Mine Awareness Training Area Named for Sergeant Ivan Stark
For the seventh year in a row, Landmine Monitor 2022 reports a high number of casualties caused by landmines worldwide — including improvised mines and explosive remnants of war. The Monitor recorded 5,544 casualties in 2021.
Over the years of United Nations landmine clearing, Canada has contributed significantly to missions that involved landmine clearance and landmine awareness training. We were also one of the leaders in an initiative that led to the signing of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. Known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine Ban Treaty, it is a legally binding, international agreement that bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel mines and places obligations on countries to clear affected areas, assist victims, and destroy stockpiles.
Canada’s Centre of Excellence for peace support operations is the Peace Support Training Center in Kingston, ON. Students include foreign military participants, as well as Canadians from the military, and civilians on an international standby list. Here, students are instructed in traditional peacekeeping skills, such as observing and reporting, manning observation posts, patrolling, and negotiating/mediating. They are also given skills in landmine awareness, first aid, and ethics. The centre’s Mine Awareness Training Area was dedicated on 26 May 2000 to Royal Canadian Engineer Sergeant Ivan Stark, The first Canadian soldier landmine fatality since the end of WW II.
Ivan Lethbridge Stark was born on 9 April 1928 in Ocean Falls, BC. During World War II, he joined the Canadian Army in London, ON in February of 1945. He served in Canada and, although he had volunteered for the Pacific Theatre, the war ended before he could be deployed. Private Ian Stark was honorably discharged on 19 October 1945 in London, ON. For his wartime service, he received the Canadian Volunteer Medal and the 1939–45 Medal. Ivan had left school at the age of 15 with only a Grade VIII education and, in trying to find employment after the war, completed a vocational course in drafting. During this time, he met his wife, Marie Yvette, and they were married on 14 August 1946.
In January 1952, Ivan Stark decided to return to military life, and he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Engineers. He became a Bricklayer in the 57th Canadian Independent Field Squadron, Royal Canadian Engineers (RCE), but was transferred to the 23rd Field Squadron RCE by the end of the month. Rising through the junior ranks, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant in February 1957.
Later that year, Sergeant Stark was assigned to the Canadian contingent of the United Nations Emergency Force and embarked for Egypt on 20 September 1957. Only seven days later he was killed when the jeep he was in struck an anti-tank mine.
On that day, Sergeant Taylor was preparing to transfer his responsibilities to Sergeant Stark and was showing Sergeant Stark the location of known minefields in the area. Sergeant Taylor was driving the jeep and Stark was in the passenger seat when the jeep hit a mine along the edge of the road, which was known to be cleared. Sergeant Stark was killed instantly. Although Sergeant Taylor was thrown from the jeep with few physical injuries; the blast knocked him unconscious.
Sergeant Stark was the first Canadian soldier killed by a landmine since the end of World War II. His body lies in the Moascar Military Cemetery in Ismailia, Egypt. The Sergeant Ivan Stark Mine Awareness Training Area in Kingston, ON was dedicated in his name on 26 May 2000. Among many others who attended the ceremony was his widow, Mrs. Yvette Stark, and his siblings. Retired Master Warrant Officer Bob Taylor, the driver of the jeep in which Sergeant Stark was killed, was also in attendance.
The Canadian Military Engineers presented Mrs. Stark with a framed portrait of the cairn erected in memory of her husband, Sergeant Ivan Lethbridge Stark.