Hero-class Canadian Coast Guard Ship Named For VC Winner

One of nine Hero-class patrol vessels, the CCGS Private Robertson V.C. was recently unveiled in Halifax.

IN NOVEMBER 1917, Peter Robertson was like many young Canadian men of his era, in the thick of it on a battlefield in Europe, entangled in a bloody months-long campaign of the First World War forever remembered as Passchendaele.

Also like many men of his era, the private from Pictou County lost his life in the war but not before engaging in many acts of bravery, including rushing ahead of his platoon to single-handedly capture a German machine gun and turn it on his enemy combatants, who fled from his attack.

Later, he emerged from a trench to save two wounded Canadian snipers. He was killed while rescuing the second man.

For his heroism, the man who preferred to go by Pete received the Victoria Cross, presented to his grieving mother the following April.

Some 94 years after his death, Pte. Robertson was remembered again for his sacrifice in a ceremony to announce that the first of nine new Hero-class Canadian Coast Guard vessels being built at Halifax Shipyard will bear his name.

The announcement was made Wednesday by federal Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield and Defence Minister Peter MacKay in the shadow of three mid-shore patrol vessels being built at the Irving-owned yard.

MacKay noted that announcing the name —CCGS Pte. Robertson VC — was particularly apt leading up to Remembrance Day.

By: Shelldrake