One was killed in battle. The other searched for his family until he died. The next generation found each other.

EDMONTON — On Jan. 17, 1945, a young friendship was torn apart by a German mortar shell. One man survived and the other was lost to the fog of war. He would stay lost for nearly 75 years, until the two families found each other again in Alberta, living less than an hour apart.

Troopers Bill Miller and Henry Johnston met during training in Borden, Ont., in 1944. By November, they had joined the Kangaroos, the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment in Tilburg, Netherlands. Miller and Johnston were tank troopers and best friends.

The Kangaroos delivered Canadian and British infantry to operations in the southeastern parts of the Netherlands and drove German soldiers back over the Roer River in battles known as Operation Blackcock.

On a harsh winter day in January, Miller and Johnston were doing maintenance in a field when a German mortar shell landed nearby.

Johnston was killed.

Miller gathered up his friend’s body in a blanket and carried him to the nearest aid post. When the Kangaroos pushed out to pursue the retreating Germans, Miller had to leave Johnston behind in the village of Baakhoven.

“He would always make sure that I knew Henry didn’t make it during the war,” said Bill Miller Jr.

Miller did not speak often about the war with his son, but when he did, he would show a photo he kept of a man leaning up against a tank. His friend, Henry Johnston.

“He couldn’t shake it, obviously,” said Miller Jr.

As an adult, Miller Jr. developed an interest in his father’s war story and his time with the Kangaroos. He connected Miller Sr. with the Kangaroo Veteran’s Association, and in 2005, father and son travelled to the Netherlands for the 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

They searched for Johnston’s grave, but they could not find it. All they found was his name on a plaque for soldiers missing in action at the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

SOLVING THE MYSTERY

In 2015, Bill Miller Sr. died, never knowing what happened to the body of his friend that he carried from the battlefield.

Even before his father died, Miller Jr. committed himself to solving the mystery of what happened to Johnston. He began collecting medals, memorabilia and diaries from the Kangaroos. He gathered all the information he could, searching for anything that could connect him to Henry Johnston’s family or lead the soldier’s grave.

There was one other thing he was looking for.

“We didn’t have a photo of my dad,” said Miller Jr. “We had a photo of Henry, but not my dad. So, the thing that sparked with me was, if I could find the Johnston family, maybe they’ve got my dad’s picture.”

But, after years of searching, he had exhausted his resources. He was about to give up, then the phone rang.

Henry Johnston had a wife and five kids waiting for him to come home from service. All that returned was a few photos and a handwritten letter informing them that he was officially missing in action.

Gord Krebs is married to one of Johnston’s granddaughters. In 2012, he and his wife travelled to Paris, France. Before they left, his mother-in-law told him the story of her father, still missing in the Netherlands. She asked if the Krebs’ would take a trip to the Netherlands to find the grave of a man they had never met.

“It was actually emotional, more than I thought it would have been,” said Krebs.

They found his name on the plaque in Groesbeek. The Krebs’ asked a volunteer at the cemetery why he did not have a headstone, and the man explained there was no grave because Johnston was missing. The man took their email address and promised to be in touch if he could find out more information.

“By the time I came back to Canada, I had 35 emails from people all over Europe trying to help me,” said Krebs.

One of the emails contained the phone number for Bill Miller Jr.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

When Krebs called, Miller was so surprised he dropped the phone.

“He says, ‘You have got to be kidding me, I’ve been looking for you for 15 years.’”

Miller Jr. was in Calgary, the Krebs in Didsbury. They lived less than an hour apart.

When they met, Miller Jr. got part of what he was looking for.

“I don't even think I was out of my car and he came running down the driveway with a photo of my dad,” said Miller. “It was overwhelming. It blew me away.”

The families had finally found each other, but Henry Johnston was still missing in action.

It may have stayed that way, if it wasn’t for the help of a complete stranger.

Ivo Wilms is a Dutch battlefield archaeologist and researcher who specializes in Operation Blackcock. Over the years he has been in touch with Miller Jr. about the Kangaroos.

In 2018, Wilms came to Alberta. He asked Miller Jr. and Krebs to dinner and shared a photo that changed everything.

“He said, ‘We found Henry’s grave.’”

The photo shows the graves of three British soldiers and one unknown Canadian soldier in Baakhoven, Netherlands in 1945. The same place Henry Johnston was killed.

Wilms’ research shows that those graves were moved after the war to a cemetery in Mook, Netherlands. When the bodies were dug up, a bracelet for Trooper Jake Dyck was found. That’s the name on the headstone. Except records show Jake Dyck survived the war and died in Winnipeg in 2007.

“It could only be Henry in that grave,” said Miller Jr.

Wilms and Miller Jr. turned their research over to the Directorate of History and Heritage.

“It was a particularly challenging case,” said Renee Davis, a historian from the DHH.

It was Davis’ job to not only prove that the grave belonged to Johnston, but that it could not possibly belong to anyone else. She looked up all the Canadians who died in January of 1945. Of the 439 soldiers who died that month, 22 were listed as missing. Of those 22, eight were in Italy. That left 14 soldiers that could possibly be in that grave.

“According the exhumation report he was wearing a [tank] suit, which is actually the type of uniform that was used in the [armour] and not in the planes so we were able to say, ‘OK, in all likelihood it’s not someone from the air force,’ said Davis.

Ultimately, there was only one person it could be.

Henry Johnston.

“It’s a relief I suppose,” said Johnson. “It just means one more person is no longer unknown, which is just so powerful.”

In November 2019, the Casualty Identification Review confirmed his identification. A headstone rededication ceremony will happen at Mook War Cemetery as soon as it is safe for the families to travel there.

“I don’t feel it’s closure,” said Johnston’s daughter, Ellen Rowe. “I feel like it's a whole new chapter that's opening because we're finding things about our father that we never ever knew.”

Bill Miller Sr. knew him.

His son found him.

Trooper Henry Johnston, missing no more.

“There were times I thought all this work was for naught,” said Miller Jr. “But finding Henry’s grave has brought my story, my dad’s story, their story all full circle. I’m extremely happy.”