George Yuile was born on October 25, 1901, and began to serve king and country at the young age of fourteen. He was one of those who misrepresented his age and escaped the sharp eyes of recruitment officers. He fought with the 204 Battalion in France and was no more than seventeen years old when the war ended.

Little else is known of Constable Yuile’s life after the Great War and prior to his career with the OPP other than a special recommendation, as at some point he served as the high county constable for Peel Police.

Constable Yuile began his career with the OPP when he was appointed on November 22, 1933. He served at the Beaverton and Oshawa detachments. He later became an inspector and was transferred to Brampton. He received commendations for cases as diverse as armed robbery, murder, explosives and cattle rustling.

On June 7, 1948, the officer was heading north on Jane Street when his unmarked car struck an abutment on the Russell Avenue Bridge. He suffered a broken jaw, lost nine teeth and sustained severe internal injuries.

Constable Yuile was conscious when he arrived at Toronto Western Hospital and was conversing with staff and colleagues. However, he had what doctors called mental blackout and could not recall any of aspect of the accident. PC Yuile succumbed to his injuries four days later.

George Yuile was forty-six years old when he passed away and was survived by his wife. 

Bob Duncan was born in Stoney Creek on February 8, 1913 and spent most of his life in Southwestern Ontario.

In 1941, PC Duncan began serving with the OPP as a special constable to replace the officers who were serving for the duration of World War II. When the officers who were replaced returned, these special constable’s moved on to other employment. Duncan was fortunate enough to make the transition to police constable and had his badge number issued on March 15, 1943.

Duncan was in charge of the OPP office in Bowmanville, which came under the supervision of the Newcastle detachment.

On February 19, 1945, while he was on-duty, PC Duncan went to meet the Canadian National Railway eastbound train, where there was reason to believe his wife was returning from Toronto.

For some unknown reason he boarded the train when it arrived at Bowmanville. The next time anyone saw PC Duncan, he was lying at the side of the tracks near Port Hope. He was taken to Cobourg Hospital for treatment where he underwent emergency surgery but died of his injuries, two days later, on February 21, 1945.

There were many speculations into the death of the constable. Some believed he tried to jump off the moving train and had fallen, or that he could possibly have been pushed.

What was known was that his wife was not on the train and his injuries were found to be consistent with a fall from a moving train. The reason for his death is still a mystery and has never been solved.

PC Bob Duncan was survived by his wife and daughter.

PC Pickell’s was a probationary officer and had only served for three months when his career was cut short in an on duty motorcycle accident that claimed his life.

Much of his on-duty time was spent patrolling Lakeshore Boulevard and the Queen Elizabeth Way. On July 2, 1940, the officer, while traveling on the Queen Elizabeth Way, observed a speeder on Shook’s Hill, west of the Clarkson Road.

PC Pickell turned at once and attempted to swing his machine to give chase to the offender. Witness accounts are that the machine turned upside down, the officer was thrown forward and hit the pavement with great force.

Donald L. Pickell was then transported to St. Joseph’s Hospital and given prompt medical attention. The officer had a severely fractured skull and succumbed to his injuries, never regaining consciousness.

PC Pickell had been the eighth officer to die in an on-duty motorcycle accident since patrolling by motorcycle had been introduced by the OPP on provincial highways. Motorcycling patrol ceased to exist as a separate unit of the OPP in 1941 and during that year fifty-five black and white Chevrolet Coupes came into service for highway patrol. 

Provincial Constable Dent spent all of his life and career in eastern Ontario. He was born in Rockland on March 2, 1903 and was appointed to the OPP on November 30, 1930. He served briefly in Ottawa before returning to spend the rest of his working life in Rockland.

Once in his hometown of Rockland, Harold and his wife, whom he married on September 13, 1933, became involved in the community. He served on the public school board and became a manager of the United Church. He enjoyed fishing and hunting. Practically all the family photos showed dogs he had trained for the hunt.

During just under ten year’s of service with the OPP, Dent received four commendations for efforts in two break, enter and thefts, a murder-conspiracy and an armed robbery. The officer even figured in a chapter in the book “Who Said Murder?” by Charles Bell, Q.C. The story was about the murder of a farmhand; Chief Inspector W.H. Stringer, who later became commissioner of the OPP, investigated the case.

