Born 26 December, 1920 in Raleigh Twsp., Kent Co., ON.  The son of Thomas and Margaret (nee Moore).  Brother of Velva (Graham), Francis, Edward, Evelyn (Boyd) and Lester. Married to Phyllis (nee Hooper) of Toronto, in September of 1946, CDN 14/09/46. The father of Heather, Lamont and Vernon.

Lester enlisted in July of 1943 at the age of 23 in Toronto, ON.  He was assigned to the Queen’s Own Rifles for overseas service.  Lester had been training at Camp Borden when he was granted a week-end furlough MS. (date unknown). The Merlin Standard 13/01/44 was reported serving overseas. 

Everyone knew that there was going to be an invasion of Hitler’s Europe in 1944 and the waiting for D-day was very nerve-racking. The memory of the Canadian’s attack on Dieppe in August of 1942 and the hundreds of men killed, many more wounded and taken as prisoners of war had really taken a toll on everyone. “They had really taken a beating”.

Lester remembers the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower telling the troops before leaving for Normandy, “I’ve got a few things to tell you and I want you to pay attention, because you will be doing the fighting not me.” Lester recalled that the General “gave it to them straight”. He told the troops that they would have a tough battle and there would be a lot of casualties.

When it came time to to wade into the chilly water, wearing his full battle gear and reaching shore, he was not scared, but he had a “funny feeling”. With nothing but ocean behind him, he thought, “there is no place to go but forward”.

On 6 June, 1944 he landed with the Queen’s Own Rifles at Juno Beach where he waded ashore without so much as a scratch. He soon found himself facing the British objective; the city of Caen. A few days after landing in France, he and his platoon were ordered to take Bretteville-sur-Laize. Seeing an Allied tank on the road, Brown and another soldier hurried towards it but came under fire by a German ambush. He managed to save himself, but took a bullet to the chin, which looked terrible at first but left only a facial scar.

While crawling across a French wheat field they reached a point that they thought the coast must be clear and everyone stood up, right into the German line of fire. This time, Lester was not so lucky he was hit in the knee by a piece of shrapnel. His mother Margaret Brown of Fletcher was notified that Lester had been wounded and was in a military hospital for treatment CDN 20/06/44.

While everyone was scattering and running for their lives, Lester said he was “confused. I didn’t know what to do or where to run”. He saw a Canadian tank and he and another soldier raced towards it. The other soldier got there first, so Lester had to run around the tank to jump on. Once he was on, he looked for the other man, but he saw a helmet covered in blood and the soldier dead. He shot through the head. Had he won the race, but lost his life. A sniper’s bullet only grazed his chin.

Lester was sent back to England to have his injuries attended to in hospital. The war was over for him. When he was interviewed in 2011, he said “Anybody who made it through, it was just plain luck”. By the end of the 6^th of June, 1944, 340 were dead in Normandy and 574 wounded.

It was reported that Lester was the last surviving Black veteran who fought on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day 6 June, 1944.

Lester was one of more than thirty North Buxton men who entered the service and two were fatalities.

When Lester returned home, he married Phyllis (nee Hooper) on 7 Sept 1946 and had three children named Lamont, Vernon and Heather.  He worked as a railway porter and later graduated to a conductor for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Lester passed away Wednesday, 18 September, 2013 and was interned at Memorial Cemetery, North Buxton, ON. in his 92^nd year. 

 

 

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sources	CDN (20-09-2013), Memory Project (P), Toronto Star (24/09/13), CDN (4/09/46 marries), RCLM, BFL-B, LOB, CDN (10/11/11), CDN-Obit (20/09/13), “The Way It Works” – Shirley Durrand,
Supplemental Information	Born in 1921 in Raleigh Twsp., Kent Co., ON. Brother of Velva (Graham), Francis, Edward, Evelyn (Boyd) and Lester Married to Phyllis (nee Hooper), the father of Heather, Lamont and Vernon.

Birthplace	Raleigh Twsp., Kent Co., ON.
When Enlisted	July 1943

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