Aubrey Cosens
Aubrey Cosens
Sergeant
The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada
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Sergeant Aubrey Cosens was born on May 21, 1921, in Latchford, Ontario, the son of Charles and Yvonne Cosens. His father had served in the First World War, and young Aubrey grew up in Porquis Junction, a small railway town in Northern Ontario. He left school in 1938 to work alongside his father as a section hand on the railway. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Cosens was eager to enlist and initially applied to the Royal Canadian Air Force. Rejected at first, he persisted and was eventually accepted into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada in 1940. He served in Canada, Jamaica, and England before transferring to The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in 1944, quickly rising to the rank of Sergeant.
Cosens was just 23 when he performed the actions that would earn him the Victoria Cross—the highest award for military gallantry in the British Commonwealth. On the night of February 25–26, 1945, during the Allied push through the Rhineland in Germany, Cosens’ platoon launched an attack on a German stronghold in the hamlet of Mooshof. Under withering enemy fire, most of his platoon was killed or wounded. Taking command of the remaining four soldiers, Cosens directed tank fire under heavy bombardment, then led a solo assault on three farmhouses used as German positions. He cleared each building alone, killing or capturing the defenders inside.
Just moments after his extraordinary feat secured the position for the Allied advance, Cosens was struck down by a sniper’s bullet and died instantly. He had killed at least 20 enemy soldiers and taken as many prisoners. For his extraordinary courage, initiative, and selflessness, Sergeant Aubrey Cosens was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
He is buried at the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands. His memory is enshrined on a provincial plaque on Highway 11 near Porquis Junction, and in 1986, the Ontario government renamed a bridge in his honour: the Sergeant Aubrey Cosens VC Memorial Bridge. In the Netherlands, his bravery is remembered with reverence. To the Dutch, he is more than a soldier—he is a liberator, and a symbol of the freedom they regained.
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Porquis Junction
Photo & Story: Timothy Young, Faces to Graves
