Winnipeg's Valour Road soldiers honoured at Ottawa museum

Three soldiers who lived on the same street in Winnipeg are being remembered for the sacrifices they made during the First World War.

On Monday, the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa unveiled the Victoria Crosses belonging to Sgt.-Maj. Frederick William Hall, Lt. Robert Shankland and Cpl. Lionel B. Clarke.

"It's enormously important. I mean, this story is legendthe boys from Valour Road," federal Heritage Minister James Moore said in Ottawa Monday.

"I think we ought to pay respect and honour to them my talking about their stories, their acts of bravery."

Immortalized in a Canadian Heritage Minute video, all three men lived on the same block of Pine Street in Winnipeg's West End.

After the war, the street was renamed Valour Road in their honour.

Only one survived the war

Hall was honoured for refusing to leave three of his wounded comrades behind at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. He rescued two of them, but was killed by enemy fire while trying to drag a third to safety.

Clarkefought his way out of the trenches on the Somme Front in September 1916, killing or capturing 18 German soldiers and two officers. He was killed by enemy shell fire almost two months later.

In October 1917, Shankland's platoon came under heavy enemy fire in the Battle of Passchendaele. He managed to reach battalion headquarters and return with reinforcements and a plan for a counter-attack.

Shankland was the only one of the Winnipeg trio to survive the war. The Victoria Cross was presented posthumously to the parents of Hall and Clarke.

The war museum recently acquired Hall's medal, while it acquired the Victoria Crosses belonging to Shankland and Clarke in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

The medals will be displayed in the museum's Royal Canadian Legion Hall of Honour, but they will be loaned to the Manitoba Museum in 2014 to commemorate the role of the Winnipeg Rifles and Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders regiments.