Ontario

The Rear-Admiral Walter Hose, CBE, DSCM, RCN Monument was erected next to his gravesite and dedicated on 22 June 2014 – the 49^th anniversary of his death.

Rear-Admiral (RAdm) Walter Hose, the quintessential sailor and gentleman, born at sea on the Indian Ocean, was a true man of the sea. He rose through the ranks to become the first Chief of the Naval Staff in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). Known as a tenacious and staunch supporter of the Navy, he is credited with not only saving the RCN, but also with founding the Naval Reserve. 

After RAdm Walter Hose won his final battle in office and managed to save the RCN from demise due to government cut-backs, he retired to Windsor, Ontario and became a fixture at HMCS Hunter, Naval Reserve Division and at a local High School Cadet Corps named in his honour.

Rear-Admiral Hose passed away on 22 June 1965. The Royal Canadian Navy bade farewell to one of its former great leaders. He was buried with full naval honours in Heavenly Rest Cemetery in Windsor. Admirals and Commodores representing the largest gathering of top-ranking naval personnel ever seen in Windsor, were in attendance. More than 150 naval officers and sailors, including naval drummers and a 24-man armed escort / firing party were flown in from Halifax. The casket draped in the Canadian flag and bearing his cap and sword was borne atop a ceremonial gun carriage along the main street of Windsor escorted by Admirals and Commodores, the 24-man escort, the HMCS Hunter naval band and HMCS Stadacona naval band drum line slow-marched past the Windsor/Essex County War Memorial and a 100-man Honour Guard from HMCS Hunter and RCSCC Agamemnon. At Rear-Admiral Hose’s request, the six pallbearers were Chief Petty Officers from HMCS Hunter.

From 1965 to 2009 Rear-Admiral Hose’s gravesite was largely forgotten until preparations were underway to celebrate the 100^th Anniversary of the RCN in 2010. In 2009, the Command Team at Hunter and the Royal Canadian Naval Association Admiral Hose Branch Windsor looked to improve the Admiral’s non-descript gravesite. As a result, next to the gravesite, a new black granite memorial was erected in honour of Rear-Admiral Walter Hose through the efforts of HMCS Hunter, the Royal Canadian Naval Association Windsor Branch, the Navy League of Canada Windsor Branch and Heavenly Rest Cemetery.

To continue the memory of Rear-Admiral Hose, members of HMCS Hunter, the Royal Canadian Naval Association (RCNA), the Navy League, the Royal Canadian Legion and local Veterans’ Organization conduct a memorial service at his gravesite on June 22^nd each year. In addition, since 1 January 2011, the RCNA Windsor hosts a New Years’ Day Levee Toast to Rear-Admiral Walter Hose at his gravesite, a tradition that continues to this day.

Rear-Admiral Walter Hose was recognized by Parks Canada and the Royal Canadian Navy in a Hometown Hero ceremony on 22 June 2019 at his gravesite in Heavenly Rest Ceremony. The event was attended by members of the Hose family, the Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Command Chief Petty Officer, the Mayor of Windsor, local dignitaries, the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve Band, members of Naval Reserve Divisions - HMCS Hunter, HMCS Star, HMCS York, and members of local Veteran’s organizations including the Royal Canadian Naval Association Admiral Hose Branch Windsor, the Navy League, and the Royal Canadian Legion.

The Forged Peace Sculpture was added to King’s Navy Yard Park in 2012 to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812. The dedication ceremony of the bi-national project was June 18, 2012. This date marks the first gunshot fired at River Canard at the start of the War of 1812. The sculpture depicts three intertwined muskets used by Canadian, American and First Nation People in the War of 1812 and features a rose blooming from the end of each gun barrel. Lena Lezanga, president of the Amherstburg Rotary Club, worked on the “Forged Peace Sculpture” and bicentennial twinning project with twin sister cities of Put-in-Bay Ohio, and Monroe Michigan. The sculpture, which stands approximately 12ft, was made of bronze cast at a Detroit foundry and bears an inscription noting the twinning and commitment to friendship and peace between the organizations and the three communities. The artist Joseph DeAngelis, a retired professor from School of Visual Arts in Windsor, donated the time. The cost of the local sculpture, shared between the Amherstburg Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce, was $9,800 for casting and the bronze material.

Prepare to Fire was unveiled on August 3, 2012, during the bicentennial Roots to Boots Festival. It was designed and created by Windsor, Ontario, sculptors Laura and Mark Williams to commemorate the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813.

The monument depicts bronze life-size figures of three British Royal Navy men and one foot soldier recruited to help fight the battle aboard ship in Lake Erie. During this time, man power was becoming harder to recruit and as were supplies to fight the battle, which was the case for the ‘flints’ required to fire their cannons onboard the ships. Depicted in the sculpture is a man with a musket in hand preparing to fire their ship cannon in battle. A Navy commander is holding a megaphone to holler out commands on board and at the same time helping a wounded soldier (recently shot). The winded soldier was positioned to align the canon for firing. 

