A hero of the Korean War
Army veteran was awarded Military Cross
Ed Hollyer may have been short in stature, but the decorated soldier, accomplished musician and dedicated family man lived a large life. The 90-year-old veteran died on July 4.
Hollyer was instrumental in the fight for Hill 187, an epic Korean War battle where he called for artillery to fire on his own position in order to stop an onslaught of Chinese troops. The ploy worked, though 26 Canadians were killed and 27 wounded. Hollyer emerged unscathed and was awarded the Military Cross for his actions.
Don “Reg” Redknap is one of the men who fired on Hollyer that night in May 1953.
“We always said that before I shot at him, he was six-foot-one,” Redknap says of his longtime friend, who was actually five-foot-four
One of Redknap’s favourite memories of his friend isn’t of a battle, but when the men were in Brussels for a conference years after the Korean War. The two had just returned to their hotel when Hollyer called saying someone had washed all of his socks.
“As soon as I walked into the room, I knew why someone had washed all of his socks, because there was that kind of cheesy smell,” Redknap says.
Hollyer and Redknap had lunch with 10 or 12 others in the room earlier and, tidying up, Hollyer had put the cheese from the meal on the window sill behind the curtain.
Not seeing the festering dairy products, the maid assumed the smell was coming from Hollyer’s socks and tried to solve the problem.
Redknap chuckles at the memory.
“I could tell a thousand stories about Ed,” he says, “but that one always sticks in my mind.”
A military intelligence officer for decades, Hollyer often couldn’t talk about his work. But when he and his colleagues got together at Hollyer’s cottage near Shawville, Que., each summer, it was a chance to re-live scenarios they’d faced years before.
“We would refight the Cold War. We always won,” says George Bruce, Hollyer’s boss for many years. “Nobody took notes. The next year we had to do it all over again.”
Hollyer was always passionate about his work, but his first love was music. He became an award-winning violinist at a young age, and revelled in sharing his talent with others.
His friend Moira Green remembers when Hollyer taught her how to play the instrument.
“If I made a mistake, which I did frequently, he didn’t think twice about giving me a little whack on my head with his bow,” says Green, who played music with Hollyer for years in the Kanata Symphony and other orchestras.
A favourite memory for Hollyer’s family also has to do with the violin. For his 83rd birthday, Hollyer’s daughter-in-law arranged for him to travel to Toronto to fulfil a lifelong dream — playing a Stradivarius, the famed crème de la crème of violins. The performance, all songs his family and friends knew him for, was recorded and the memories saved on DVD.
Two years later, Hollyer celebrated another special birthday with music, playing with his string quartet in a park bandstand for his 85th birthday. The Kanata park was a special location, however — it bears Ed Hollyer’s name, dedicated to him in 2011 for his decades of military and community service.
Music and the military were always important for Hollyer, but he’s also remembered as a dedicated family man.
Ten days after returning from Korea, Hollyer married the woman he’d left behind, Eileen.
The two met when some soldiers invited a group of nurses to a dance at the Petawawa base. About a week later, they met again in the street.
“We went to a movie and that was it,” says Eileen Hollyer.
The two were married for 59 years, and had three children and three grandchildren. “We had a good life together,” she says.