Carter Park is dedicated
DON CAMPBELL The Scugog Standard

It took more than 65 years but Flight Officer Roy E. Carter finally has a resting place near the home where he grew up.

On Nov. 8, in the hamlet of Blackstock, F/O Carter - a Blackstock area resident executed by Nazi Gestapo in 1944 after his Halifax bomber was shot down in the Netherlands - was finally given a little piece of sanctuary in the land he left so many years ago.

A children’s park, nestled in a quiet subdivision and near a local grade school, was officially unveiled as Roy Carter Park.

To celebrate the occasion, members of Roy Carter’s family were in attendance having recently returned from F/O Carter’s memorial in Tillborg, Netherlands, bringing back a container of soil to place in the memorial garden in Blackstock.

Sgt. Tom Masdin, the only surviving member of Mr. Carter’s Halifax crew, was also on hand to pay tribute to his fallen comrade.

A wall of local residents filled the street overlooking the park for the dedication ceremony. School children, delegates from various levels of government, the Ambassador to Canada from the Netherlands and a Dutch film crew were also in attendance.

The ceremony began with a solitary bagpiper leading a colour guard from the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 419 in Port Perry into the park followed by members of the Canadian army and air cadets.

Students from Cartwright Public School led a stirring rendition of O Canada, followed by speeches from MP Bev Oda, MPP John O’Toole and Dutch Ambassador to Canada Wilhelmus Geerts.

Ambassador Geerts noted the long history of friendship between the two countries and Canada’s role in the liberation of the Netherlands and made mention of the parallels to the mission in Afghanistan.

“Our troops, even now, serve side by side in the protection of freedom,” his excellency said.
The park was the culmination of a joint effort made by the Roy Carter Park committee. It also marked the first of many ‘Scugog’s Heroes’ plaques to be unveiled throughout the township the coming months and years.

The park is a fitting tribute to a local hero who is not only remembered in Blackstock but also in the Dutch city of Tillborg. Much like Tillborg, Roy Carter Park features a plaque recounting F/O Carter’s story.

After being shot down in mid June 1944, Flight Officer Roy Carter was captured by Nazi S.D. while hiding out in the home of 60-year-old Dutch resistance member Jacoba Pulskens. Carter and two other escaped airmen were pulled into the backyard where they were shot. In an act of defiance, Ms. Pulskens placed a free Dutch flag over the bodies of the dead airmen. She was arrested and taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she spent months in solitary confinement before dying in the gas chambers in the spring of 1945.

A plaque still marks the house of Jacoba Pulskens at 49 Diepenstraat in Tillborg to honour her and the three murdered airmen. In 1994, as part of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, a large granite monument was unveiled on Coba Pulskenslaan to honour the airmen.

Flight Officer Carter’s nephew Fred said it best when he noted, “for us (the Carter family), Roy is finally home.”

Rik Davie, Dave Robinson, Linda Davie, Dave Zinc, L.P. Hodgson, Lucy Wilson and Dr. Paul Puckrin were on the Roy Carter Park committee that put forward the idea of the commemorative park.

“I consider this to be the most important thing that I have ever done,” Mr. Davie said. “If this helps to honour all vets then it has been work well done.