After more than 50 years, Sask. WW II vet gets permanent headstone to replace wooden cross

Almost 80 years ago, Denis Denniel was among the thousands of Canadian soldiers who stormed Juno Beach on June 6, 1944.

Denniel was a rifleman with what was then called the Regina Rifle Regiment, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, and was wounded that day.

"He had to be taken by stretcher bearer back to the field hospital so that he could recuperate," said Randy Brooks, a retired colonel and former commanding officer of the Royal Regina Rifles.

"When [Denniel] was finished recuperating, he rejoined the Canadian Forces in the field as a military police officer for the rest of the war." 

Born in Val Marie, Sask., Denniel went on to settle in Swift Current after the war and died in 1968.

His grave in the veterans' plot of Swift Current's Mount Pleasant Cemetery was marked by a wooden white cross that had his name misspelled.

That is, until last Friday — when a permanent granite headstone replaced the wooden cross.

Retired major Brad Hrycyna, a former commanding officer of the Saskatchewan Dragoons, has been on a search for veterans' unmarked graves.

Hrycyna is a volunteer researcher for the Last Post Fund's unmarked grave program.

In Mount Pleasant, he located 22 graves marked only with a white wooden cross, one of which was Denniel's. 

"We go out and find the temporary markers and then research them to ensure that the veteran gets a proper dignified permanent headstone," Hrycyna said.

"I do this to honour our veterans."

A ceremony was held on Friday to replace the cross with the headstone.

It was a moving experience for Denniel's niece, Mariette LeBlanc, who was at the ceremony along with her sister, Lorraine Medforth.