A Fine Collection of Awards to the Canadian Forces

Six: Rifleman T. Chaske, Royal Winnipeg Rifles, who landed in Normandy on D-Day but was killed in an accident in the Netherlands on 12 December 1944

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence Medal 1939-45, silver; Canadian Voluntary Service Medal 1939-45, with overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45, silver, in their card boxes of issue (some damaged), together with his Canadian Memorial Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially inscribed, ‘H. 8778 Rfmn. T. Chaske’, ring suspension, in case of issue, extremely fine (6) £120-160

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Awards to the Canadian Forces.

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Tom Chaske, a native Indian, was born on the Long Plain Indian Reserve at Edwin, Manitoba on 3 March 1922. Fluent in Sioux and Cree, in addition to English, he was employed as a Farm Labourer. Enlisting into the Army at Winnipeg in March 1943, he went AWOL in the following month, having gone to marry one Marjorie Thomas at the Letellier Indian Reserve, Manitoba. That accomplished, Chaske was posted to the Royal Winnipeg Rifles in July 1943 and arrived in England in September 1943. On 6 June 1944, Chaske and his regiment landed on the shores of Normandy and was involved in heavy fighting around Caen, Carpiquet, Falaise and into the Low Countries.

On the morning of 12 December 1944, near Nijmegan, Netherlands, Chaske was assigned to the Pioneer Company of the R.W.R., detailed to repair a road. Travelling in a Universal Carrier, with an officer and eleven men, with their equipment in a trailer, it failed to negotiate an embankment, lost control, slid down the embankment and overturned in the dyke below. Seven men were trapped in the overturned vehicle and drowned - Rifleman Chaske among them. Buried in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, he was the son of Tom and Nyjookwah Chaske, of Edwin, Manitoba.

The Court of Enquiry found that the officer in charge was in error in that ‘12 men with full winter kit and towing a trailer was an excessive load for a Universal Carrier. This excessive weight no doubt effected the steering of the vehicle which caused the accident.’ However, the findings were later overruled; sold with copied service papers and Court of Enquiry papers.