Veteran Lloyd Frost

          

Lloyd Frost was born April 30th, 1919 and grew up in Enmore, P.E.I.  He joined the Canadian Forces in the summer of 1941 when he was 22 years old.  He trained for a year and a half, living in tents in Charlottetown, Debert, Yarmouth, Halifax and Barrie Field Camp in Ontario.  Like many soldiers, Lloyd couldn’t wait to get overseas.  He was in Debert training in 1943 and for several weeks had been listening to rumours that their squadron was soon to be deployed.  Sure enough, in the spring of 1943 he and his mates boarded the Queen Mary, headed for parts unknown.  For the next few months Lloyd and his comrades were deployed in England and Scotland, moving army equipment to top secret  locations.  They were never quite sure where they were or where they were going.  Again Lloyd was feeling anxious as to where he would be going and what would await him.  It was in the fall of 1943, when he sailed to Italy, and that is basically where he stayed for the duration of the war.  He had a brief detour to an Army Hospital Camp in North Africa where he was treated for Malaria.  Lloyd had always been very slim but the malaria caused him to be as thin as a scarecrow. 

            Lloyd spent the war with the Calgary Tanks.  It was an apt name because he drove tanks, fixed tanks, read in tanks, listened to the radio in tanks and slept in tanks for most of the war.  At times the tanks were even used to haul other military equipment across rivers or out of the muck that they had gotten bogged down in.  The tanks were barely big enough for the driver and the gunner but Lloyd mentions in his letters home that other soldiers would sometimes beg to come in because they were so sick of being cold and wet.  Lloyd, always a compassionate man, usually let them in even though it made for seriously cramped quarters. On a daily basis he didn’t have much to do with the Italians but he did mention that they shared whatever food they had and this was a gift because the men were very sick of the mess tent “bully beef.”  He also spoke of the rain, the mud and the itchy uniforms.  In the summer they got to wear shorts and they greatly appreciated them. 

            Lloyd met soldiers from all over the world and by times fought side by side with them.  He mentioned fighting alongside the famous Gurkhas and being very impressed with their precision and professionalism.  At the end of the war, instead of coming straight home, he helped with the European clean up in Belgium and Holland.  It was overseas that Lloyd met Jean Martin. She was from Plymouth, England but he met her in Scotland where she was posted with the Army Forestry Corp in Britain.  He returned to P.E.I. with his war bride and they had five children together.  He was employed mainly as a carpenter and was meticulous about his work.  Jean later died and Lloyd remarried Doris Forbes thus making him a step father to four more children. 

            According to his family, Lloyd never really wanted to talk much about the war but fortunately his mother saved hundreds of letters that he mailed home.  The letters document all the years he spent in Italy and are full of information. 

            I can’t imagine what being in the war must have been like, but I do know that he had a lot of courage, heart and dedication to our country.

Private Merrill Augustus

Private Merrill Augustus Marshall was born July 4, 1896 and died April 9, 1917.  He was one of the first to die at Vimy and his name is on the monument there. He was a signal man with the Ontario Regiment 48^th Highlanders of Canada.

He was 21 when he died and would have been overseas even younger but was sent home from Val Cartier when it was discovered that he was too young.   His dog tag number is 444330 which is interesting because many believe that “444”s are a sign that your angel is near and the ghost of Merrill Marshall showed up in Brackley, P.E.I. at the same time as he was killed in Vimy.  The family heard a knock on the door April 9^th, answered it to find a very clearly formed ghost soldier.  They immediately knew what happened even though it was weeks before they officially got word.  He was a signalman, a job his brother had gotten him, thinking it would keep him safe but at the very beginning of the Battle of Vimy, he stuck his head up over a bunker and was shot.  His body lay there for awhile and was later blown up by subsequent explosions. He was never properly buried. His ghost haunted a third brother Charles, for many years.

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Lawrence Marshall

Lawrence Marshall (born 1892) was wounded in battle five times and sent to hospitals in England five times.  Four different times he asked four different  nurses to marry him and they accepted but permission was not granted  by the military boards.  Fifth time was a charm though  and he  married Elizabeth  Brown who returned home to Covehead with him.

 

-Barb Forbes & Wades Forbes-Bernard