Prince Edward Island

Flying Officer James Clyde Cummings was killed at the age of 24 while on a camera gun exercise at No. 10 Bombing and Gunnery School, Mount Pleasant, Prince Edward Island when his Bristol Fairchild Bolingbroke (RCAF 10094) crashed at Richmond, Prince Edward Island during a training exercise on November 9, 1944. He was the son of J. Clyde and Doris T. Cummings, of High Point, North Carolina.

Out of respect for the crash site, the location is not being shared with the public.

In 1994, Greg Garard was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Legion to paint a mural. The artwork hung on the side of George R. Peakes V.C. Branch No. 5 Royal Canadian Legion on Notre Dame Street since its creation in 2000. The mural depicts four men and one woman dressed in the uniforms of the different branches of the Canadian Armed Forces in addition to battle scenes on land, sea and in the air. 

With the sale of the building in 2013, the city took down the mural and put it in storage for safekeeping. It was commissioned under the Millennial Program and moved to its present location on the Consolidated Credit Union building in 2019. 

In the fall of 2016 the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #17 Wellington in partnership with the Community of Wellington has acquired a LAV III (Light Armored Vehicle) Monument to recognize the service and sacrifice of the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. The monuments are created from decommissioned LAV III hulls. They offered a great defense and became relied upon to protect our troops and preserve life during the conduct of a variety of missions to help restore peace and government to the people of Afghanistan. To date it is the only one of its kind on PEI.

The monument specially commemorates the “Fallen” who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

It is located on the grounds of the Royal Canadian Legion in Wellington adjacent to another monument honoring those in the First, second and Korean Wars; it will provide our citizens a place to pay tribute to our veterans of Afghanistan and ensure that our Fallen heroes of that conflict will be forever remember.

This memorial was dedicated on the occasion of the Royal Canadian Air Force/Canadian Forces Base Summerside Reunion 2003. Provided by the City of Summerside and erected by the Reunion Committee on September 14, 2003.

739 was the 30^th Argus built by the Canadair Plant in Cartierville, Quebec. It was Taken On Strength (TOS) by the RCAF on the 22^nd of February, 1960. It was then accepted by the 404 Marine Patrol (MP) Squadron based at RCAF station in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. Then in 1965, Argus 739 was re-assigned to 415 (MP) Squadron, RCAF station in Summerside, PEI. In Summer 1966, Argus 739 made the flight from Summerside to Pisa, Italy and was likely the only Argus to ever visit Italy. While in Italy Argus 739 participated in NATO exercises which consisted of torpedo exercises that took place on a range near Pisa. Argus 739 returned to regular operations until 1975 when it was placed in short-term storage at CFB Greenwood. It returned to service at CFB Summerside in 1977 before later being returned to CFB Greenwood.

On June 5, 1980, Major Bill Naylor took Argus 739 on her final flight to Summerside. Argus 739 retired with 15,087.4 flying hours, and average flying speed of 200 mph which could represent around 3,017,480 miles. Argus 739 had 20  years and 4 months of flying.

In 1980 Lowell Huestis led a group of local Summerside citizens and petitioned DND to have an airframe for Argus 739 preserved and mounted outside the gate of CFB Summerside. Major Wayne Griffith of the 415 (MP) Squadron was assigned to assist with the project. Cement was generously donated by Curran & Briggs Ltd and MF Schurman Ltd.

Argus 739 was moved to its present location by a BAMEO tow crew. This was its final resting place 21 years and 1 day from her first flight. In 1990 it was refurbished and repainted as well as minor repainting in 2008. In 2010 a full-scale refinishing was preformed and that is the plane that is seen today at the Air Force Heritage Park.

Canadair provided the metal plaque and those listed on the monument provided the carved granite slab.

In July 1919, a group of Great War Veterans paraded into the town's Square for a program of speeches, music and fireworks. A year later citizens gathered for a ceremony to mark the arrival of a German gun, presented to the town for winning a provincial competition for Victory Loans and a second larger German gun, that was part of a countrywide distribution, was placed in the Square. In July 1922, a memorial to commemorate the Prince County lives lost in the Great War, known as the Soldier's Monument, was unveiled and dedicated.

The Square is valued as a reminder of the sacrifices made by Prince Edward Islanders during past conflicts. In 1938, the park was officially renamed Memorial Square in honour of those whose names were inscribed on the Soldier's Monument. The names of local men who lost their lives in the Second World War and Korean War were added to a stone plaque that rests immediately in front of the memorial. The unveiling ceremony took place on May 6, 1956.

