Seth Murray was born on May 24, 1922 on a farm near Rapid City, Manitoba. His mother, Margaret Janet Horner was born in 1892 in a nearby town, Minnedosa, located about 200 kilometres west of Winnipeg. It is flat prairie farmland dotted with hundreds of small lakes. Margaret's parents were from Ontario and attended the Baptist church. Seth's father, Oliver George Murray was born in the same area in 1891. His father was a Scottish immigrant who came to Canada in 1871 and his mother came from England in 1881. Oliver and Margaret married in nearby Basswood in December 1915.

 

Seth was the third child after Cecil (born circa 1917) and Orval (born circa 1919). Sister Margaret was year younger than Seth and Mark completed the family in approximately 1926. The family left their farm and came to Toronto that year for unknown reasons. In 1927 the Murrays were living on Craven Road near Danforth and Coxwell and Oliver was a yardman for a coal company. By 1929 they had moved to the Cedarvale neighbourhood, living at 122 King Edward Avenue and Oliver had a job for a produce purchaser on Coxwell near Gerrard. Seth began Grade 1 at Danforth Park school when they arrived in the neighbourhood. The family subsequently lived at 149 King Edward in 1933 and at 111 Barker Avenue from 1937 to 1940. Oliver changed jobs often but when he found work with the Township of East York in 1941, they finally settled down at 190 Gledhill Avenue. They were members of the Forward Baptist Church near Woodbine and Gerrard and Margaret was very involved in the church's community and especially with the Housewives' Association.

 

Seth enjoyed playing hardball and baseball but he left school in 1933 in the middle of Grade 7 to go to work on an uncle's fruit farm in Forest, Ontario, near Sarnia. (There is some ambiguity – he also said that he completed seven years of school, leaving when he was 15, which seems more logical.) He spent four years working on the farm and selling the produce. He left the farm to work as a dishwasher in a restaurant for six months then he apprenticed for nine months in the machine shop of Vitreous Corporation, a die making company that was on Soho Street near Queen and Spadina. In early 1942, Oliver found a job for Seth with the roads department of East York but after eight months, Seth decided to enlist in the army, on September 16, 1942.

 

When he enlisted, Seth was tall and muscular - 6 foot and 169 pounds. His hair was brown and he had hazel eyes. He was posted the next month to 17th Coastal Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery, where he had his basic training in Prince Rupert, BC. He continued with the regimental machine gun course and became a gunner, as part of the force guarding Canada's west coast. His instructors noted that he seemed to adjust well to military life, yet they had reservations about him. In his military file, one wrote, “Although his M-scores denotes low learning ability he appears to have the capability of absorbing Infantry training, but may need some prodding.” By today's standards, Seth appears to have had a learning disability.

 

On April 14, 1943, he was granted 14 days' leave and it appears that he may have taken the train east to visit his family, possibly missing a train on the way back and arriving two days late back to camp. Every few months he would be AWOL and it may be that he was always chronically late returning from leave.

 

On August 8, 1944, he was posted to the 5th British Columbia Coast Regiment in Esquimalt (Victoria), employed as a gunner on 75mm and 6 inch guns. On August 26, 1944 the unit was reduced and he was re-evaluated. As the year drew to a close, many of the soldiers who had been on the home front were to be redeployed to operational service. Seth transferred to Vernon BC's Special Infantry Training Centre in September and then was taken on strength in October 1944 with the Midland Regiment. He qualified on 75mm guns and it was found that his night vision was excellent. He was considered suitable for deployment to the field.

 

He would have had two weeks' leave around New Year's 1945 before embarking for Britain, where he arrived on January 17. The officers who interviewed him figured he would be suited to training on anti-tank guns or else as a rifleman. He completed two weeks' training on February 9.

 

Seth landed in the Netherlands on March 26 and joined The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, nicknamed “The Rileys,” as a reinforcement on April 1. The Allied push deep into northeastern Netherlands was in full swing and the Germans were outnumbered by the Allied forces. The Dutch had just experienced their “Hunger Winter” where starvation was rife. The Germans had taken their food and the Dutch were reduced to eating tulip bulbs and anything they could scrounge. When the Canadians liberated the Dutch towns, the residents gave them a joyous reception.

 

The Canadians had recently been strengthened when the regiments which had been serving in Italy joined the fight in northwestern Europe. When Seth joined the Rileys, the Allies had crossed the Rhine River and the Rileys were to move north and cross the Twente Canal. On the night of April 2/3, a speedy attack was made and the Allies gained over 30 kilometres, taking the enemy unawares. Their defences were disorganized and although they had destroyed the bridges over the canal, the Canadians crossed on assault boats and the Rileys reinforced the bridgehead while the engineers worked on bridging the canal.

 

Even though the Germans were being pushed back rapidly, they weren't going without a fight. The advancing Allies were being shelled by tanks and mortar fire and experiencing hand-to-hand fighting. On April 9, the Rileys and other Canadian regiments pushed north toward the village of Haarle, 18 kilometres northeast of Deventer, around which there was also heavy fighting. At midday, most of the battle was taking place around a large country house called Sprengenberg, just south of Haarle. The Canadians came under intense flak, machine gun and bazooka fire. Sprengenberg had (and still has) a tower which provided a strategic lookout for the Germans.