Veteran’s war journal brings surprising discovery on Remembrance Day for Winnipeg woman

Audrey Podolsky Mireault holds up a picture of her father, William John Podolsky and his war journal during the Second World War. Podolsky was held back from serving overseas and was stationed across Canada due to a foot impediment according to Mireault. Here she is on Nov. 6, 2026. (Joseph Bernacki/CTV News Winnipeg)

For 20 years, Audrey Podolsky Mireault has held on to a keepsake from her father’s time with the Canadian military. A war journal detailing William John Podolsky’s service.

It brings back memories and feelings that are hard to let go when Remembrance Day comes around.

“We’d go to school in the morning and come home after 11:00, and my dad was nowhere to be found that day; he hid away,” Mireault said.

“For my dad, when we say, ‘lest we forget,’ they are forgotten.”

Mireault grew up in Gardenton, Man., where her father worked after the Second World War. Her father never talked about his service until his passing in 2006.

A foot impediment kept him from serving overseas and he was stationed across Canada. It was hard for her to understand why he was left behind.

“This is hard, because it destroyed our family,” she tells CTV News.

It wasn’t until she went through his journal when her eyes were opened to what her father had signed up for on the homefront.

“I’ve got the actual date of when he went into the mustard gas chamber,” she said.

“He was paid $1.50 for the testing, again, Sept. 14, 1944.”

Her father was a test subject, signing up for mustard gas exposure, among other tests he endured.

After the war, Mireault said her father suffered from headaches, hearing problems and was prone to violence towards the family.

“It could have been a very good home, and I think it was just destroyed by a lack of support, a lack of understanding,” Mireault said.

“The experience of the soldier never ends,” said Gord Crossley, curator of the Fort Garry Horse Museum on McGregor St.

“All of their training that they’ve had. Their actual experience overseas is carried with them through life.”

Crossley, a local military historian, said the impact of the war affected every soldier differently, in a time when post-traumatic stress disorder was unknown.

Crossley was able to take a look at photos of Podolsky’s war journal and could determine Mireault’s father was stationed in Shilo, Man., working in the artillery for some time.

Mireault said this could explain why her father had hearing problems from gunfire at the base and testing equipment on site without the same kind of hearing protection we have today.

During the Second World War, Crossley said soldiers would volunteer themselves to test the effects of different chemical agents like mustard gas and test the treatment options available.

“Many of them were people who volunteered chosen not to go overseas, sometimes for medical reasons,” Crossley said.

Mireault wants people to remember veterans like her dad and others who served in Canada. She believes their service was also critical to the war effort.

“It’s a story I felt I had to rectify for myself,” Mireault said.

“I’m not forgetting. I loved him.”