Fred G. Barnard

Fred Barnard grew up in East York (Toronto) and was 20 when he enlisted with the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in 1941. After two and a half years of intensive training, Fred and his brother Don, also in the Queen’s Own Rifles, travelled to Portsmouth on the English south coast where they joined thousands of other soldiers as they waited their turn to board ships to take them into the English Channel. Fred and his brother boarded the SS Monoway, which would take them to their Assault Landing Craft, the flat-bottomed vessel that would ferry them to the beaches.

On June 6, 1944, Fred and Don were crouched down along with other soldiers in the 12th Platoon, B Company, about 6 men apart from each other, as they approached Juno Beach, Nan White Sector at Bernières-Sur-Mer.

As the front ramp dropped, Fred yelled, “Give ‘em hell, Don”, and the brothers jumped into waist deep water. Those were the last words ever spoken between the brothers. When Fred reached the shore, he came upon Don lying on the ground as if he was asleep. “There was just a black hole in his uniform. He must have died instantly.”

Amid the chaos and shock, Fred couldn’t delay. B Company had come ashore 200 yards east of their intended landing, which landed them right in front of the main resistance nest at Bernières. He had to keep going.

Corporal Barnard went on to fight in the fierce battle to take Carpiquet Airport, and shortly after in the Liberation of Caen. In the Quesnay Woods, Fred, at this time in charge of his platoon, was seriously wounded by shrapnel in the neck, shoulder and foot. After five months of convalescence in England, Fred boarded a hospital ship and returned to Canada.

We Will Remember Them