armchair said:
What was the mascot of the 8th Princess Louise New Brunswick Hussars? Its name and how did they get it from Italy to NW Europe?
" A Royal Filly" was the original mascot of th 8th New Brunswick ( (Princess Louise's) Hussars. She earned her "Battle Honours". She was brought back to Canada and her descendants have been our official mascot. All, of course named "Princess Louise". The original horse is buried near Sussex NB with a special memorial tablet."
http://www.probus.org/m8thhssr.htm
Her travels were many:
She was wounded during fighting on the Gothic Line near Coriano, Italy on Sept. 15, 1944. Civilians in fear for their lives took shelter wherever they could, some hiding in stacks of hay or in abandoned buildings. Farm animals however, who had once grazed in pastures beneath cool shade trees, were completely vulnerable to the battle that raged around them. Dead livestock littered the countryside...The Canadians heard the cries of an injured horse and brought her to their aid station where she was saved by their intervention; quickly winning the hearts and minds of the troops...
She was hidden in the rear of trucks for transport every time the Hussars moved. She was safely transported in a 3 ton truck with a concealed stall as the regiment made its way through France and Belgium and into Holland.
At the conclusion of WW II, she was shipped to New York from Holland aboard the Dutch liner Leerdam. From New York she promptly made her way by train to Saint John. "The regiment stayed in Holland for quite a long while after the war waiting for transportation," says Kelly. "A good part of Canada was over there fighting, and there weren't enough ships to bring them home.
She arrived in Saint John on March 27, 1946, amid thunderous cheers from curious onlookers. Not long after that she was reunited with the men who had not only saved her life, but had protected her during the balance of the war.
The new mascot was welcomed by a guard of honour in Saint John, complete with a band, and a special greeting from Brigadier D.R. Agnew, the district officer of military district 7, Mayor J.D. McKenna and a parade where she marched with full regalia amid the 8th Hussars badges and flashes, 5th Cdn. Armd. Div. with maroon patch and her campaign medals: The 19391945 Star, The Italy Star, The France and Germany Star, Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and three Wound Stripes.
From there she was taken to the nearby prestigious bedroom community of Rothesay where classes were interrupted as schoolchildren lined the roadways in a tumultuous greeting.
Onward she was transported to Hampton and more accolades on the steps of the King's County Court House. There she became a naturalized Canadian and made a free woman of King's County and the Community of Hampton. She was given the "God given right to trample and eat from any and all vegetable gardens at will, or even from the supplies at Sharp's Feed Store."
An excellent account of her travels is found here (and from where I pulled the above):
http://www.legionmagazine.com/features/memoirspilgrimages/03-09.asp