The Saskatchewan Virtual War Memorial
 This web site commemorates Saskatchewan's war dead. Those men and women who perished in service to their country for the high ideals of peace and freedom. It has been created to supplement the physical War Memorial located on the grounds of the Saskatchewan Legislature in Regina, SK.

You can search the database of more than 11,000 war casualties and find quite a bit of information. Here you will find casualties from WWI, WWII, WWII BCATP, WWII Ferry Command, Korea, Afghanistan, Boer War, Conflict of 1885 and peacekeeping missions around the world.

Web pages may change on a daily basis as we add and update information. Visit the News page often to see what's been added or changed.

You can do a lot to help make this a great web site by visiting often and contributing information about those commemorated here. This can include stories and non-copyrighted original photographs as digital images.

Quick Search
 You can do a quick search of the database by entering the surname or the first part of the surname in the box below. Click the Search button to complete the search.

Features
The web site has three major components:

  1. The main web site allows visitors to search for individual war casualties by many criteria. Information about the casualty is presented in a concise web page.
  2. A Wiki provides a community-based means to contribute to a growing knowledge base. Visitors are encouraged to visit the Wiki to share their knowledge and images with the world community.
  3. An educational component is provided through a Moodle server. Educators can create specialized courses and/or projects that can provide students with a great way to learn about war casualties and the conflicts they fought and died in.

We invite you to take full advantage of all the features offered by the Saskatchewan Virtual War Memorial web site!

Participate
 There are two ways you can participate: information and funding.

First, you can enrich the Memorial by helping us keep the site as current and accurate as possible. You can provide corrections to the information already contained here using the Contact form. If you see something amiss, let us know! Any leads you may have on individuals we may have missed would be greatly appreciated!

You can use the Wiki to add additional information about casualties, conflicts, campaigns, battles, insignia, decorations, and a host of other topics. If you have some images that are yours or that you have permission to use, the Wiki is the place to put them. Just create a new Wiki page or edit an existing one.

Second, the Saskatchewan Virtual War Memorial is a non-profit web site which relies on private and corporate donations to survive. We have been very fortunate to obtain initial funding and guidance under the auspices of the Saskatchewan War Memorial Project Inc. Whether you are an individual, family or organization, you can make a difference by sending a donation directly to the Saskatchewan War Memorial Project Inc. who continue to oversee the site. No amount is too small. Every little bit helps! See the Donations page for more information.

Who Is Included?

From Bill Barry: Our committee follows the criteria set by the Government of Canada for inclusion in the books of remembrance in the Peace Tower at Ottawa and on CVWM (Canadian Virtual War Memorial), the national war casualties website.

Generally, that means that anyone who died on active service during Canada's wars or whose death was attributable to service, and who had a significant connection to Saskatchewan, is eligible for inclusion in SVWM.

Note that Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) has established two arbitrary cut-off dates: for WWI it is Oct 1921, for WWII it is mid-1947. Veterans who perished after those two dates are not considered war casualties even if their deaths were attributable to service.

There are grey areas of course, and you will find several casualties in SVWM who are not in CVWM. For example, I recall one lad whose mind was destroyed by shell-shock and was sent home for treatment and discharged as "unfit (insanity)". He was committed to the Saskatchewan hospital at Battleford and perished in the flu pandemic at the end of WWI. VAC has ruled that he is not eligible for commemoration since he was discharged as insane and died from influenza. I disagree on the grounds that from the time he enlisted until his death he was under the care of the Department of Militia and Defence.

SVWM also includes several categories of casualties that do not appear in CVWM:

  • casualties of the North West Rebellion in 1885,
  • Boer War casualties,
  • casualties from WWI, WWII and Korea who served in US and other Allied forces,
  • certain casualties in WWII such as civilian aircrew who served in the RAF's Ferry Command,
  • the aircrew from the UK, Australia and New Zealand who perished during training in Saskatchewan during WWII and who are buried in Saskatchewan cemeteries.

Peacekeeping casualties are also very difficult. VAC has tied itself in knots trying to develop criteria. For example, they don't list a member of the armed forces who was killed or died on active service in peacetime if no one claimed a pension as a result of their death!

I admit that our committee has a lot of work to do in this area and there are several dozen problematic names. "Significant connection to Saskatchewan" also poses problems. We have generally not included casualties whose only connection to Saskatchewan was to have enlisted here. Committee chair Lloyd Jones adheres to the view that anyone who had a Saskatchewan mailing address for even a few months is included. In general, I think it is fair to say that we err on the side of inclusion.
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