Yarmouth County veteran Alcide LeBlanc turning 100
Alcide LeBlanc’s mother told him that as a child he was always sick with every type of disease, but he survived them all.
Later in life, he survived 11 months of combat on the front during the Second World War. He also served three months as a peacekeeper in Germany, leaving there in August 1945.
On Saturday, March 21, Wedgeport Legion Branch 155 had planned to honour LeBlanc, the branch’s only surviving founding member, as he reaches 100 years of age. That celebration is now on hold because of the COVID19 situation, but the legion still wants to wish LeBlanc the happiest of birthdays for now and will do a more formal celebration when the timing is right.
‘‘Mr. LeBlanc will be honoured at a future date as the only surviving founding member and our oldest legionnaire and WW2 veteran,”
Clinton Saulnier, president of Wedgeport Legion Branch 155, said this past weekend.
LeBlanc landed in Normandy,
France, with the Canadian Army’s Fourth Field Regiment Second Division with their 25-pounder guns in
July 1944. He fought the retreating German army all the way to Berlin until Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) on
May 8, 1945.
He was a gunner but he mostly served as a batman during that time. He drove a captain’s jeep as close to the enemy lines as they could to instruct the gunners where to fire their guns.
He says he was scared all the time but managed to do his duty and live through this horrifying time in his life. He came out of the war without a scratch, he says, except for a hearing problem from the heavy artillery on both sides of the front line.
In the years following the war, Alcide LeBlanc was owner/operator of the Wedgeport Inn. He was actually in the hotel business before he joined the army in June 1941. After the war, he acquired the Wedgeport Inn, which he and his wife Agnes (Saulnier) ran until 1968.
Meanwhile, Richard (à Dennis) LeBlanc, also a veteran, owned and operated the Wedgeport Service Station. They decided to try to get a legion branch in Wedgeport. With Georges (à Nelson) Boudreau and Francis (à Mark Ellis) LeBlanc, they recruited other veterans. The Wedgeport branch was founded in 1961.
With the diminishing catches in sport tuna fishing, LeBlanc sold the Wedgeport Inn and bought the Anchor Inn in Meteghan. He sold that one and bought the Ferry Inn Motel in Yarmouth, which he ran with his wife until his retirement.
LeBlanc has two children — Roy and Carol. He now lives at Veterans Place in Yarmouth. He is one of nine surviving veterans of the Second World War who are members of the Wedgeport Legion. The legion has a catchment area of almost 20 villages and has members from Yarmouth.