Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 33 continued.... Roy Clinton Rushton Roy was born on January 5, 1918 in Amherst, Nova Scotia, the son of Joseph and Lily (Doyle) Rushton. He passed away on June 17, 2018 at the age of 100 years. Roy spent three-quarters of his 100 years with both a bullet and a piece of shrapnel in his body - souvenirs from the Second World War that the paratrooper wouldn't let keep him from serving later in Korea. Rushton's battle experience began on the evening of June 5, 1944, when he leapt from a plane the night before D-Day. With that jump, he became one of 450 paratroopers who landed behind enemy lines in northern France to try to secure positions before the Allied forces arrived. Rushton hit the ground in Varaville. Hours later, he would be struck by shrapnel while running along a hedge. The piece of metal would remain in his body for the next 74 years; despite the pain it caused, the shrapnel sat too close to a nerve to be removed. After hospitalization and recuperation in England, Roy and his para-comrades, the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, fought for two months until there were less than 200 of the originals left. Rushton's Second World War service came to an end on March 24, 1945, just months after he survived the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Although the Pictou County man lived through a battle that saw 75,000 Allied casualties, he was shot in the thigh after he crossed the Rhine River and landed in western Germany. He was 27 at the time. The bullet would never be removed because doctors told him there could be complications.
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