Born 1/01/1919, at Big Point, Kent Co.,ON., the son of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond and Patricia (Maloney) Foster, of 312 Queen St., Wallaceburg, Ontario. Joseph attended Our Lady of Help School and Mercici High School. He was employed at the Dominion Glass Company, Wallaceburg, ON., where he would be one of the first group of employees to enlist in 1939. The husband of Patricia Irene Foster, (nee Goddard) of Harrow, Middlesex, they had one child a daughter Caroline, born after Joseph was killed.

Joseph enlisted in Windsor, ON in September of 1939 with the 1^st Battalion of the Essex Scottish at the outbreak of the war, along with Danny Franklin and Patrick Murphy CDN 14/09/39. He trained at Windsor, and Camp Borden and Ipperwash, ON.  He went overseas with the regiment in August of 1940. He married in England on 6 December, 1941 at St. Leonard’s-on-the-Sea in Sussex. He went overseas to England with the Essex Scottish.

Joesph was reported as missing in action after the raid on Dieppe WS 19/09/42., it was later confirmed that he died on the beach attempting to break through the barbed wire, his body was never found.   

The management of the Dominion Glass Co. lowered the flag to half mast and a floral wreath was set at the door to the “Timekeepers’ Department’ in his honour. By the end of June 1943 four emplyees had been KIA, four were listef as POW and three were listed as MIA. 

Age: 22, KIA –  Date of Death: 19/08/1942, at Dieppe, France.

 “THE FATHER SHE NEVER KNEW”

by

CAROLINE FOSTER-DOAN.

Found in “No Return Ticket” by Alan Mann – Wallaceburg, ON.

On a damp, cloudy morning I was standing on a London street waiting for a bus, I had been up since 5:00 am, and was not feeling my best, but this was a journey I had wanted to make since I was a little girl, I was on the way to Dieppe in France for the 50^th anniversary of the raid on the 19^th of August 1942. On that raid my father, L/Cpl. Joseph Foster was killed, I had never seen my father, he was killed three months before I was born. I felt I was following in his footsteps. On the ferry from Newhaven, I was passing the same landmarks that he had seen on that dreadful day. I remember my mother telling me how she had run alongside the train holding Joe’s hand, crying, and feeling that she would never see him again.

It was to be an eventful three days. On the ferry there were many veterans of the Dieppe raid, both British and Canadian. I got talking to them, and when they knew that my father had been killed on the raid they took me under their wing for the whole trip! On arrival at Dieppe, I felt myself go cold, I felt nauseated, and was very worried about how I was going to react to the emotional events ahead of me.

On the morning of the 19^th August, we left our hotel early and went straight to the Canadian Cemetery just outside of Dieppe. It is a beautiful place, quiet and peaceful, with all of their graves well looked after. There had been an all night vigil by present members of the Canadian Army, they were still there, young men in their smart uniforms, looking much as my Dad and his comrades must have done. The ceremony proceeded with dignitaries from Britain, Canada and France paying tribute to the fallen. Each regiment laid a wreath of Poppies. I recognized the uniform of the Essex Scottish immediately and the tears began to flow. Afterwards I wandered around the cemetery looking at the graves especially the “unknown” graves wondering if it could be Joe. The rest of the day there were many ceremonies, all well attended by huge crowds of local people. It made me feel very proud to know that Joe and his comrades had not been forgotten.

The next day we were free to do as we pleased. It was pouring rain but I decided that I would walk along the beach. It was a very emotional experience, I could visualize the hordes of soldiers coming up the beach and just being mown down by machine gun fire. On either side of the beach are towering cliffs where guns were placed, and it is quite obvious that few could survive the landing. I was crying most of the way and all the memories of the things my mother had told me flooded back. How she had met Joe in the West End of London, after a visit to the cinema, there was an air raid on and she and her friend were unable to get a transport home. Joe and a friend offered to walk them home. How they used to go dancing, and how they loved Glenn Miller. How my grandfather refused to let them marry, because my mother was only sixteen, but eventually relented when he finally realized how they both felt. They were married on the 6^th December, 1941. How upset they had both been about the raid on Pearl Harbour. I took some stones from the beach for my mother as a memento. I stood for a long time and realized that because I had never seen my father I had never properly mourned for him. Growing up in England I was always wondering what he had been like. Was I like him? Did I look like him? Wondering if he would have been proud of me becoming a nurse?

On the way back to the ferry I thought how lucky I had been to be able to make the trip to Dieppe, my mother had not been well enough, and other like my Aunt Flora had not had the opportunity. I felt honoured to be able to talk to the veterans and to hear their stories.

Although I never knew Joe, he has always played a great role for me by my mother and my Canadian relatives. When I was just a few months old, my mother received a visit from a friend of Joe’s Earl (Verdun) Doan. He was in the RCAF, and had just been posted to England. He came to see if he could do anything for her. He became a friend of the family. Unfortunately, the Lancaster bomber in which he was a gunner, was shot down over Germany on 16 June, 1943, his birthday. He spent the rest of the war in a Germany Prisoner of War camp. Upon liberation and returning to England he went to see my mother, before long they fell in love and were married for 51 years, until my mother’s death in 1996. To me, he has always been my “Dad”, no one could have been a better father to me, my two brothers and my sister, he loved, cherished and guided me throughout my childhood and continues to do so.

I feel privileged and honoured to have had both my fathers, and to have retained my links with Wallaceburg through my Grandmother and my Aunt Flora. Wallaceburg can be proud of the young men she sent to war and who fought bravely, some making the ultimate sacrifice, others scarred for life by their memories. My and later generations owe them a debt we can never repay.

Caroline Foster Doan.

Lance Corporal JOSEPH AUGUSTINE FOSTER is one of four members of the Essex Scottish Regiment, Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, who went missing at Dieppe on August 19, 1942 and were subsequently presumed dead, who are commemorated on this Panel at the Brookwood Memorial, Surrey, United Kingdom.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sources

No Return Ticket - Wallaceburg War Casualties - Alan Mann 2002, Index of Overseas Deaths

Age

22

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