During the process of creating this monument, Mark and Laura worked with reenactors from the Provincial Marine group for staging and artist reference. Mark designed the concept and created the armature in steel and hand sculpted the life size figures in clay. His understudy, Dick Wood, sculpted the Marina, packing the cannon with powder. Mark then oversaw and completed final details. The cannon used was cast at Ford Motor Company many years earlier and was mounted on a faux wood cement deck to represent the frigate in battle. 

Once the monument was completed in clay, they brought it to Fine Arts Foundry in Clarkton, Michigan to be molded and then cast in bronze. The first two figures were unveiled in 2012 at the Boots to Roots Festival and then the following year, the two remaining figures were installed with another smaller unveiling.

The Battle of Lake Erie was a naval battle fought between the United States Navy and the British Royal Navy on September 10, 1813,  in western Lake Erie during the War of 1812. At 11:45 am the British Fleet, under Commodore Robert Barclay aboard the Detroit, opened with long guns. American Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry aboard the Lawrence, supported by two schooners, attacked the Detroit and then the Queen Charlotte. Detroit was lost and all other vessels damaged, their sails entangled or out of action. The battle ended at 2:30 pm with all British ships captured and survivors taken as prisoners. British suffered 41 dead, 94 wounded and 306 captured. American casualties were 27 dead and 96 wounded.

King's Navy Yard Park was designated as a Bi-Centennial International Peace Garden. A large stone marks the entrance of the park, which remains to remember the past of the Navy Yard. This 10.5 Acre park overlooks the waterfront and is lined with beautiful flower arrangements, as well as statues and plaques commemorating the short, but important history of the Naval Yard. Along the pathway are many manicured annual flower beds, a ships anchor, cannons, and a light house beacon. It has been acknowledged as part of the great Sauk Trail which ran from Illinois to Detroit. Once a shipyard for the Provincial Marine, today you can take a stroll along the water, watch the ocean and lake freighters pass by or snap a photo of the colourful Rhododendron’s and lovely gardens. The park hosts reenactments of the battle to keep the history of the War of 1812 alive.

This memorial recalls a historic injustice Canadians should pause to remember, as we recall the First World War and the valour of all those Canadian men, and some women, who served. It is a tribute to mark the memory of the thousands of "enemy aliens" who had their civil rights stripped, and were subsequently imprisoned during Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920, following the implementation of the War Measures Act. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the War Measures Act - adopted on August 22, 1914 during the First World War. It was used to imprison Ukrainian-Canadians, and other ethnic groups, including German, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Armenian communities, into one of Canada's 24 internment camps.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and former chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA), had taken it upon himself to lead the way and organize the memorial. In the CTO ("One Hundred") project, 100 aluminum plaques were simultaneously unveiled at 100 different locations across the country at 11:00am local time on August 22, 2014. The first plaque was unveiled in Amherst, Nova Scotia, followed by a wave of plaque unveilings moved west, from province to province, culminating in Nanaimo, British Columbia. The plaques, which cost $1,000 to make, were funded by the generosity of the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Interment Recognition Fund.

Each plaque features a photo of internment prisoners confined behind a wire fence at the Castle Mountain Internment Camp in Banff, Alberta. The Castle Camp, which was built in 1915 at the base of Castle Mountain, was a Canadian internment camp which held immigrant prisoners of Ukrainian, Austrian, Hungarian, and German descent.

This high school, General Amherst High School, is named after Jeffery Amherst, who was commander of the British Armed Forces in North America during the Seven Years War.

Jeffery Amherst was born in England in 1717 and joined the Grenadier Guards in 1735. Amherst saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and by the war’s end, was a Lieutenant-Colonel. With the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756, Amherst deployed to Europe but was sent to North America two years later in 1758. His fame came early as he successfully captured Louisbourg in June 1758 followed by the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, the following year. With the capture of Quebec City, by Wolf, in September 1759, Amherst advanced to Montreal the following year, capturing the city and thus ending French rule in North America. In recognition of this victory, Amherst was appointed Governor-General of British North America in September 1760, promoted to Major-General and appointed Knight of the Order of the Bath. He remained in North America where he led British operations in the West Indies. Returning to England, he was promoted Lieutenant-General in 1765. Amherst was raised to the peerage in 1776, as Baron Amherst of Holmesdale, was promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in 1778 but resigned in 1782. In 1788 he was created Baron Amherst of Montreal and called back to service in 1793. He was promoted to Field Marshall in 1796 but died a year later.

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The two plaques located on the front of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 338 building list the names of local men who died in the First and Second World Wars. They were erected by Len Wride in the late 1940's.

The Siege of Detroit Plaque was erected in 1963.

This plaque was erected in 1966.