(Not mentioned on Norway's Honour Roll, but is listed on Birch Cliff Heights' and Scarborough Collegiate [R.H. King]'s rolls.)

 

Roy Phillips was born September 14, 1924 to Victor Royston Eric Phillips and his wife Elizabeth (“Bessie”) McGowan. In 1908, Victor came from England as a young boy and his family lived in the Beach area including on Queen Street near Kew Beach school. Bessie was born in Toronto circa 1905 and when they married on December 15, 1923, she was working as a chocolate dipper. By the time of Roy's birth, the couple was living in Victor's family home at 35 Golfview Avenue and he was a shirt cutter for Eaton's department store. In 1931 the family had moved to 16 Aylesworth Avenue near Birchmount and Danforth, so Roy would have attended Norway for Kindergarten and Grade 1 at most. The addition to the family of son Glenn in 1930 no doubt contributed to the move.

 

Roy continued the remainder of his elementary schooling at Birch Cliff Heights. In 1938 he went to high school at Scarborough Collegiate. His parents divorced soon after and Roy returned to the Beach neighbourhood to live with his mother and brother in an apartment at 2201 Gerrard Street East, on the southeast corner of Main and Gerrard Streets. He only completed one year of high school. He worked for a while with his father at Eaton's and was a member of their Young Men's Country Club where he was a proficient golfer. He had a membership at the central YMCA. Next, he found work in a machine shop and during the month prior to enlisting in the army in September 1943, he drove a truck for the Lake Simcoe Ice and Fuel Company which was located on the north side of Gerrard near his mother's apartment. When he enlisted, he was rooming at 328 Main Street, north of Danforth.

 

His basic training was in a camp at Brantford and by December he was sent to Shilo, Manitoba for parachute instruction. By February 10, he qualified as a parachutist with demolitions training. In July 1944 he shipped overseas and joined the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. The battalion was two years old and had seen action the previous month in the D-Day landings. They jumped with only one parachute, though a hole in the floor of an airplane. Their kit was 70 pounds and included French currency and 48 hours of rations. They were the first Canadian unit on French soil during the invasion and succeeded in achieving all their objectives of blowing up bridges and securing territory.

 

The battalion returned to England in August for further training, based on what was learned at Normandy. Roy joined them at the Bulford camp on Salisbury Plain and also qualified as a military truck driver. On Christmas Day the battalion sailed for Belgium, to fight the Germans in the Ardennes in what was the Battle of the Bulge. They were the only Canadians who fought in the battle, the Americans being the main force involved. By January 25, 1945, the battle was over and the unit moved into the Netherlands with the ultimate objective of crossing the Rhine River. They patrolled and raided as necessary and even with heavy shelling, there were few casualties. They returned to England on February 23 and Roy was given a well deserved seven day leave.

 

The ultimate crossing of the Rhine was code-named Operation Varsity and the battalion began two weeks of intense training. On March 24, they parachuted into Germany, on the eastern side of the Rhine and secured the area. In a day and a half the German army was defeated here and for the next 37 days, the battalion advanced 450 kilometres into Germany. Roy was killed on April 15, the day the battalion came upon the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He is buried in Holten Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands.