Capt. Frances Savill, padre of the Algonquin Regiment, officiated at the burial of Pte. Kenneth Duncanson on Sept. 14 at the Adegem Canadian War Cemetery, near Brugge, Belgium.
The Presbyterian soldier from Wallacetown, Ont., fought in World War II and was killed on the morning of Sept. 14, 1944. He was laid to rest almost exactly 72 years later.
“I was reminded of the great cost of our freedom,” Savill wrote of her experience. “I saw the sacrifice of so many young men like Pte. Kenneth Duncanson; each life special, each one a mother’s son, a brother, an uncle, a comrade, and a friend.”
Duncanson was 29 when he was killed in an attempt by the Algonquin Regiment to establish a bridgehead on a canal in northern Belgium. He enlisted in August 1942, and served in the No. 3 Canadian Infantry Reinforcement Unit and the Algonquin Regiment. His body was discovered in a farmer’s field in 2014.
