Now in his 96th year, Sir Fred Heber is still going strong, carrying the torch for the 12th Field Regiment. Happy to celebrate with close friends and family his 96th birthday at the Orangeville Legion, January 10th, 2018!
Happy Birthday dear friend.
From Shirley’s Chronicles:
Sometime around Christmas while thinking about my parents, who are long gone, I decided to look up information on the 12th Field Regiment. My father had enlisted in this regiment in Hamilton and served 5 years overseas in WWII. One of the photographs I found of this regiment was a winter scene in Sussex England about 1941. It was a group of soldiers and the soldier on the right looked just like my father! I didn’t allow myself to believe that until my whole family confirmed it! My son said it was like finding a needle in a haystack!
This was so personally exciting to me. My dad, Herbert Shaw, had been born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1911 and came to Canada in 1930. Since this was the winter of 1941, he was 29 in that photo. Years after the war he married my mother and had 3 daughters (one deceased). So here was my Dad in 1941, back on British soil! Wow!! Incredibly I learned that one man in the picture was still alive! Known now as Sir Fred Heber, he is the handsome young man at the far left, bottom. More incredibly, he remembered my father as his Sargeant. A telephone call later and he was able to tell me a few details of their time together .. ‘he was one of the boys’ … he worked alongside us .. didn’t pull any rank’ .. he was with us right there at D-Day .. And you know this sounded just like my father .. always working .. one of the guys.
January 10, 2018 .. my husband Don and I were thrilled to be able to make the trip to Orangeville Legion to meet Sir Fred Heber and many, many of his friends to celebrate his 96th birthday and to share some memories of the past. Fred is a warm and kind man, a quiet man who doesn’t boast of his longevity, in fact he sorrows in the loss of his comrades. He is thankful for his many friends and a special mention should be made of his companion, Chris, herself a former Wren, who keeps him busy and healthy.
Thank you Sir Fred for your service and thanks to Moira and Chris and to all his friends who allowed Don and I to share such a special day, a 96th birthday for a wonderful veteran.
We remember who’s senior …. lest we forget!
On behalf of Sgt Herbert Shaw, Daughter Shirley and her whole family
Movie excerpt interview by Bob McEachern, Historian and Educator.
” all the Knights that should be are the boys that I lost on D-Day. I don’t deserve it, the boys that died deserve it; that’s why I accept it because I am still around. In my heart it goes to the boys that I left behind “…
