In Memory of S/S/M 'Harry' Armstrong

C A N A D A

'Friends Not Forgotten'

Riding Master Staff Sergeant Major
Reg.#15067 'Harry' Armstrong

Dear Vets;

I was a member of 'C' Troop 1957-58 at 'Depot' Div., Reg.# 19956. I joined the RCMP at St John's, NL on 2 May l957 and was freed from having to ride the CN all the way to Regina as recruits had to do;  there was an ice jam in the Cabot Strait and then CN ferries could not operate between Port aux Basques and North Sydney.  I arrived via TCH plane at Regina which was experiencing a heat wave of 30 degrees Celcius and which lasted for several days. The Duty Driver picked me up at the aeroport and he took me to the Orderly Room.  The rapid temperature change over so short a period, caused me to become very ill. As Orderly Corporal, then Corporal Harry Armstrong awaited me.  He looked pretty mean at first, but upon seeing the state I was in, he sent me directly to the Post Hospital and old Mike, the Force's Orderly admitted me for a couple of days till I fully recovered despite my fears that I would be 'back squadded' or paraded out the North Gate as some suggested. Life for me at Depot was great save for the food when compared  to the meals served by civilian French cooks on white table cloth-tables in the Air Force messes regardless,  I grew up with horses and though I missed the session learning how to put a saddle on a horse according to RCMP protocol, I soon learned the technique. Harry was our Equatation instructor and there certainly was none finer in the Force.  I got a chance to tell him so at the AGM of the Vets at Halifax, Nova Scotia, some years ago. Harry's star really shone. I think all thirty-one members of 'C' Troop shared my respect for then Corporal Armstrong.  He was one of the best riders that the Force ever produced and I was surprised later to learn that he was born in the Duchy of Devon, in West-Country England and next door to County Devon the acestral home of my mother's people. We all assumed that he was born in a saddle on a ranch somewhere in rural Alberta though he might have grown up on one if memory seves me well. Harry had a gelding which he rode. It was not the pussycat that my horse 'Hero' was, and though Harry told my sister at that AGM in Halifax that I was damn good, he could pass on knowledge so easily and so well. Harry was a born leader of men and he was so proud that he was chosen to present a horse earlier to Her Majesty, the Queen at London, UK.  The RCMP leadership, I think, wisely chose the best man they had for the job. It was that simple and moreover, Harry looked the part, did he not? Yet, I found him as a recruit to be a just and kind man ever respectful of authority but simultaneously his own person. Yet, barrack life is barrack life and there were ways to ease the rules if one looked at Depot.  S/M Peacock whom I think served overseas during WW II, was a fierce-looking giant, but decent, good-mannered and a righteous person. In fact, having Corporal McGuire for Physical Training and Mr Dean, as he then was, for swimming, 'C' Troop surely had the "creme de la creme" of police instructors of that era. But Harry Armstrong's star shone so brightly. It was a Nova. I left the Force early in life and ended graduating in law at UBC and then practising till retirement in Newfoundland and Labrador. Yet, I never forgot how devoted to Canada, the RCMP, his horse and his recruit-charges the Harry Armstrong I knew, was. He was certainly "a prince of princes." He used to come to work at 'Depot' at 6:00 a.m. every weekday, and spend some time with his Gelding whose name now slips my mind.  Harry could ride so well without stirrups and he showed me how to do it too.  I never fell off a horse in training and only once since I left the Force when I kept horses of my own at Strathlaurie House and farm here on Bell Island, NL. Harry used to live the 30 degree from heel to toe and from toe to the horse rule so rigidly. In fact, he used to press down so hard in the stirrups that he broke  the arches of his riding boots.  I have a gut reaction that Harry Armstrong freed of the ills of this Vale of Tears is looking down with that big smile from ear to ear that personified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. You know on a fatigues day when I was not Duty Driver, Harry sent me off with Mike and fellow recruit Larry Mazur, now deceased too, to use a farm tractor to pull barb wire while repairing the fences in the pasture behind the stable in view of the Pinkie, SK, sole granary. Whether we deserved it or not, while other instructors barked out orders, Harry used to say I know you can do it and we tried out utmost for him. Thanks for opportunity to remember Harry! "May he rest in peace and perpetual light shine over him!" Yours faithfully Michael J. Laurie, NP., BA., LL.B., J.D. Strathlaurie House 48 Main Street, Wabana, Bell Island, NL  A0A 1H0 Tel; (709)  488-3818 Cell (709) 697-0988 'Maintain Our Memories' J. J. Healy, Reg.#23685