Local veteran reflects on importance of Perth Regiment 60 years after inactivation

Tom Soper, a veteran of the now disbanded Perth Regiment, reflects on the importance of the regional force this Remembrance Day – as he does every day of every year.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

While the Perth Regiment continues to exist administratively, since 1965 it has been placed on the Supplementary Order of Battle and reduced to nil strength, dormant until Canada needs it again.

Despite not being active for 60 years, the famed regiment still holds a special place in the hearts of Stratford and area residents and veterans. One such veteran is Tom Soper.

Soper joined the Perth Regiment in 1946, the regiment his father was a part of. He was sixteen years old.

“To enlist at that time you had to be 17,” Soper laughed as he told his story to the Times. “They really stuck to that because it wasn’t war time. … I just turned 16 in August, and I enlisted in in October. But when I went before the recruiting officer I just said that I was 17, and he said, ‘Do you have any proof of that?’ And my father was standing there. My father said, ‘Yes, I'm his father. I should know he's 17.’”

“(I was) maybe a little scared,” Soper continued. “But at that time everybody was gung-ho and wanted to serve … I was brought up on understanding duty because of my father. So no, I wasn’t really worried about having to go and serve.”

The regiment originated tangentially in 1838, when the Third Regiment of Huron was organized in southern Perth County informally. It did not have equipment and membership did not train. By 1856, the Stratford Volunteer Rifle Company was formed with more involved membership. It elected its own officers and operated for two years before it was recognized in 1858 by the federal government. Eight years later, when the Fenian Raids broke out across British North America, a battalion-sized composite unit was formed and given a regimental headquarters in Stratford, creating the Perth Regiment known today, with the Stratford Volunteer Rifle Company as the No. 1 company of the regiment.

The Perth Regiment was placed on active service for local protection duties during the First World War and recruited for the 110th Battalion from Perth County, which saw combat in Europe beginning in 1916. Additionally, many other young men were recruited from Perth County and dispersed among different companies in the armed forces, earning colours and commendations for their bravery.

The Perth Regiment was mobilized Sept. 1, 1939, the very day Germany invaded Poland and nine days before Canada would officially enter the Second World War. According to Soper they first went to Niagara Falls then Hamilton and then finally Camp Borden just outside of Barrie, where they started serious training. As the 1st Battalion, members of the Perth Regiment embarked for Great Britain in 1941 to defend the coast and landed in Italy in 1943. It fought in Europe until the war’s end.

“They went to Italy and fought there, all the way up the peninsula,” Soper said. “There's a series of mountains, and the Germans, being very clever engineers and so on, they defended all the mountains, so the Perths had to fight their way through, and they distinguished themselves at the Gothic Line. They were doing some aggressive patrolling out front, and they discovered that the Germans hadn't really fully stocked their areas yet with men. So they reported back and the brigadier jumped on it right away.

“With that knowledge, he told all the other regiments to start advancing seriously. And the Perths managed to find their way through and got up to the top of the highest hill in the area, Hill 207. And because of that, more or less outflanked the Germans.”

The Perths transferred to Northwest Europe, where they and the rest of the First Canadian Army liberated Holland from Nazi rule, a historic moment remembered by Canadians and Dutch alike.

“They were just about on the Elbe River, just across from Hamburg, and that's where the war ended,” Soper said. “And they stayed there for until actually next January. You wonder why they would be there for another seven months, but they were concerned that the Russians might try to come through and established themselves on the Atlantic. So they held the positions there. A lot of them came home then, afterwards, of course, and they just went back into militia or ready reserve training here in Stratford.”

Post war, the Perth Regiment resided in Stratford until it was inactivated. Soper served that whole time, from 1946 to 1965. During that time and since he took a leadership role for veterans, serving as the president of the now inactive Perth Regiment Veterans Association.

As Soper said, as the years went on and more and more veterans passed away, the numbers of the association diminished. By 2000, there weren’t enough members to hold reunions, as it once did.

“Myself and Art Boon and a few others, we would meet every once in a while, just for paperwork and so on,” Soper said. “And finally, we had to disband the veterans association, because there just wasn't enough people to really keep things going. … But I’ve still held onto the presidency and I represent the regiment at the Cenotaph every year, lay the wreath and so on.”

Soper is unsure how many Perth Regiment veterans are still living in the region. Regardless, the legacies they left behind are carried each and every year, as evident by the huge crowds which come to the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day – a fact which makes Soper proud.