Two new pedestals were unveiled by the Royal United Services Institute at the Cenotaph in Victoria Park last week, on the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe raid.  

The pedestals honour the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the HMCS Weyburn corvette. 

Dale Huff, who served for six years and was Sergeant at Arms at the Weyburn Legion said while the HMCS Weyburn was named for Weyburn, Saskatchewan, he’s not sure how it was named.  

“We had 36 lost to enemy action alone of these types of ships,” said Huff. “They were used for escort duty across the Atlantic, and the HMCS Weyburn was assigned to escort convoys from England down to Gibraltar, and so forth to Italy and North Africa.” 

The HMCS Weyburn was one of the ships lost, as it was sunk when it hit a mine laid by the German Navy.  

“The HMCS Weyburn Corvette sunk in the western Mediterranean near Gibraltar on August the 22nd 1943, so about 79 years ago.” 

He said there is only one Corvette left, the HMCS Sackville. 

“That's tied up in the arbor in Halifax. It's a tourist attraction, you can go on and see how they lived on those ships.” 

Huff also knows a lot about the South Saskatchewan Regiment, which was formed by the amalgamation of The Weyburn Regiment and The Saskatchewan Border Regiment. 

“It was mostly farm boys and whatever, and their first action was on August 22nd, 1942, it was 80 years ago,” Huff said. “That was at Dieppe, and of course, they took a very high number of casualties there. In fact, 16 percent of the regiment were killed or wounded or taken prisoner there, which is a very high number. Once you get to about six percent it's considered a pretty severe loss and we had 16 percent loss of the regiment at that time.”   

Huff said Major Hrycyna of Regina was instrumental in getting the new pedestals added to the cenotaph. 

“He was the driving force behind it.”  

He added Hrycyna was a major in his regiment, which was the 20th Armoured Regiment.  

Regina Cenotaph