Willmore, Private Frederick Arthur

Service highlights

  • Force: Canadian Army
  • Unit: Perth Regiment (R.C.I.C.)
  • Service number: A/11832
  • Born: May 9, 1913, St. Marys, Ontario
  • Enlisted: June 24, 1940 (Stratford, Ontario)
  • Overseas service: England (1941), Italy (1943)
  • Killed in action: January 17, 1944 (age 30)
  • Burial: Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, Italy (Grave IV. D. 15.)

A Life and Service Remembered

Frederick Arthur Willmore grew up in St. Marys with the kind of steady, working-life responsibilities that shape a person early. After his father passed away in 1936, Fred and his younger brother kept the family trucking business going. Work later took him to Forest, Ontario, where he found employment with Howard Fraleigh, a St. Marys man who had become a major industrialist in Lambton County.

He volunteered for overseas duty with the Perth Regiment on June 24, 1940. He trained at Camp Borden and later served at Standard Barracks in Hamilton and Niagara-on-the-Lake before heading across the Atlantic with the battalion in October 1941. Two years later he set out again, this time for the Italian Campaign, embarking with the regiment in October 1943. He landed at Naples with the Perths in early November, moved into staging areas, and trained hard for what lay ahead as the regiment pushed toward the Adriatic front.

In January 1944 the Perth Regiment was ordered forward to gain battle experience with the 1st Canadian Infantry Division. As the men prepared, the mood was sharpened by briefings that made it clear what was expected: move with determination, press the attack, and do not hesitate.

By mid-January, the Perths were concentrated near Ortona, where detailed orders were issued for an assault set for the morning of January 17. The plan called for crossing the Riccio River at first light, then driving forward to the Tollo Road along the height of the Fendo Ridge. It was the kind of attack that demanded everything at once: down into the valley, through the river, and straight up the far side under fire.

H-Hour was 5:30 a.m. The assault met fierce resistance almost immediately from German paratroopers, and within minutes it collapsed into chaos. In that opening burst of the battle, Private Willmore was killed. Oral tradition has held that he may have been the first member of the Perth Regiment to be killed in action, a grim distinction that speaks to how quickly the front can turn from preparation to loss.

What followed at home shows the human cost in a different way. Weeks later, with official information still incomplete, his wife wrote from St. Marys to the Director of Records after rumours reached town that Fred had been killed on January 17, rumours she said came from local boys who “seemingly were with him at the time.” She pleaded for the report to be checked at once, explaining she had only received official word on January 31 that he was missing, and that since then she had been “praying and hoping” he might be a prisoner or in hospital wounded.

He was laid to rest in Italy at the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery. Back home, his name was carried forward by family and by a town that remembered. Today he is commemorated in St. Marys on the WWII plaque on the south wall of the St. Marys Town Hall, and his service remains part of the Perth Regiment’s story in Italy.

Major battles and operations

  • Italian Campaign (Adriatic Front): movement from Naples into the Ortona sector
  • Ortona area operations (winter 1943–44): concentration and preparations near Ortona
  • Riccio River, Fendo Ridge assault (January 17, 1944): killed in action during the attack

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