On the morning of June 20, 1940, a farmer from the small village of Navan, twenty miles east of Ottawa, called his friend Harold Dent in his official capacity to report a suspicious character he had just met. World War II had been underway for ten months at the time and all citizens were required to carry a national identity card. The farmer did not know if the man carried approved identification but he did speak with what sounded like a German accent. The newcomer had asked the way to the railway station.  When approached by Dent, the transient produced a .45 Colt automatic and fired twice, striking Dent in the right arm and abdomen. The suspect fled to the bush. Acting Sergeant J.A. Stringer was vacationing in Navan and went to Dent’s aid. He took the officers revolver and pursued his assailant into the bush. After being fired upon he shot and killed John Miki, a Finnish transient.

Alf Ferguson was a veteran officer when he moved from Department of Highways to being a member of the OPP Motorcycle Patrol in 1930.

In his decade long career with the Provincials, Constable Ferguson made a name for himself as an energetic officer. His personnel file no longer survives but it is known that he had four commendations recorded. These were for persistence in solving two hit-and-run accidents, a car theft, and a break, enter and theft case.

Constable Ferguson was posted in Hawkesbury, then spent six years at Brockville before returning to Hawkesbury for his last four years on highway patrol.

On May 23, 1940, Constable Ferguson was south bound on King’s Highway 34 one mile north of Vanleek Hill. It was 2:45 p.m. on a day shift that had passed so far without incident.

From his position on the road, all the officer would have noticed at the time was the car ahead of him turning to pass a horse and buggy, but could no doubt have seen the truck oncoming that caused Delorme to brake and turn in to avoid a collision. The officer’s motorcycle struck the rear of car in front. At once he was thrown from his machine with such force as to sustain severe injuries on impact with the ground. He died as a result later that day.

A coroner’s inquest two weeks later at the town hall, Vanleek Hill, concluded that no blame could be laid in the cause of the accident.

PC Alfred J. Ferguson was survived by his wife and their son.

Constable Blucher joined the OPP Motorcycle Patrol immediately following its takeover from the old Ontario Department of Highways Unit. The Bluchers moved with the OPP, starting with Napanee, and then Smith Falls, Port Hope, Colborne and Port Credit. Constable Blucher fit into every community where he worked and as a couple the Bluchers belonged to several social and community organizations.

Once, while he had charged a man with reckless driving, the officer successfully talked the magistrate into reducing the offense to speeding. If there had been a conviction for reckless driving, it would have cost the motorist his job. Every Christmas he would look up a needy family he had come across during the year and anonymously provided them with gifts and other help. He also received a commendation for arresting three men involved in a city safe-cracking job.

Constable Blucher’s son and his wife were visiting friends in the Toronto area on September 30, 1939, when they heard a news flash on the radio that an OPP officer had been killed at Port Credit in a traffic accident.

The thirty-two year old officer was patrolling eastbound in the early evening along the Queen Elizabeth Way just east of the Dixie Road. A car came veering out of the westbound lane apparently out of control. The car struck the motorcycle with such force that the officer was thrown into its side and then out onto the pavement. The front of the police machine was wrecked and the car heavily damaged. Blucher died a few minutes after being admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital with massive internal injuries.

A motorist from York Township was arrested on a charge of manslaughter, but this was later reduced and a conviction registered for careless driving.

Constable Blucher’s son followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the OPP. He retired after thirty-five years of service in 1988 in the rank of Staff Superintendent. His son now continues the family tradition with the OPP.

Elmer Shepard was born on October 31, 1903, and was twenty-seven years old when he joined the OPP. The unmarried officer had several postings in his eight years of government service. He worked in Barrie, Huntsville, Baysville, North Bay and Corbeil before moving to Kirkland Lake. He had worked most of his career as a traffic officer.

While in North Bay he switched to motorcycle patrol and was assigned to the home of the Dione quints when they became one of the top tourist attractions in North America.

Serving in Kirkland Lake meant a change of pace from that of his duties of North Bay. The gold town was bustling and OPP, RCMP, town and mine police all worked together in many situations. 

On Saturday, July 23, 1938, Shepard was on duty and had occasion to travel on an enquiry to Matheson some fifty miles farther north. He took his good friend from the RCMP office with him along for the ride.

After concluding the business end of the trip, the two officers proceeded a little further north to the family reunion of a mutual friend. When the officers finally left the reunion it was in the early hours of Sunday morning. Since the last train had gone, Shepard had been asked to transport a young man and three girls to Swastika, just outside Kirkland Lake.

