With The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment in Belleville, Ontario in 1945

Arriving Home © Mike Dufresne

Here are three of those images that pretty much speak for themselves.  

We are in Belleville in Ontario in the autumn of 1945 watching the home coming of The Hastings and Prince Edward  Regiment.

They had shipped out for Europe in the December of 1939, saw action in France in June 1940 and were part of the allied landings in Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943.  In the final months of the war they moved to North West Europe

© Mike Dufresne

Meanwhile back in Canada in June 1945, a second Battalion of the regiment was mobilized for service in the Pacific but with Japan’s surrender in the August the battalion was disbanded in the November.

Each photograph is a rich source of detail, from the informality of the disembarkation at the railway station to the formal march past.

So often the identities of the people in the pictures are lost but the second soldier in the parade was the Inetelligence Officer Farley Mowatt.

Pictures; by Mike Dufresne, posted on the facebook site, Vintage Belleville, Trenton & Quinte Region

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vintage-Belleville-Trenton-Quinte-Region/395830067158776

© Mike Dufresne