Born: September 12, 1917 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Died: March 20, 2004 in Montreal, Canada
Medals: Polish Virtuti Militari; France’s Croix de Guerre, Belgium’s Croix de Guerre
Before the war:
In 1916, Pierre Sevigny graduated from Université Laval and Columbia University. He briefly attempted to pursue a career in acting, even being given a screen test by MGM in 1935, but instead returned to Canada to work in real estate, construction and in the import-export business. He also wrote fiction for The Saturday Evening Post under the pen name Peter Maple.
During the War:
He served with the Royal Canadian Artillery – Colonel Sevigny was on Hill 262 (Mount Ormel) as forward observation officer. He and two Canadian signalmen were the only non-Poles on that hill. Sevigny’s commanding officer wrote the following recommendation: “On the night of 7-8 Aug. [1944], in the opening phase of the attack from Caen to Falaise, Capt. (now Major) Sevigny… at the height of the fierce engagement, when our tank sub-units were being heavily engaged and dispersed, unable to advance, stepped out of his tank with grenades in his blouse, and creeping forward succeeded in locating an anti-tank gun which was delaying the advance. With well-aimed grenades at close range, Capt. Sevigny killed the entire gun crew, returned to his commander and reported the way was clear for advance”.
At Mount Ormel, Sevigny won the Virtuti Militari. They were cut off from supplies and support for more than 48 hours. By all accounts – Polish, Canadian, French, British, and American – the valiant Poles were able to hang on to that hill because of two well-directed Canadian batteries which had moved almost on top of German lines. Firing continuously as the artillery positions themselves were under attack.
After the War:
After the war Colonel Sevigny wrote a book “Face a l’Ennemi” in which he wrote: “Among the Poles, I didn’t meet one who didn’t have tragedy in his life. It was with these men that I better understood the distress caused in Europe by the Hitlerian regime. Animated by a true fury of vengeance they faced death with insouciance…The wounded refused to go to the overloaded first-aid station. One soldier, his stomach torn open and his entrails hanging out, managed to stand up and then run 50 metres and throw two grenades at a group of Germans hidden in a thicket. He fell and died crying ‘Warsaw’”.
Sevigny was elected to the House of Commons in Canada in the 1958 election, representing the electoral district of Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, and served as Associate Defence Minister in the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker. He was re-elected in the 1962 election, but was defeated in the 1963 vote.
author: Stan Skrzeszewski, Canada
source of information: SPK w Kanadzie, January 1995 & Wikipedia