Agar, Leading cook Robert James

Service highlights

  • Service Number: V44516
  • Born 1 July 1916 in London and came to Canada as a child
  • Lived in the Stratford area and worked locally before enlistment
  • Enlisted 7 August 1942 in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve
  • Served as Leading Cook aboard HMCS Shawinigan
  • Lost at sea overnight 24 to 25 November 1944 when Shawinigan was sunk
  • Commemorated on the Halifax Memorial and the World War II plaque at St. Marys Town Hall

A Life and Service Remembered

Robert James Agar was born in London, England on 1 July 1916 and came to Canada with his parents while still young. He grew up in the Stratford area, went to school, and found steady work before the war, building the kind of ordinary life that so many young families were piecing together in those years.

When he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1942, he stepped into a branch of service that demanded long stretches away from home and quiet competence under pressure. His trade as a cook mattered more than people sometimes realize. On a wartime ship, meals were not just food, they were routine and morale, a brief sense of normal in cold weather, fatigue, and long watches.

In 1944 he joined HMCS Shawinigan, a Flower class corvette that had spent years escorting and patrolling in Atlantic and home waters. In late November 1944, Shawinigan was working in the Cabot Strait area, escorting a ferry run and then departing on an overnight anti submarine patrol. In the early hours of 25 November, the ship was torpedoed and sank with the loss of all aboard. At the time, the exact cause was not fully known, and the story only became clearer later through wartime records.

Robert Agar was 28 when he died. He is remembered on the Halifax Memorial, and records name his wife, Dorothy Jean Agar, and his parents Samuel Henry and Rose Agar of Stratford. For families, that kind of line in an official record can feel painfully small compared to the space a person filled at home.

Major battles and operations

  • Atlantic and home waters convoy escort and patrol work aboard HMCS Shawinigan
  • Cabot Strait escort and anti submarine patrol, overnight 24 to 25 November 1944, ending with the sinking of HMCS Shawinigan
HMCS Shawinigan

Learn More