• Normandy Massacres

Date of birth:

September 10th, 1904 (Charlottetown/Prince Edward Island, Canada)

Date of death:

June 7th, 1944 (France)

Buried on:

Canadian War Cemetery Beny-sur-mer
Plot: II. Row: A. Grave: 6.

Service number:

F/60127

Nationality:

Canadian

John Bernard Murray was a Roman Catholic and lifelong resident of P.E.I.. Murray was the third of five children in a working-class family. His father, John A. Murray, had been a night clerk at the Victoria Hotel before taking up farming. John Bernard followed a modest educational path, achieving junior matriculation in Charlottetown before entering the workforce.

By trade, Murray was a pressman, having completed a two-year apprenticeship and working for over six years at the Patriot Publishing Company in Charlottetown. He also held various other jobs, including a stint as a night clerk at the Queen Hotel and periods of laboring work between 1938 and 1940. At the time of his enlistment in the Canadian Active Service Force on May 15, 1940, he was unemployed but had a solid occupational history in the printing industry.

Murray enlisted with the Prince Edward Island Highlanders and later served with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. He rose to the rank of Acting Lance Corporal and was assigned to the mortar platoon. His military record reveals a man who was enthusiastic about army life and well-liked within his unit, though he struggled with discipline, accruing multiple charges of absence without leave and occasional issues with alcohol during leave periods. Despite these infractions, he was noted for his superior learning capacity and was considered suitable for overseas service.

He attended a specialized course in 3-inch mortar instruction at Long Branch in late 1941 and was later recommended for instructional duties within the infantry. His aptitude scores placed him in the average range for officer candidates, and he was described as a tall, slightly built man with greying hair and a cooperative disposition.

Murray was deployed overseas in 1943 and served in England before being sent to France. On June 7, 1944, one day after the D-Day landings, he was killed in action in France. Subsequent investigations revealed that he was murdered after being taken prisoner by German forces—a claim substantiated during the postwar trial of German war criminal Kurt Meyer. His remains were initially buried in a field grave and later reinterred with honor at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian Military Cemetery in France.

At the time of his death, Murray was single and had no children. His estate, modest in size, was distributed to his father, who remained his next of kin.

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• - Service record(s)

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