On August 17, 1992, Sergeant C.M. Ralph was serving in Croatia with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and was killed when his vehicle struck a mine. His unit, 4 Combat Engineer Regiment, commissioned a locally made memorial stone of dark grey granite and dedicated it to his memory. The stone was the focal point for their 1992 Remembrance Day ceremony at the Canadian camp in Velika-Kladusa, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Subsequent Canadian soldiers killed in the former Yugoslavia were added and by 1995 the number of memorials stones grew to four; two inscribed with Canadian and United Nations crests with memorial text in both English and French, and two having the names of the fallen soldiers. The memorial became known as the Yugo Memorial Stones.
In mid-1995, Canada agreed to provide a contingent for the newly formed NATO Implementation Force (IFOR), which became the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) on December 20, 1996. During this time the Memorial Stones were sent to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, to ensure they were not lost, where they were placed on display in the museum’s Peacekeeping Gallery. In 1998, the museum added the names of six soldiers that had been killed since mid-1995 to the Memorial Stones.
In the fall of 1998, the soldiers in the NATO Stabilization Force requested the Memorial Stones be returned so they could build a formal memorial in one of their camps. The museum made the arrangements to return the stones to Yugoslavia for the duration of their mission in the Balkans. The memorial consisted of the four returned stones, an eleventh name was added to one of the stones, and included two additional stones that were locally made. One was a Bosnian cemetery marker style and the other listed the names of the five Canadian soldiers who were killed while serving in NATO Implementation Force/NATO Stabilization Force. A rededication ceremony was held on Remembrance Day 1998 at the Canadian Contingent's base in Velika Kladusa.
In 2005, the Memorial Stones arrived back at the Canadian War Museum where they are now stand alone items.
