Gérard Pelletier was born on January 27, 1919 in Sainte-Félicité de L’Islet, a small village in the Chaudière-Appalaches region. Gérard liked to do pranks and get into fights, according to family members. He probably took his interest in the Canadian Armed Forces from a neighbor’s family member, who was a soldier. Indeed, Gérard loved trying on his uniform and was saying that it was his dream to be in the army.

In the winter of 1939-40, Gérard left for the United States to work as a lumberjack, like many other French Canadians at the time. Upon his return in the spring, he began planning his enrolment. My great-grandparents, Delvina and Joseph Pelletier, suspected that Gérard had a plan, but hoped he’d get over the idea of joining the army. One morning, they asked their other son, Léopold, to go and wake Gérard, but he was gone. He had left at night, and a man from a neighboring village had taken him to Tourville to catch the train to Quebec City. Gérard never came home.

After leaving Sainte-Félicité, Gérard went to the Citadelle de Québec, where he enlisted with the Royal 22e Régiment on May 14, 1940. According to his military record, he had about completed his education up to Grade 4, and wanted to be a clerk after the war.

Gérard spent his first two months in the Army training at Valcartier, before being shipped off to Glasgow, Scotland – like many other Canadian regiments. He thus spent the years 1940 to 1943 in the United Kingdom, notably in the town of Bordon, where he continued his training. As a sign of his qualities as a soldier, he was awarded a badge for good conduct in May 1942.

On June 15, 1943, Gérard embarked for Italy. He landed at Roger Beach, Sicily, on July 10, 1943. This was the start of Operation HUSKY.

The capture of Casa Berardi on December 13 and 14 marked a turning point in the effort to take the town of Ortona. Nazi communications at the time detailed their lack of ammunition and supplies, and the impossibility of holding out without reinforcements following this attack. The Allies’ next aim was to capture Ortona itself, which was in a strategic position. As well as being directly east of Rome, the town is located on a rocky promontory and has a deep-water port. This made it easier to defend the city, and allowed for the delivery of supplies to the troops. These supplies were essential to feed and equip the troops with the weapons and ammunition they needed. If Ortona had not been captured, supplies would have had to land in the south of the country, and make their way up the peninsula along roads damaged by retreating enemy troops.

Following the capture of Casa Berardi, Company B of the Royal 22e Régiment and the Carleton & York Regiment were tasked with protecting the Canadian positions. On the morning of December 15, they were to attempt an advance along the road to Ortona, supported by artillery. Unfortunately, there was a communications problem and no way to warn or stop the artillery. Instead of bombarding the enemy forces, it was Company B that came under fire, with heavy casualties. The enemy then took this opportunity to attack the Canadians, while blocking the other companies. It was only in the early afternoon, when the enemy attempted a counter-attack, that the troops were able to move to cover and the artillery was able to fire again.

Gérard’s file indicates that he died on December 16, 1943, but the date 16 is written over a crossed-out entry for December 15. The file doesn’t say what my uncle died of. I believe he was with the soldiers of B Company on December 15, 1943, and that he was seriously wounded. According to the regimental diary, after all, 21 wounded were evacuated as soon as casualties were assessed. If Gérard wasn’t one of these early evacuees, it’s possible that he would have been found later. Perhaps the medical team on site anticipated that he would die of his wounds the same day, and yet he survived until the following day? My other hypothesis is that he might have survived the artillery fire, but was seriously wounded in the fighting later that day and died the following day.

Gérard was first buried at Casa Berardi, then transferred to the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery in 1947. That’s where my mother and I went last November.

To my knowledge, only one distant cousin went to Ortona a few years ago to see where my uncle is buried. My mother and I went there in November 2022, to celebrate Remembrance Day.

I’d never been to a military cemetery before. It’s impressive to see all those headstones lined up one after the other. I tried to imagine, if instead of each stone there was a person. What a great gathering it would be.

The people who look after the cemetery do so with great care. The stones, the flowers and the grass are very well maintained. Walking through the rows of stones, you can read the age and city of birth of each person. Many were in their twenties, but a few others were in their thirties and forties.

At the bottom of the stone is the inscription “Au revoir au ciel” (“Goodbye to heaven”). While reading my uncle’s file, I came across a letter from the Department of National Defense giving my great-grandparents the option of choosing the inscription on the stone. This is thus how they would have said a final goodbye to their son. As far as I know, they never made it to Italy to see where he was buried.