We will remember them

Profiles of our veterans

Since 2023, the Advocate has been profiling local veterans in the pages of its November issue. These stories bring home the events of conflicts past (and more recent), reminding us that remembrance is not primarily about exhibiting military memorabilia or writing historical analyses of battlefield strategy. All of those things point us back to what is at the heart of remembrance: the lives of quite ordinary people who were forever changed by their participation in the theatre of war.

This year, the Advocate highlights the service of six individuals who at one point or another made their home in Kawartha Lakes – before and after their service in the First World War, the Second World War, and in deployments of more recent times. We will remember them, living and deceased.

If you know of a veteran whom you would like to have highlighted in the November 2026 edition of this annual feature, please write to .

Private Joseph Bryans – First World War

Joseph Edward Bryans was born on Oct. 29, 1894 (though some sources place the date in 1889), in Carden Township, and was living in the village of Victoria Road at the time of enlistment. A labourer by trade, he signed up for service relatively late in the First World War – Jan. 7, 1918 – but would serve in a variety of capacities over the course of the year. He began his time in the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the 1^st Depot Battalion of the Eastern Ontario Regiment, based in Kingston, Ontario (depot battalions trained recruits prior to mobilization), and headed overseas in July of 1918. Upon arrival in the United Kingdom, he was posted to the 2^nd Battalion, C.E.F., and saw action in France later that summer. On Sept. 28, 1918, while serving near Arras, Bryans was shot in the right thigh, resulting in a fracture of the femur. He was discharged from service in 1919, and returned to Canada, where he later worked in the Kirkfield stone quarry. Private Bryans died in 1972.

Lieutenant Nursing Sister Winnifred Hardy – First World War 

Winnifred Ethel Hardy was born on June 16, 1889 (though she gave 1892 as a birth year when filling out her attestation papers). The second oldest in a family of seven children, Hardy was raised in the tiny hamlet of Peniel, located a little over five km south of Woodville. In her mid-twenties, Winnifred headed to Lindsay, where she trained as a nurse at the Ross Memorial Hospital, graduating on June 9, 1916. The First World War was in full swing by this point, and women aged 21 through 38 were signing up to serve as nursing sisters in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Hardy was among them, and was assigned to the No. 1 Canadian General Hospital, in France. Two years later, this hospital was the victim of an air raid in which some 70 Canadians were killed. “In all my experiences of war surgery, I have never seen such wounds,” she wrote. “However, it’s all over now and one tries hard to forget it.” Hardy later relocated to Pelham, Ontario, and died there in 1978.

Private John Montague – First World War

John James Montague was born in Jarvis, Ontario, on Dec. 13, 1894. A stationary engineer by trade, Montague enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on his 21st birthday, filling out his attestation papers in London, Ontario. Not quite two years later, Montague was serving with the 14th Battalion, C.E.F., at Vimy Ridge when a shell exploded adjacent to him. Shrapnel entered both of his feet and legs; while he was able to walk to a nearby dressing station, Montague’s injuries were apparently severe enough that amputation was required. Upon his return to Canada, Montague was admitted to St. Michael’s Hospital, in Toronto. Here he would meet a nurse named Emily Wright, who would later become his wife. Shortly after Montague returned to Canada, a photograph was taken of him being pushed in a wheelchair through a fair (likely the CNE), with the caption reading: “Someone had a kind thought and gave the legless heroes who were wheeled along the midway two huge Teddy bears.” Montague, fitted with prosthetic legs, eventually settled in Woodville, Ontario, where he died in 1950.