Atop the monument, Emanuel Hahn’s bronze soldier is caught in the moment. He has just left his trench and is breaking across No Man’s Land. Wearing battle kit with a Lee-Enfield in his right hand, the soldier is in full stride, running headlong toward the enemy.

Hahn’s Summerside statue caught the eye of Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie. Currie played a key role in planning the Canadian success in the battle for Vimy Ridge and commanded the Canada Corps during its achievements in the final year and a half of the First World War.

After the war Currie assumed a new role as Principal of McGill College in Montreal. Directly across the St. Lawrence from Montreal is the community of Saint-Lambert and Currie decided to underwrite the cost of building the Saint-Lambert war memorial. Currie determined that there should be a design that reflected well and truly on the men of the Canada Corps, men for whom he felt enduring affection and esteem. He decided that the Saint-Lambert monument should feature the same statue as Summerside. The Summerside figure only appears here and at Saint-Lambert. 

The black granite plates were added in a 1988 refurbishment and the bronze sculpture was restored in 2012.

Emanuel Hahn moved to Toronto at the age of seven with his family of artists and musicians from Germany, in 1888. He studied commercial design and model-making at Toronto Technical School and Ontario College of Art and Industrial Design. At 25 years old Hahn began a nearly lifelong contract with Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. Two years later, he also started work as a studio assistant to sculptor Walter Seymour Allward. Part of his duties included assisting on Allward’s significant works such as the South African War Memorial in Toronto.

In 1912 Hahn began an association with the Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. It was there, along with several assistants, he made the many war memorials that are found across Canada: Fernie, British Columbia; Killarney and Russell, Manitoba Alvinston, Bolton, Cornwall, Hanover, Lindsay, Malvern, Milton, Petrolia and Port Dalhousie, Ontario; Gaspe, Quebec; Moncton, New Brunswick; Springhill and Westville Nova Scotia.

Hahn is probably most famous as the designer of the Bluenose on the back of the Canadian dime and the Caribou on the back of the Canadian quarter. He was a victim of anti-German sentiment in the years following the Great War, when his design for the Winnipeg Cenotaph was rejected in 1925.

This stained glass window was placed by the Woman of the Church in memory of those who died in Second World War.

This stained glass window was presented by Second World War Veterans with thanks for their safe return home from war.

Patrick Doucette was nine years old when his brothers, Melvin and Alfred, both soldiers in the Calgary Highlanders, were home on leave during the Second World War. Melvin Doucette was 16 years old in 1942 when he forged his father’s signature to join the army. He and his oldest brother, Alfred, then 22, headed into action in the Second World War.

The brothers returned to Prince Edward Island on leave a few times. Patrick remembers their big loud boots, how tall they were and how they seemed just a little out of place in the family’s Miminegash kitchen.

In July of 1944, the family received word that Alfred was seriously injured in the Battle of Normandy and was in a British field hospital. Soon after, another telegram arrived with the news that Melvin had been killed. He was 19. When Alfred heard about his brother’s death, he passed. To commemorate his sons, Edmond planted two rose bushes near their home in Miminegash. Friends and neighbours said the roses would never grow in the sandy soil, but rose after rose bloomed.

To remember his brothers' sacrifices and that of his family, Patrick, a prolific artist, painted Lone Soldier on November 5, 2020. A soldier in silhouette looks over a cross on a hilltop and poppies dot the shadowed field. The painting hung in the entry to Wedgewood Manor, the place he and his wife Jean called home for many years. In January of 2022, the painting was removed from the manor and given to a family member.

This plaque, located on the exterior west wall of the 1911 Summerside Armoury, was placed in honour of Nursing Sister Georgina Fane Pope.  Although born in Charlottetown (1862), Georgina spent her formative years in St. Eleanors and Summerside. Her parents, Helen DesBrisay and William H. Pope, were members of prominent and influential PEI families. Her military career as a nursing sister and Canada’s first nursing matron, included overseas service in South Africa, England and France, and the award of the Royal Red Cross 1^st Class. She received a military pension after 1919 and lived in Charlottetown until her death in 1938, at which time she was honored with a full military funeral.  

Georgina Pope is one of the 14 bronze busts on the Valiants Memorial in Confederation Square, Ottawa, that are viewed by thousands of people every day.