an email from Ted Barrow
CHAPS recently received this email from Ted Barrow.
Hi, I was wondering if this would be of interest to the museum. The text below is slightly updated from a Facebook post from two years ago:
“I found this amongst my brothers things when he died last year. It was given to my mother who was widowed aged 22 when her first husband, William Duncan Kerfoot, was killed 80 years ago today at Ortona, Italy. Bill was a rancher she met when she took on a teaching job at the Kerfoot ranch near Calgary Alberta, Canada. They had only been married for a few weeks.
The battle for Ortona is know as ‘little Stalingrad’. While the Americans and British were squabbling over who should get to Rome first the Canadians were sent to Ortega on the east coast to liberate the city. The facists had rendered the cities streets unpassable by destroying buildings and the fighting was intense.
I grew up with his picture and medals on display wherever we lived and I respected my dad for not wanting to hide or deny my mothers past. My middle name is Duncan and I guess thats because Bills middle name was Duncan too. My mum and dad met on an airfield in Canada and married in England after the war and went to live in Argentina where my brothers were born and grew up. I was born in the UK.
I have often wondered what would make a Canadian cowboy want to fight so many thousand miles away from home and how that one snipers bullet changed so much. I wish these plaques were rare but they aren’t. “
I'll be honest and say I'm not sure all the facts are correct here but its the story as I understood it as I grew up with and have always held dear.
The following video is from CHAPS 100 Stories for 100 Years Series on YouTube.
