Maurice Smith militaria collection
Extent and Medium
23 artefacts2 booklets2 documents1 photograph : print
Creator(s)
- Smith, Maurice
Biographical History
Maurice Smith was born in Winnipeg circa 1924; he was in Grade 10 when the Second World War started. He volunteered to serve with the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and was trained as a soldier. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Smith was on embarkation leave in Winnipeg. Within weeks he was sent overseas; the Canadian Army needed infantry men, so he remustered and trained for infantry. Private Smith was a reinforcement in Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry regiment during the invasion of Italy. He was part of the First Canadian Army during the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945. After the cessation of hostilities, Smith bartered for Nazi pins and badges, trading them for cigarettes. His regiment escorted Nazi soldiers home to Germany, and guarded German army supply dumps, where he picked up more memorabilia and a naval flag. After Smith’s regiment was sent home, he stayed and was attached to the British Army of the Rhine and transferred to Paris, France to work on movement control as part of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.
Archival History
Items in this collection were collected by Maurice Smith during his military service from 1944 to 1945. Smith donated them to the Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society (later the VHEC) in 1993.
Scope and Content
Scope and content: Collection is comprised of memorabilia received or collected by Maurice Smith while performing military service in Italy and the Netherlands. Collection is divided into three series: Artefacts [between 1939 and 1945], Correspondence, photograph (1945) and Publications and ephemera (1944–1945).
Accruals
Collection is closed to accruals.
System of Arrangement
Accession: 1993.050
Archivist Note
Arranged in March, 2019 by Shyla Seller. Artefacts described by Caitlin Donaldson in 2017.
Sources
Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
Subjects
- Military
Genre
- Object
- Photographic material
- Textual record