War Heroes

The story of Alberta’s involvement and response to World War I and II. The legal profession has a long tradition of honouring its war veterans. The archives abounds with images and files of information commemorating WWI and WWII veterans from Alberta’s legal profession who participated in the conflict and played significant roles in the evolving climate on the home front and overseas.

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1916: Stanley Livingstone Jones, WWI war hero

World War I Erupts. Gallant Calgary lawyer Major Stanley Livingstone Jones, pays the ultimate sacrifice for King and country.

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1916: Stanley Livingstone Jones – killed at battle of Ypres

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1918: Sydney R. Vallance, WWI hero. Gas poisoning, Battle of Passchendaele.

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1921: Unveiling of WWI memorial plaque

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1921: World War I courthouse memorial plaque.

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1939: The Hon. R.B. Bennett Returns to Calgary!

Greeted by Lt. Col. J. Fred Scott at Calgary CPR station, fall 1939 (J.V.H. Milvain; E.J. Chambers, Ward Patterson, George Cloakey in background).

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1940: The Honourable David Clifton Prowse, Q.C. (1920-1988)

Clif Prowse was an RCAF Navigator shot down on April 27, 1944 in a raid over Schweinfurt, Germany. He was the only survivor. The following night his brother Hubert Prowse was one of only three of his aircrew to bail-out and survive over Frederikshaun, Denmark. When Clif bailed out of his falling Lancaster bomber, one foot was torn off by the propeller. He spent six months in a German hospital where his leg was amputated in two successive operations, to stop the spread of gangrene. After the war, Clif re-entered the University of Alberta, receiving the Horace Harvey Gold medal in his final year of the LL.B. Clif Prowse joined the Fenerty law firm in 1951 and became a partner soon after. He received his QC in 1963 and was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Alberta, Appellate Division in September 1972.

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1944: Prowse family notified son Clif missing-in-action, WWII

1944, The Honourable Russell A. Dixon, Q.C.

Corporal Russell Armitage Dixon joined the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion of the British 6 the Airborne Division in England on its return from Normandy in September 1944. He served in Belgium and Holland and participated in the airborne drop over the Rhine River on March 24, 1945. Dixon’s Division dropped over the Rhine River at Wesel, Germany and after a day of heavy fighting proceeded 275 miles north-east through Minden, Hanover and Celle, and across the Elbe River ending up in May 2, 1945 at Wismar on the Baltic Coast, meeting the advancing Russian Army. Of note, Field Marshal Montgomery met Marshal Rokkosovsky in the town square at Wismar with the 1th Canadian Parachute Battalion on full parade.

1944, The Honourable Russell A. Dixon, Q.C.

Russell Dixon with his mother and brother John before embarkation leave in August.

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1946: Calgary Bar Association WWII Memorial Plaque, Calgary courthouse

Supreme Court Justices Harold Parlee, Frank Ford, Horace Harvey and W.A. Macdonald with plaque listing Calgary Bar Association members who served during the Second World War. As in the Great War, many lawyers took hiatus from their practice to fight for their country, 1946.

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1947: The Honourable Harry Grafton Nolan, K.C.

Alberta’s first appointee to the Supreme Court of Canada, and son of famed attorney Paddy Nolan. In 1947, Rhodes Scholar H.G. Nolan was chosen to represent Canada as Prosecutor for Canada before the International Tribunal for the Trial of War Criminals in the Far East. The hearings took place in Tokyo, Japan.