Robert Gray

Robert Hampton “Hammy” Gray VC, DSC was a Canadian naval officer, pilot, and recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC) during World War II, one of only two members of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm to have been thus decorated in that war.

Gray was one of the last Canadians to die during World War II. He is commemorated, with other Canadians who died or were buried at sea during the First and Second World Wars, at the Halifax Memorial in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia. The War Memorial Gym at University of British Columbia, Royal Canadian Legion hall in Nelson, numerous other sites in Nelson, and the wardroom of HMCS Tecumseh (his RCNVR home unit) also bear plaques in his honour. Gray is one of fourteen figures commemorated at the Valiants Memorial in Ottawa.

On 12 March 1946, the Geographic Board of Canada named a mountain in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, BC, after Gray and his brother, John Balfour Gray, who was also killed in World War II.