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Local veteran recognized 71 years later

Doris Labelle receives a medal of service for her contributions during the Second World War

After 71 years a Second World War veteran from Sudbury finally received a medal of service she had been owed since the end of the war.

Doris Labelle (née Turner) volunteered with the British Royal Air Force in 1944 and became the secretary for the quartermaster in Northhallerton, a town in Northern England located near a Royal Canadian Air Force base where bombers were dispatched and a hospital that treated servicemen.

Labelle’s duties included correspondence and notifications to families regarding patients’ conditions. In case of death, she would send personal effects to the station where it was forwarded to their families.

While stationed in Northhallerton she met Albert Labelle, a young man from Sudbury who served with the Canadian Air Force.

When Albert’s date for a local dance had to go home for the weekend he ended up taking Doris Turner instead. After the war ended they got married and moved to Coniston.

The move to Canada may have been why she never received her medal of service on time.

When she arrived in Coniston in 1946 Labelle said there were no trees or grass.

“If there had been a boat I would have gotten back on and gone home,” she said.

But they later moved to Sudbury’s west end, and built a home in Val Thérèse in 1960, where they raised four children. Labelle said she fell in love with Canada, and has lived a good life in Sudbury.

She returned to school in her 40s and graduated from teacher’s college in 1971.

As for her service medal, Labelle said she was surprised at all the fuss in her honour during a ceremony at the Lockerby Legion Saturday.

“I never expected all this,” she said.

She received the medal after hearing about another woman in the news, also in her 90s, who was recognized many years after the war.

Her son Paul contacted the UK Ministry of Defence, who found her records, and got in touch with Lt-Col. Ken McClure, commander of the Irish Regiment of Canada in Sudbury, to help organize a local ceremony.

“There was absolutely no hesitation whatsoever,” McClure said.

He added that omissions to recognize a person’s service so many years later are thankfully a rare occurrence.


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Jonathan Migneault

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