Break-in at museum ‘disrespectful’
They wanted to honour the sacrifices of Essex County’s war veterans, and it might have made them a target.
Two days after the Kingsville Historical Park Museum was profiled in the media for plans to honour Dieppe Raid veterans from the Essex Scottish Regiment, someone smashed a window, pried open security bars and broke into a building where volunteers prepare exhibits.
“It definitely makes me angry,” said museum curator Kevin Fox. “To see somebody with such blatant disrespect for the veterans and for the hard work of the volunteers and community in creating this place, I’m aghast. It’s incredibly disrespectful.”
Essex County OPP said they investigated but didn’t arrest anyone. Fox said it happened sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.
He said the culprits broke into a building at the back of the property where they conduct exhibit preparations. The local cadets also have an office there.
“They broke in directly into the cadet office,” said Fox. “They used a fence post to smash the window, and then they knocked out a bracing board that was there, then pried open the security bars. It would have taken some time and a considerable amount of noise.”
Fox said they might have been scared off, possibly by a neighbour flicking on a light, before they could take anything.
The break-in came just a couple of days after media coverage of the small museum’s plan to profile all 553 men of the Essex Scottish Regiment who fought in the Dieppe Raid, Canada’s single bloodiest day of the Second World War.
The museum is collecting stories and artifacts for an online exhibit called Remembering Red Beach, which launched Saturday.
“I think the notoriety was actually our undoing in some respects,” said Fox, the museum’s only paid employee. “The increased attention, people came to see the museum who maybe have never seen it before, maybe don’t have the same level of consideration.
I think it was likely somebody who just discovered us and realized what sort of value we have at the museum.”
He said there’s likely only a few hundred dollars in damage. But for some longtime volunteers and supporters, Fox said the incident brought back painful, two-decadeold memories.
In 1996, someone broke into the museum building and wreaked havoc, damaging or destroying anything they could get their hands on. Back then, the building had many windows. Somebody smashed one of them and got inside.
The number of people involved is still unknown. The thieves also stole about a dozen firearms, though Fox said the guns weren’t particularly rare.
“It looked like they were maybe kids having fun because they smashed things but they didn’t take a lot of things,” said Fox. “They just sort of went in there because there were glass cases they could smash and they could throw things over.”
Fox said the 1996 break-in was so devastating that he believes it contributed to the untimely death of the curator at the time.
“He had poured his life into it,” said Fox. “Less than two weeks later, he died of a heart attack.”
Charlie Campbell, who was a tail gunner in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the war, opened the museum 30 years ago with a group of other veterans and volunteers. He died at age 71.
“The stress that it put on him is unbelievable,” said Fox. “He died relatively young for somebody who had been through so much through the war. For him to go by heart attack when he seemed to be a very fit man and all other signs pointed to a long and happy life, was kind of unfortunate.”
After Campbell’s death, there was a fundraising effort to build a new, more secure museum. The new museum has no windows. The walls are reinforced with steel. But this week’s break-in showed the other building was still vulnerable.
“Amongst our volunteers, it reawakens those fears that somebody breaking into the museum could undo years worth of work,” said Fox. “Charlie’s dream was for this museum to be a monument to peace, and this is an insult to his legacy.”
He had poured his life into it. Less than two weeks later, he died of a heart attack.