Claude Charland
Claude Charland was born as his parents’ only child on 27 February 1929 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
In the summer of 1950, Charland was in his third and final year of training as an officer-cadet in the Canadian Officer Training Corps at the University of Montreal. He assisted in the training of French-speaking recruits in Canadian Army’s 2nd Battalion before returning to finish his studies in industrial relations at the University of Montreal.
Charland officially enlisted in the Canadian Army in October 1951 and was deployed to Japan in November. He served in Korea from January through September 1952 in the role of platoon commander. On 11 March 1952, Charland and other members of the Royal 22nd Regiment (the largely Francophone ‘Van Doos’) began to organize hockey games on the frozen Imjin River in order to enjoy Canada’s national winter sport. On his first patrol, Lt. Charland survived an ambush near the Sacheon River Valley. He would go on another thirteen sorties without encountering the enemy.
Lt. Charland served in the Canadian Army for another three decades, retiring from service in 1982.
Lt. Charland has revisited Korea on multiple occasions, including in April 2014 and October 2015. He has been a prominent participant in activities commemorating Canada’s contributions to the Korean War, including the annual ‘Imjin Classic’ played between the current members of the Royal 22nd Regiment and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in commemoration of the 1952 hockey games played by those regiments on the Imjin River.
Korean War - Key Events
April 25, 1951
Vastly outnumbered UN forces check the Chinese advance on Seoul at the Battles of Kapyong and the Imjin River. Two Commonwealth battalions—the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment—rebuff an entire Chinese division at Kapyong, and 4,000 men of the British 29th Brigade stage a successful delaying action against nearly 30,000 troops of the Chinese 63rd Army at the Imjin River. Some 650 men of the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment (the “Glorious Glosters”), engage in a Thermopylae-like stand against more than 10,000 Chinese infantry at Imjin. Although the overwhelming majority of the Glosters are killed or captured, their sacrifice allows UN forces to consolidate their lines around the South Korean capital.
These events are taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica
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