By David McIver
ROSETOWN – For the first time, at the Remembrance Day service here on Wednesday, Carmon Dion of Rosetown will lay a wreath in memory of a great uncle, Edgar Arthur “Tommy” Hallen.
Ready to jump. Pte. Edgar Arthur “Tommy” Hallen of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Hallen died May 7, 1945, at age 21 and is buried in Holten Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands. PHOTO SUBMITTED BY CARMON DION
Hallen, 21, died on May 7, 1945, while serving as a member of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, said Dion last week.
He is buried in the Netherlands.
Tommy Hallen was the seventh of 10 children and the second of three sons born to George and Annie (née Dewar) Hallen.
They had settled in the Oliver district but didn’t stay long.
The family moved in 1928 to the Bisley district, near Greenan, and in 1936 to Neepawa, Man., according to an account in the Aird-Bisley-Greenan history book written by the oldest child, Maisie Rasmussen, a grandmother of Dion.
Tommy Hallen’s father, George, had been a lawyer, a justice of the peace and a rural municipal councillor, said Dion. George also had a large library of books, which he lent out to people, he said.
But Dion only recently became more interested in Tommy Hallen.
“I knew he was in the war, but one day I just got curious,” said Dion, who, two years ago, had Hallen’s name, citation and accompanying photograph put among those of other veterans on the Legion hall’s digital sign.
Hallen and the rest of his battalion parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, he said. The paratroopers landed east of the Orne River in the early hours of June 6, 1944, ahead of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, which came ashore by sea at Juno Beach.
Dion was less certain whether Hallen had been with his battalion when it took part in a little-known operation at the end of the war.
That was when the battalion, with the support of a Scottish tank regiment, drove to and occupied a town in northern Germany on a main road leading to Denmark.
Their orders were to take and hold the town before soldiers of the Soviet Union’s Red Army got there, which the Canadians and Scots did.
The reason was to prevent Denmark from being occupied by the Red Army and falling under the Soviet sphere of influence, according to one internet source.
Hallen was wounded on May 2, according to the internet sources Dion found, and no gunfire took place in that take-and-hold operation, he said.
Hallen died on May 7, said Dion.
One sentence in the June 7, 1945 issue of The Rosetown Eagle stated he had been killed in action and gave the date of death as May 5. The remainder of the 1945 issues gave no obituary for Hallen.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission records list his date of death as May 7, 1945. He is buried in Holten Canadian War Cemetery.
What is certain is that the battalion’s paratroopers were among the first Canadian soldiers on the ground in Normandy on D-Day.
“That’s something to be pretty proud of,” said Dion.
Laying the wreath on Wednesday won’t be his only act to honour his great uncle.
“I want to go over to Holland some day and lay a wreath there on Remembrance Day,” said Dion.