Name: Stanley Eric Spray Rank: Battery Quartermaster Sergeant Service Number: F/6174 Service: 3 Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery Date of Birth: April 24, 1913 Place of Birth: Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England Date of Enlistment: July 6, 1940 Place of Enlistment: Aldershot, Kings County, Nova Scotia Address at Enlistment: Digby, Digby County, Nova Scotia Age at Enlistment: 27 Height: 5 feet, 5 inches Complexion: Medium Hair Colour: Brown Eye Colour: Blue Occupation: Printer Marital Status: Married Religion: Church of England Next of Kin: Alda May Spray (Wife) Date of Death: July 23, 1945 Age: 32 Cemetery: Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, Netherlands Grave: Section I, Row A, Grave 12 Commemorated on Page 566 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance Displayed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower in Ottawa on November 26 Stanley Eric Spray was the son of Edgar Spray (1881-1957) and Edith May (Dean) Spray (1884-1975) of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, England, and the husband of Alda May (Turnbull) Spray (1913-1990), of Digby, Nova Scotia. Stanley’s father was a colliery bank foreman in mining and his mother was employed as a lace finisher in Nottinghamshire. Stanley and Alda had two children - Jean Caroline Spray and Joan Carol Spray. Stanley’s siblings were Edith May Spray (1904-1970), Beatrice Spray (1906-1934), Ethel Spray (1909-2002), Hilda Spray (1914-1998), and Norman Spray (192-1942). His brother Sergeant Norman Spray, a pilot, was killed April 29, 1942, over Germany serving with the Royal Air Force’s 12 Squadron. Stanley Spray was a British home child who emigrated to Canada by the Dakeyne Boy’s Farm at the age of 14 in 1928. In 1912, Oliver Hind, with the help of Mr. John Player and the Dakeyne Lads Club of Nottingham, England bought 250 acres in Mount Denson, Hants Co., Nova Scotia. He established a home for boys (and two girls) aged 15 to 18, who with the consent of their parents, volunteered to come to Canada to learn the ways of Farming. Hind\s objective was to prevent these boys, for lack of better opportunity, from drifting into casual employment. Once they arrived at the farm, they spent several months training before being hired out to local farmers. In 1935, John Ingram Wilson purchased the farm, and it has remained in his family ever since. On June 2, 1928, Stanley arrived in Halifax aboard the SS Newfoundland of the Furness Line which had departed Liverpool on May 23, 1928. From the city, Stanley was taken to the Dakeyne Farm in Falmouth, Hants Co., NS between Mount Denson and Windsor. Little is known of his time there, but Stanley did remain in Nova Scotia throughout the 1930’s and enlisted for service in the Second World War in July of 1940. He ran a small farm and worked for J. J. Wallis as a printer before his enlistment. After enlistment and training in Canada, Stanley served as an orderly room clerk until October 5, 1942, and on the No. 1 gun crew from October 1942 until May 2, 1943, when he became a Battery Quartermaster Sergeant. Stanley departed Halifax for Liverpool, England on October 5, 1941. He transferred to France from the UK on June 26-28, 1944. The Battery Quartermaster Sergeant was the senior NCO responsible the battery's logistics. On July 22, 1944, he was involved in a military vehicle accident at approximately 11:30 pm on the Amersfoort-Apeldoorn Highway in Holland. His vehicle (CL4266502) was returning from a duty trip to Utrecht. An army lorry (vehicle CZ4256075) had swerved toward the center line to avoid colliding with civilians pushing a cart on the side of the road, and side-swiped the lorry Stanley was travelling in with the Battery Sergeant Major WE Lifford (Service No. G/5019) and artillery Gunner Ward. Riding in the rear of the truck, Stanley was thrown from it and pinned under a wheel. He was transported by jeep to the No. 5 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, at 5 minutes past midnight on July 23, 1944. 20 minutes later, he succumbed to his wounds. Battery Quartermaster Sergeant Spray is interred at the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

Source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial findagrave Canadian British Home Children