80 years ago today: Canadian Army Corporal Earl Harold Pruner, 19, of The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, carries both a PIAT anti-tank weapon and an M1 Thompson sub-machine gun through war-torn Motta, Italy, 2 October 1943.
Library and Archives Canada LAC 3229941
The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, known affectionately as the “Hasty P’s” traces its lineage to seven assorted local militia units dating to 1863 and was only stood up for active campaigning as a regiment in 1939. It went on to be awarded more Battle Honours (31) during WWII than any other Canadian Infantry Regiment, only earning its first in the Husky Landings in Sicily in July 1943– showing just how grueling and nonstop the combat was that the Hastys saw before VE Day.
Illustrating this, the above good Corporal Pruner would have just over two months to live as he was killed in action on 7 December 1943 during the two-day assault over the Moro River. He had lied about his age, dropping out of school and joining up in 1940 at age 16, following in the footsteps of his dad, who had served on the Western Front in the Great War.
During WWII, one of the unit’s officers, future author and environmentalist Capt. Farley Mowat took detailed notes and made the unit the subject of his historical book, The Regiment, which makes great reading.
The unit endures as an understrength three-company infantry battalion within the Army Reserve’s 33 Canadian Brigade Group, stationed across Ontario.