George Dettling was born November 20, 1922 in the small northern town of Friedenstahl, in the Peace River country of northwestern Alberta, where he grew up in a large family of nine children. George left school after Grade 8, and he began working in the community to support himself and the large family. George recalls being concerned when he heard the news of the war, and he waited until he got his call up notice before joining the army. He went to Edmonton and then Calgary for training, and after that they headed to Halifax to board the Louis Pasteur troop ship, bound for England. A stay at Aldershot ensued, followed by transport to Scotland and a convoy to North Africa. So George saw service in many locales, including North Africa, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, ending with the Liberation of Amsterdam. The ultimate combat destination for George and the men of the Seaforth Highlanders was Italy, where George would spend a year fighting the Germans. He saw combat at Montecassino and several other locations in Italy, after which the First Canadian Army was sent north to the Netherlands at the end of the war. While there George met met and fell in love with a Dutch woman named Elisabeth Schutte, so he stayed on after the Seaforth Highlanders left, doing stints with the Westminster Regiment and the Canadian Scottish in occupation duty. They married in late 1945 and went on to build their lives in Edmonton in postwar Alberta, raising a family and adding to the fabric of Canada. George Dettling was interviewed over zoom in May 2026 by Global Veterans’ Stories Zach Dunn, along with Scott Masters.