Sergeant Alexander James Balfour – Second World War

More than 45,000 Canadians died during the Second World War. Among them was Alexander James Balfour, who was born in 1920 and grew up in Lindsay. Here he attended Lindsay Collegiate Institute and with his family worshipped at the former William Street Baptist Church. Trained as a truck driver, Balfour enlisted in the Royal Canadian Dragoons in 1940, later serving with the 18th Armoured Car Regiment of the 12th Manitoba Dragoons. He proceeded overseas in 1941, seeing action all over Europe – starting in Italy, later relocating to England, and eventually being deployed to the front lines of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. On April 19, 1945, Balfour was travelling in a Staghound armoured car near the Kusten Canal in Germany when the vehicle ran over a mine consisting of some 500 pounds of explosives. The car was destroyed, with Balfour and his fellow soldiers killed instantly. Sgt. A.J. Balfour was interred at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

Corporal Howard Neale – Second World War 

Born in Toronto, Howard Neale enlisted in the 1st Canadian Paratroop Battalion in 1943. The following year, he found himself on a plane crossing the English Channel on the night of June 6 – D-Day. Receiving orders to jump, Neale disappeared into the night sky, descending into unknown territory below. Although their parachutes enabled Neale and his comrades to land safely enough in the water and make their way towards land, their freedom was short-lived. They had inadvertently crossed into enemy territory, and Neale recalled being awoken at gunpoint and taken away to a German prisoner of war camp in Poland known as Stalag 4B. He remained there until the camp was liberated in 1945. Following the war, Neale resumed his career in banking and retired to Fenelon Falls in 1985. In 1986, Neale encountered Bob Milne, a fellow paratrooper, in his adopted hometown. Milne had assumed Neale died during the war and was delighted to reconnect. Neale died in 2016, in his 93rd year.

Master Corporal Andrew Hill – Latvia

A graduate of I.E. Weldon Secondary School and Carleton University, Andrew Hill has been serving with the Canadian Armed Forces since 2019. As an electronic-optronic technician, he is responsible for maintaining and repairing systems designed to accurately discharge ammunition from various types of weaponry. Based in Petawawa, Master Corporal Hill has since June of 2025 been stationed in Latvia with the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, where he repairs weaponry used in the war in Ukraine. Having worked in the oil field and for a geology company in the Canadian north, Hill has always been ready for new challenges – not least on active service with the CAF.

Major Brad Benns – Aghanistan/Latvia

The brother of Advocate publisher Roderick Benns, Maj. Benns grew up in Lindsay and graduated from Trent University. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 2004, initially serving as an infantry officer with the Hastings & Prince Edward Regiment, which is based in Belleville, Ontario. In 2008, Benns moved over to the Regular Forces and Intelligence Corps – a role that has seen him travel around the globe. In 2011, he served in Afghanistan, providing intelligence in the fight against counter-improvised explosive devices. “Attempting to define and defeat enemy networks, we helped target and eliminate leadership, manufacturing sites, and the influences they had on local populations,” Benns explains. From 2019 through 2022, Benns was stationed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he worked to facilitate and integrate Canadian and American intelligence efforts in multiple operations around the world. For the past few years, Benns has been serving as the intelligence lead for the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright, Alberta. In this capacity, he has trained Canadian soldiers stationed in Latvia as part of Canada’s deployment in eastern Europe.

Warrant Officer Robert McDougall – Persian Gulf

 A native of Beaverton, Robert McDougall began his training with the Canadian Armed Forces in 1983, later being qualified to work as a medical assistant. A few years later, he was deployed to Golan Heights, in the Middle East, where Canadian peacekeepers were stationed. By the late 1980s, tensions were flaring up in Iran and Iraq, precipitating the Gulf War. McDougall and some 4,000 Canadians were called upon to serve in this conflict; McDougall and his fellow medical staff served at a field hospital in Saudi Arabia. “They came in with a variety of injuries in a variety of states,” he would later recall of the prisoners-of-war who came under his care. Following his service in the Persian Gulf, McDougall returned to Canada and worked for several more years at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. He retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2008, and worked for more than a decade in the emergency room at the Ross Memorial Hospital – which, incidentally, had played such a key role in training Canadian Army Medical Corps personnel during the First World War.