In memoriam: Reginald Roy

Reginald Roy, one of the pioneering members of the Department of History, distinguished veteran and military historian, has died at the age of 90. In 1959, Reg became the first full-time historian hired by Victoria College and was among the faculty transferred to the new University of Victoria when it was founded in 1963. Reg taught at the university until his retirement in 1988.

A high school dropout, Reg escaped depression-ravaged Cape Breton when, at the start of the Second World War, at the age of 16, he joined the Canadian Army with the rank of “Boy.” Reg saw extensive combat in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He was made a commissioned officer in 1943.

After the war, Reg returned to school, completing his BA and MA at Victoria College and UBC. He then worked for three years in Ottawa in C.P. Stacey’s famed Army Historical Section, which was producing the critically acclaimed official histories of the war. In 1953, Reg worked briefly at the Public Archives of Canada before moving back to Victoria to become a provincial archivist. In 1958, Reg’s academic career began with a one-year appointment at Royal Roads Military Colle#8805; he moved to Victoria College one year later. He received his PhD from the University of Washington in 1965.

Reg was a prolific scholar, writing a dozen books and numerous articles. His most important work, 1944: The Canadians in Normandy (1984), began the scholarly re-examination of the battlefield performance of the Canadian army in this vital campaign.

In the late 1960s, Reg initiated the teaching of military history at the university. His courses were filled with guest lectures from senior generals, air marshals and admirals, as well as common soldiers. Students commented that Reg provided first-hand encounters with the who’s who of Canadian military history.

Perhaps Reg’s most enduring legacy was as founder of the veterans oral history collection at the McPherson Library. In the mid-1960s, Reg began the collection out of necessity when he began research into the biography of Major-General George Pearkes. Pearkes had kept no personal correspondence or documents, and Roy based much of his research on extensive interviews with his subject and other individuals. From these beginnings, Reg went on to conduct 370 interviews with veterans of the First and Second World Wars and Korea. Since Reg’s retirement the oral history collection has continued to grow from donations and an active program of interviewing conducted by students of the Veterans Oral History course. In 2005, at a special ceremony presided over by Lieutenant-Governor Iona Campagnolo, Reg was honoured when the collection was renamed the Reginald Roy Veterans Oral History Collection.

A memorial service to honour Reg will be held at the university’s Inter-Faith Chapel at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14.

Submitted by Dr. David Zimmerman, Department of History

Further informstion on Reg Roy's legacy of Canadian military history materials in the UVic Libraries