Roll Call, Volume 11, Issue 1, August 2025, Newsletter of the Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum (FNBMHM)

ROLL CALL

NEWSLETTEROF THE FRIENDS OF THE NEW BRUNSWICK MILITARY HISTORY MUSEUM

AMIS/AMIESDE MUSEÉ D’HISTOIRE MILITAIRE DU NOUVEAU-BRUNSWICK

Volume 11,Issue 1                                                                     August 2025 

Roll Call is published four times a year: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. This issue isthe first for 2025.  Submissions or comments can be sent to the Editor, Hal Skaarup at [email protected]. For details on joining the Friends, please contact the Museum at 506-422-1304 or email us at: [email protected].

Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum Executive:

President: Brian MacDonald

Vice-President: Hal Skaarup

Secretary: Doug Hall

Treasurer: Randall Haslett

Directors: Gary Campbell, Brent Wilson, Harold Wright

Remembering Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired) Robert L. Dallison,CD

by J.Brent Wilson^[1]

To the best of my recollection, I first met Bob Dallison in the late 1980s or early 1990s, probably around the time he be became Director of King’s Landing Historical Settlement.  By then, he’d had a long and distinguished military career, both in Canada and overseas, and made Fredericton his new home.  He carried on his service to the public in general, and New Brunswick’s heritage more particularly, in many different ways.  

Bob was a very good tour guide.  I recall going to various historic sites under his guidance with the Fredericton Garrison Club.  He also participated in battlefield tours throughout the province with the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society at the University of New Brunswick.  He worked quite well with the students, encouraging their interaction, something, I know, they appreciated.  

Bob also gave innumerable talks to various kinds of groups on a variety of topics, including a lively presentation on the Fenian threat to New Brunswick at the New Brunswick Military History Museum earlier this year.  He was an excellent public speaker, freely walking around the room, engaging the audience directly.  I never saw him speak from notes, something that always impressed me.  

Bob was a member of many heritage organizations, including the Fredericton Heritage Trust, York-Sunbury Historical Society, and, of course, the Friends of the New Brunswick Military History Museum.  He was also the provincial representative with Heritage Canada.  Recently, he helped the Beaverbrook Art Gallery with an exhibit.

I was directly involved with Bob’s writing and publishing about the province’s military history as the editor of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series, co-published by the Gregg Centre and Goose Lane Editions.  He wrote the second volume in the series, Hope Restored: The American Revolution and the Founding of New Brunswick in 2003.  He then went on to write two more books in the series: Turning Back the Fenians: New Brunswick’s Last Colonial Campaign, volume 8 in 2006, and A Neighbourly War: New Brunswick and the War of 1812, volume 19 in 2012.  Bob took his writing seriously, and his work usually needed little help from me as the editor.  (Every editor’s dream.)

In these, and many other ways, Bob made a major contribution to our understanding of New Brunswick’s military history, especially during some key moments in the province’s evolution, including its founding as a separate province in 1784; the threat of an American invasion in 1812-14; and the decision to join Confederation in 1867.  And he did so in a way that welcomed many to the venture. I’m sure Bob did much to awaken people’s interests in local history and inspired them to make their own contributions.

And for all these reasons Bob deserves our profound thanks and admiration. (Based on my tribute presented at the memorial event for Robert “Bob” Dallison held at the New Brunswick Military History Museum on 29 July 2025.)

LCol(Retired) Bob Dallison, Lieutenant-Colonel of the RNBR.

In 1975, when Bob was a Major and DCO of 2 PPCLI, he purchased a Universal Carrier forthe regiment. (We had quite a debate on the name, and he asserted it was called a Bren Gun Carrier by all who used it). That carrier is preserved and is currently on display in the PPCLI barracks at CFB Shilo, Manitoba.

Marc Milner Book Launch

On 4 September 2025, the New Brunswick Military History Museum at Base Gagetown in Oromocto will host a book launch at 7:00 pm for noted military historian Marc Milner’s latest book, Second Front: Anglo American Rivalry and the Hidden Story ofthe Normandy Campaign (Yale university Press, 20025).

An Emeritus Professor of History at The University of New Brunswick and former Director of the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society at UNB, Milner has authored ten books, including the widely acclaimed North Atlantic Run (1985) and Stopping the Panzers (2014). According to the publisher’sdescription of Second Front, “in June 1944, an Allied army of British,American, and Canadian troops sought to open up a Second Front in Normandy. But they were not only fighting to bring the Second World War to an end.

After decades of Anglo-American struggle for dominance, they were also contending with one another—to determine who would ascend to global hegemony once Hitler’s armies fell. Milner traces this bitter rivalry as it emerged after the First World War and evolved during the fragile peace which led to the Second. American media and domestic politics dominated the Allied powers’ military strategy, overshadowing the contributions of Britain and the remarkably critical role played by Canada in establishing this Second Front. Culminating in the decisive Normandy campaign, Milner shows how the struggle for supremacy between Churchill and Roosevelt changed the course of the Second World War—and how their rivalry shaped our understanding of the Normandy campaign, and the war itself.” Milner will speak for about half an hour, answer questions, and then sign copies of the book. A few of the author’s other works will also be available for purchase. Refreshments will be available.

80th anniversary Liberation of Canadian POWs in Japan marked at NB Military History Museum

‍The New Brunswick Military History Museum will mark the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Canadian POWs in Japan and the end of the Second World War with a talk and exhibit by Andy Flanagan, author of “The Endless Battle: The Fall of Hong Kong and Canadians POWs in Imperial Japan”. This FREE event will be held from 10 am to 12 noon on Thursday, August 28 and the public isinvited to attend. The Endless Battle gives a moving account of the Prisoner of War experience of Andy Flanagan’s father, James Andrew “Ando” Flanagan, and the lingering effects of trauma suffered by Canadian POWs in Japan.  
A collection of Andrew’s letters, documents and artefacts related to his imprisonment will be on display along with an extensive archive belonging to Joseph “Joe” Charles Frenette of Glen Levit, near Campbellton, NB. Andrew and Joe were together in Japan and their shared suffering is evident in their letters and diaries.
Joe Frenette’s daughter, Mona Thornton, and his son, Ed Frenette, recently donated their father’s entire collection to the museum. The nearly 100 letters are being transcribed and will soon be made available online. Also on display are letters from fellow POW, Bernard Duplessis of Milltown, NB.
Originally from Jacquet River, Andrew Flanagan, was taken prisoner at Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941 along with nearly 2000 other Canadians - 200 who were from northern New Brunswick - including Joe Frenette. Andrew and Joe signed up with the Royal Rifles of Canada in nearby Quebec and had no idea their ultimate destination was the defence of Hong Kong, China. More than 500 never returned, having died in the initial attack or in captivity.
Surviving Canadian POWs endured 3 ½ years of starvation, disease, brutal beatings and forced labour until they were liberated in the wake of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago on 6 and 9 August 1945. Their sworn testimony was later used in post war trials to bring their captors to justice.
Everyone is welcome to attend this important event marking the Liberation of Canadian POWs in Japan and the end of the Second World War.

Refreshments willbe served. The NB Military History Museum is located at 119 Walnut Street Bldg A-5, Oromocto.

 (IWM Photo,KF 189)

Canadiansoldiers on exercise in the hills on Hong Kong Island before the Japanesei nvasion.

More photos and history about Canadian soldiers from New Brunswick who served with the Royal Rifles of Canada and took part in the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941 can viewed here: https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/post/battle-of-hong-kong-1941-new-brunswick-soldiers-with-the-royal-rifles-of-canada

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