Ken Hollywood (1917-2013)

Jeff Green | Feb 07, 2013

There will be one less old warrior in Sharbot Lake next November 11.

Ken Hollywood was more than a fixture at the Sharbot Lake Legion, and when it came time to mark Remembrance Day his medals covered both sides of his chest. However, those medals don't tell the whole story of his service in some of the most dangerous battles of the Second World War, starting with the landing on Juno Beach on D-Day.

Ken Hollywood was working in a gold mine near Timmins when he was called up in 1942, and by the time he landed with his comrades on the Normandy coast he was an anti tank-commander.

Although Ken was loathe to discuss the details of his war service when he was alive, Dave Whalen of his Legion branch gave this account at a memorial service for him at the Legion on Feb. 2:

“The battle of the Falaise Pocket, fought during the Second World War from 12 August 1944, was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy. The battle resulted in the destruction of the bulk of Germany's forces west of the River Seine and opened the way to Paris and the German border. In those days anti-tank weapons were short range. If the guns did not succeed in first shot kill, their position would be given away and tanks, which hunt in groups of a minimum of four, would then open fire on them. As a result Ken lost three gun crews, 18 men, in support of the third Canadian Infantry Division in France.

Twice during these intense battles, his wife, Ada, whom he affectionately called Babe, received telegrams saying he was dead. After the first telegram proved false, Ada says, she doubted the second telegram, sent after Ken was struck in the head by a bullet.

She finally received a hand-written note saying, “I am alive and well, luv, Ken.”

She never found out until later the extent of Ken’s injuries and how close he came to death. He spent almost two years in hospital after undergoing plastic surgery and convalescence.

Ken lost a brother, Herb, in the Italian campaign and two uncles in the Great War, the First World War.”

During his long life, Ken Holywood witnessed a lot of changes from his perch at the Hollywood farm, which is located across Road 38 from St. Georges Lake. He was one of 14 children in the Hollywood family, and attended school just down from where the Hollywood farm is located today, in a schoolhouse located on the property where Nick and Jocelyn Whalen of Sharbot Lake Pharmacy now live.

He married Ada May Stevenson in 1939 and they moved to Timmins and had two children, Charlotte and Lorne.

After the war, Ken returned to Timmins and the couple had a second son, Rudy.

When Ken's father Thomas decided to retire from farming in 1952, Ken agreed to take on the farm and the family moved back to Sharbot Lake. He worked at Mallard Electric in Perth in addition to keeping up the farm, until his eyesight, badly affected by a bullet in the war, eventually became too poor to keep working out. He stuck with farming after that.

His marriage with Ada lasted for almost 70 years until Ada died in 2008. He continued living in the farmhouse where he was born until last November, when he moved to Country View Care Home in Parham.

Legion Branch 425, the Hollowood Legion (which is named after him despite the spelling error) will never be the same.