Six new plaques were added to Arthur Duncan Memorial Hall at Calgary police headquarters on Tuesday.
The plaques honour officers who left their duties at the Calgary Police Service to help with Canada’s efforts in the first and second world wars.
Regimental Sgt. Maj. Rob Patterson said it took a lot of time and research to track down the officers’ history.
“With the declassification of records from… (the First World War), that made it a little easier,“ he explained. “But the… (Second World War) is a bit more challenging to confirm.”
The plaques sit adjacent to the plaques paying tribute to 11 police officers that have lost their lives in the line of duty.
“I think it’s extremely important to recognize that these officers were police officers that then signed up to fight, and that those are equally important to those that died here at home,” said Patterson.
Geoffrey Jackson, a historian at Mount Royal University, said while he believes that Calgarians have a good grasp on soldiers’ contributions, people often don’t understand just how much of the population went off to war.
“Forty-thousand people would train at different regimental areas around Calgary,” said Jackson. “Over 800 Calgarians would give up their lives fighting in this conflict that lasted five years.”
He said when people think of the population and how many Canadians served, it’s sobering.
“In the Second World War, Canada was a country of 11-million people,” Jackson said. “And over a million people served in the war — almost one in 10.”
The Calgary Police Service said it plans to continue to try and track down officers that fought in both wars.
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