Assistant Manager. He was married to Marjorie Rainey Terry, also known as Marnie. Edward crossed the US border on March 6, 1939 at Detroit. An article in the Ottawa Citizen has Edward living at 47 Geneva Street, Ottawa at the time he was captured. His death was caused by diphtheria while a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp. His son Ted Terry says the family was informed on July 2, 1943 that E.L. terry dies from heart failure but they later determined the death from due the leg infection.
His son Ted, has published parts of Edward’s war diary on the The Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association web site listed below.
The remains of those who died as prisoners in Formosa (now Taiwan) were brought to Hong Kong for burial at Sai Wan in 1946. A May 10, 1942 article in the Globe and Mail is titled, 35 Canadian Officers Listed at Hong Kong. The final paragraph says, the wife of Captain Edward Terry of Ottawa received word earlier that he was safe in a Japanese internment camp. Captain Terry was a former paymaster at the Cornwall Ont., basic training centre.
Japanese treatment of POWs was among the most inhumane of the Second World War. In 1941, after the Battle of Hong Kong, 1,682 Canadians from the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada (Québec City) were imprisoned at camps in Hong Kong and Japan. The POWs endured years of beatings, hard labour and inadequate diets. Hundreds of Canadians died from illness due to vitamin deficiency, or from slow starvation. In August 1945, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan’s surrender and ended the war in the Pacific – leading to the liberation of the Japanese camps. Many Canadians who survived the Japanese POW camps were traumatized by their experience and came home with deep bitterness toward Japan.
The slideshow displayed above includes all of the documents that I have found related to this soldier’s death. Click on the arrows on either side of the picture to move to the next picture or wait as it will change on its own. This slideshow may include a copy of his page in the Canadian Book of Remembrance; a page from the Brampton Book of Remembrance; from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission you may find a picture of this soldier’s CWGC Headstone, CWGC Certificate, CWGC War Graves Registry, CWGC Circumstance of Causality, and photos of the cemetery where he is commemorated.
He is commemorated on Page 119 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance.
The CWGC War Graves Registration Report Form shows that on June 16, 1947, Edward was buried in the Sai Wan War Cemetery in Victoria, Hong Kong , in Section 8, Row F, Grave 14.
A new war memorial wall was dedicated on August 15, 2009, honouring the Canadians who fought to defend Hong Kong in the Second World War. Edward Terry is listed on the Hong Kong Memorial Wall with six other members of the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps.
The CWGC Headstone schedule displays the information that is to be engraved upon a soldier’s gravestone. For Edward Louis Terry, it shows;
Line 1: CAPTAIN
Line 2: E. L. TERRY
Line 3: ROYAL CANADIAN
Line 4: ARMY PAY CORPS
Line 5: 14th NOVEMBER 1942
Cross
Web Site Links for Service Records
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Book of Remembrance - Second World War
http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/books/page?page=119&book=2&sort=pageAsc
Commonwealth War Grave Commission – Find War Dead
https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2221615/terry,-edward-l./
Service Files of the Second World War – War Dead, 1939-1947
Find A Grave
The War Grave Photographic Project
https://www.twgpp.org/photograph/view/1887951
Other websites
Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association
https://www.hkvca.ca/terry/index.php
https://www.hkvca.ca/cforcedata/indivreport/indivdetailed.php?regtno=X24