Saskatchewan families helped keep Victoria Cross in Canada
SASKATOON Bob Stromberg wasn’t happy when he heard that a Victoria Cross awarded to an officer from Sutherland, Sask., more than 70 years ago had been purchased by a foreign collector and could leave Canada forever.
After discovering that Canadian law provided a six-month period to match bids on objects of “outstanding cultural importance,” the former lawyer and North Saskatchewan Regiment honorary colonel decided to act.
“He was a real hero … it was just important,” said Stromberg, who contributed to the effort to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy David Vivian Currie’s Victoria Cross, awarded for his action under fire in 1944.
“We all owe to give something back to support our home, our community,” added former Nutrien Ltd. executive Wayne Brownlee, who was among the four local families that contributed funds to the successful Canadian bid.
“Bringing the Currie Victoria Cross back to Canada, is bringing it back home for our country, for Saskatchewan. It honours our past and our heroes and it honours our history. It is part of who we are,” Brownlee said.
The story of Currie’s Victoria Cross and his other medals — how they were sold by his widow, and subsequently purchased by the unidentified foreign collector for $660,000 — has been widely reported. Hidden in that story is the fact that Stromberg, Brownlee and two other local families — Sandra and Dallas Howe and Heather Ryan and L. David Dubé — put up what the lawyer said was “more than half ” of the Canadian bid.
Stromberg said he was inspired to help fund the bid because the Saskatchewan-born soldier’s medal is an “important Canadian cultural artifact” that should have stayed in Canada, and not been shipped off to another country.
Jeff Noakes, a Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, said the collective effort to keep Currie’s decorations in Canada underscores just how important he and the Battle of Normandy are. “These are all people, and these are their stories — and these awards help tell those stories, and through them the experiences of Canadians and of Canada, and its military history,” he said.
Introduced by Queen Victoria at the end of the Crimean War, the Victoria Cross — which was, but is no longer, available to Commonwealth soldiers — is Britain’s highest award for valour in combat.
The simple bronze cross suspended from a crimson ribbon has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 men. No woman has won the award. Ninety-six of them went to Canadians, or people closely affiliated with Canada.
Currie was one of 16 Canadians to win the award during the Second World War, and the only one to win it during the Battle of Normandy, which followed the Allied invasion of France in the summer of 1944.
His Victoria Cross was awarded for actions performed under fire beginning on Aug. 18, 1944 near the French village of St. Lambert sur Dives, as he commanded a small force of Canadian tanks, self-propelled anti-tank guns and infantry.
Currie, who was 32 at the time, had been ordered to cut off what Noakes described as the last road out of the Falaise pocket, which had been created as British, American and Canadian forces encircled retreating German army units.
Over the next 72 hours, Currie personally rescued the crews of two disabled tanks, led a successful attack on the village itself and repelled counterattacks before finally capturing the village and closing the Germans’ escape route.
At the end of the action, Currie’s force had killed 300 Germans, wounded another 500, taken 2,100 prisoners and destroyed seven enemy tanks, a dozen 88-millimetre high-velocity anti-tank guns and around 40 other vehicles, according to his Victoria Cross citation.
“When his force was finally relieved and he was satisfied that the turnover was complete he fell asleep on his feet and collapsed,” the citation states.
“Throughout three days and nights of fierce fighting, Major Currie’s gallant conduct and contempt for danger set a magnificent example to all ranks of the force under his command.”
Noakes said the medal set not only reflects Currie’s personal heroism, but also symbolizes the end of a battle in which a significant number of Canadians fought and died.
After the war, Currie spent more than 10 years working in the pulp and paper industry. In 1959, he was appointed sergeant-at-arms of the House of Commons by then-prime minister John Diefenbaker. Currie died in Ottawa on June 24, 1986.
He almost never spoke about his experiences in combat. “He never talked about it … He said that he went, he did his job and he came home. We knew it was something special, but to us, he was just our grandfather,” Brenda Currie, Currie’s granddaughter, told the Ottawa Citizen in May.
Stromberg said that while only three of the people he approached to fund the Canadian War Museum’s bid — which also included government support — agreed to help, he has no regrets — and can’t wait to see the medal for himself.
“We did feel pretty darn good about it.”
The medal was on public display until May. The Canadian War Museum is looking at ways to put it on permanent display.