Royal Canadian Ordinance Corps – Royal 22nd Regiment
Governor General’s Foot Guards
Roland Lalonde was born on 8 July 1923 in Ottawa, Ontario. In 1940, he was hired as a clerk typist with Customs and Excise (later Revenue Canada). At nineteen years old, on 5 November 1942, he enlisted for service with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps as a clerk-typist. The job was a natural fit considering previous work with the government.
Roland’s wedding was scheduled for August 1943, and his fiancée was determined that they would not deviate from their plan. Luckily, he managed to delay his departure overseas, and the ceremony took place on 5 August. Two weeks later, he was on a train to Windsor, Nova Scotia. He was sent to England aboard the troopship RMS Queen Elizabeth. Two weeks after he arrived in Aldershot, he was posted to #5 Vehicle Reserve Depot (#5VRD) in Chilworth. By July 1944, there was no work left for him in England. Once he received his inoculations, he was sent to Italy as an infantry reinforcement, “I exchanged my typewriter for a .303 rifle,” he joked.
Roland landed in Italy in August 1944 and was assigned to ‘C’ Company, Royal 22nd Regiment in Avellino. As a francophone, he was pleased to join a French unit. He quickly realized that it was perhaps a mistake to have given up his typewriter. On his first day with the unit, they were bombarded by German mortar fire. Despite the ferocity of war, there were good memories too. The regimental Christmas dinner in Piangipane, featuring Molson Canadian beer, stood out to Roland as one of those blissful moments among the horrors. He also enjoyed two visits to Rome, where the regiment met with Pope Pius XII. He was also pleased when the unit transferred to Port Giorgio on the Adriatic Sea. There, he enjoyed new clothing and his first real shower since he had left Avellino. He remained in Italy until the regiment moved with the First Canadian Corps to Northwest Europe in March 1945 as part of Operation Goldflake. They continued liberating and fighting through Northwest Europe until the end of the war.
Roland recalled a brief stop in Lille and Northern France before heading to Putte in Belgium. They proceeded to liberate the region surrounding Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. Outside of Amersfoort, “the Germans were about two miles into the city, and we were ordered not to engage.” Subsequently, on 4 May 1945, the German High Command came through their regiment to Nijmegen to surrender. Four days later, on VE Day, he was sent with ‘C’ Company to Hoogland to repatriate German soldiers by sea for approximately a month. For Roland, there was no time to stay still after the armistice, “we were in Den Haag, Utrecht, Naarden… everything was in movement. After the war, they had five divisions to move back to Canada.” Roland arrived home on 5 October 1945 and was met with celebration. He was taken to the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, where people gathered to celebrate returning soldiers and the end of the war. He carried a flag and proudly paraded through Quebec City. When he arrived in Ottawa, he was greeted by over 50 family members and friends. The celebrations continued for over a week.
As a bilingual French and English speaker, Roland found he could communicate well with the people he met in North-West Europe. Italian was also similar enough to French that he picked up the language quickly. He also learned to speak Dutch quite well while he was stationed in the Netherlands, “I’m lucky because I can learn things very fast,” he said. Showing off, he recited from memory an excerpt from Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen” called The Act of Remembrance, which he had read during the ceremony at his home for the 80th anniversary of D-Day earlier in the day.
After the war, he continued his work for the government as a clerk typist and later transferred to the Cheque Redemption Control Directorate, where he worked until 1962, when he applied for a position as an auditor with the Pension Centre. Roland put in two years there before transferring back to the Cheque Redemption Control Directorate. Roland retired in 1978. In the post-war period, he continued his military service, serving two five-year contracts with the Governor General’s Foot Guards. For his long service, he was awarded the Canadian Forces’ Decoration in November 1958 at the rank of staff sergeant.
Roland was relocated to Perly Health Veterans Care Centre in his late nineties. “This is the place to be!” he said. He considers his occupation to be a painter. This is quite apparent to his visitors, who are welcomed by a canvas on an easel, rows of completed works, and splats of acrylic on the side of his desktop computer, which the centenarian independently navigates to find photos of the next landscape to put on canvas. Through volunteerism and generosity, Roland’s artwork has raised thousands of dollars for Perly Health. “They use me, and I don’t mind being used.”
A painted portrait of a young Roland Lalonde in uniform hangs in his room. It was painted by war artist Roger Chabot and was modeled after a photo of Roland that is displayed in his shadowbox outside his room. He is hopeful that he will participate in the celebrations for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Holland after a health issue prevented him from making the pilgrimage to Italy in 2019.
While Roland’s memory has remained sharp, he prefers to talk about where he was opposed to what he did. He will recall the good times, but struggles to put the bad times into words. As an infantry soldier of the Second World War, Roland has seen many things he wishes he could forget. As of 2025, he continues to reside at Perley Health Veterans Center in Ottawa.
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