Lieutenant Edward Victory Polley of Belfast served in Royal Canadian Engineers. He died as a result of a motorcycle crash while on manoeuvres in the UK in 1943.
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Edward Victor Polley served with Royal Canadian Engineers during the Second World War. Born on 26th March 1920, he was the only child of the late Robert Victor Polley, who died on active service with Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on 17th February 1921, and Edith Ellen Polley of Belfast.
In civilian life, Edward attended Queen’s University, Belfast where he studied civil engineering. In Belfast, Polley served in a signals unit of the Officer Training Corps at Q.U.B. On graduating, he emigrated to Canada, continuing to study engineering at the University of Toronto. In Toronto, as well as studying, he enlisted in the Canadian Officer Training Corps before completing his studies and qualifying in 1941. His address at the time of enlisting in the C.O.T.C. was 240 Kingswood Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Polley enlisted in the Royal Canadian Engineers in March 1941, training in Ontario, Canada at both Petawawa and Brockville. In December 1942, he departed from Canada bound for the European Theatre of Operations. Lieutenant Polly died on 3rd March 1943 aged 22 years old in England. He was riding a motorcycle on military manoeuvres when a crash resulted in a fatal compound fracture to the skull.
Lieutenant Polley’s grave is in Glenalina Extension, Section J, Grave 38 of Belfast City Cemetery, Belfast. His name is on the war memorials of both Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Toronto as well as St. Comgall’s Parish Church, Bangor, Co. Down.