Officer Shepard traveled on a secondary road to get to Ramore where they would take Highway 11 south. Just north of Ramore, they came to a road that crossed a bridge over a creek. The car headlights did not reveal the general disrepair of the bridge and as the police car moved around a curve on the bridge, the right front wheel broke through a weak patch in the planks, and the car plunged 30 feet to the creek below. 

PC Shepard was killed in the accident. At the time of his death, he was engaged to be married.

Little is known of Don Shervill but he had a most varied police career and never seemed to be out of work.

Born in England in 1892, Shervill immigrated to Canada at the age of eighteen. In 1912, he worked as a prison guard at Prince Albert Penitentiary. Then he joined the Royal Canadian Northwest Mounted Police and served a five-year engagement with the federal force in Lethbridge and Macleod, Alberta.

Shervill next obtained a constable’s position with the short-lived Saskatchewan Provincial Police. 

On June 12, 1928, he became a member of the OPP. Constable Shervill was stationed out of St. Thomas and then moved to District #3 Headquarters in Hamilton. Along the way he also found time to be high constable first of Elgin, and then Wentworth, Counties.

Shortly before midnight on February 8, 1938, PC Shervill was working at Orchard Beach, six miles east of Hamilton. Shervill was looking for persons responsible for break and enters to cottages in that area, when he literally bumped into a man standing in the shadows.

The forty-six year old Shervill, automatically challenged the stranger but received no verbal reply. Instead the man shot PC Shervill in the abdomen and fled into the darkness. The officer succumbed to his injuries and died.

Despite the offer of a $2,500.00 reward for the arrest of the person responsible for the murder, no charges were laid for more than two years until September 16, 1940 against a federal inmate.

PC Shervill’s murderer was convicted on January 18, 1941 and was sentenced to be hanged on March 12, 1941. Two weeks later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

He was survived by his wife and daughter.

Bob Edington had something about him that made the young immigrant from Gorebridge in Scotland, well suited to law enforcement. During his all to brief career he served with two police services and two correctional agencies.

His birth date is not certain but is thought to be January 15, 1907.

At the young age of nineteen, Edington was accepted by the RCMP in March 1926 and underwent recruit training at Depot Division, Regina, Saskatchewan. When his original enlistment was expired on March 4, 1929, he then served with the federal force in E Division, British Columbia.

Constable Edington joined the OPP on July 1, 1937 and was posted in Sudbury for a month before being transferred down Highway 17 to Warren, between Sudbury and North Bay.

On January 8, 1938, Edington was working on an investigation in Verner, Ontario when he began to have car problems. He stopped at a restaurant to have dinner and had difficulty with his vehicle when he left to resume his work. The motor finally turned over before stalling once more just a short way down the road from the restaurant.

At about six forty-five p.m., Edington stepped out to try to determine the cause of the stall and moved right into the path of an oncoming truck that was headed east Highway 17 on his way home to North Bay. The vehicle’s fender struck the officer and his head hit the hood of the police car with great force.

PC Edington lay in a coma for a while at the Brebeuf Hospital in Sturgeon Falls but later became conscious and recognized visitors despite severe facial injuries.

Over the next two-week period the thirty-one year old officer failed to show signs of improvement and he died on January 21.

The driver of the truck was found to be blameless in the accident and no charges were laid.

PC Robert D. Edington was survived by his mother and two sisters.

Bartlett Smith began his career with the OPP at the age of twenty-five years old and was overjoyed at the possibility of leaving Newmarket and embarking on an independent life. 

He was appointed in April of 1937, and was assigned to what was known as the Niagara River Parkway squad and posted to the Niagara Falls area.

Three days before Christmas his supervisor took Smith off his usual beat patrolling Highway 8 between St. Catherines and Niagara Falls. His assignment on December 22 was to escort a funeral cortege.

As the column of cars approached the Cemetery, Smith sped ahead so that he could turn and salute the hearse as it passed through the ornamental gates to the property. His duty done, the officer turned and around and headed back to where he was stationed. 

Officer Smith made it as far as St. Davids and had progressed about two miles west of the community when his bike skidded off the traveled portion of the road and wrapped itself around a tree. The violent impact of the collision was such that without any form of head protection or other safety gear death was probably instantaneous. 

PC Smith had served for just eight months.