Has nephew of tragic Wren Gertrude Canning unmasked killer?

Four shots rang out into the dusk of a still summer night and a young Wren fell as her killer slipped away.

At any other time, the sounds would have drawn curious onlookers. But this was Inveraray in 1942 and the locals were well used to the sound of gunfire from the training camps on the shores of Loch Fyne.

Five days later the body of Gertrude Canning, 20, was found by shocked locals. Sexually assaulted, she had been brutalised and thrown into a ditch.

Originally from Donegal in the Irish Republic, Gertie had moved to England to work. When war broke out she decided to join the most glamorous service, the Royal Navy.

Gertie had been a Wren for just 99 days when she was executed in a murder that haunted the Argyll town for eight decades. But her nephew Liam Canning now believes he has solved the crime.

Liam said: “For 80 years, who killed Gertrude remained a secret lost in the mists of time and mislaid crime files. But for her family, and the people of Inveraray, what happened to my aunt has never been forgotten. Only now, after decades of research, am I confident to say that I believe I know who her murderer was.”

The identity of Gertrude’s killer remained hidden despite several police investigations. There were potentially thousands of suspects and none with discernible motives. Among them were the deadly commandos, military elite and “secret agents” who would be revealed as the warriors of the Special Operations Executive who fought Churchill’s “dirty war” and came to train in the rugged terrain around Inveraray.

Gertie was stationed at HMS Quebec, on the shores of Loch Fyne, where thousands of Canadian troops and Allied forces trained for the disastrous Dieppe landing.

Her killing shocked the local community and baffled Scotland’s top murder detective, Chief Superintendent Robert Colquhoun of Glasgow Police, who was sent north to take charge of the inquiry.

The detective tried to check every .38 calibre gun in the area, but was scuppered because six thousand US, Canadian and British troops had headed out of Inveraray just days after the murder, set for the French port of Dieppe on Operation Rutter.

More than half were killed, wounded or captured, but when those who survived returned, Colquhoun was waiting to check their firearms.

His search proved fruitless, and he reasoned that so many had been killed, the murder weapon was likely to have been left on the body of one of the dead.

Back home in Donegal, all Gertie’s family could do was mourn the loss of the bright, cheerful young woman who was beloved by all who met her.

By the time Gertie’s nephew Liam Canning was born in 1958, the family found it so painful to talk about the tragedy that he grew up knowing little or nothing about his murdered aunt.

The memorial stone for Gertrude Canning in Inverary.

Liam, now 67 and retired from a career in social work, said: “Gertie’s death just wasn’t talked about. I was grown up before I learned much about her, and it was such a tragedy for our family I resolved that one day I would try and solve the dark secret which overshadowed her memory.

“All we knew was that Gertie had not long joined the Women’s Royal Navy when her killer struck, shooting her as she walked along a country road on her way back to the base. The police had spent years trying to find who was responsible but had failed to come up with a proper suspect.

“I was determined to do what I could to get answers.” He began researching the circumstances of the case, even using the original Sunday Post coverage of the murder. He contacted the police, and through a series of Freedom of Information requests and meeting officers face to face, he was distraught to find little remained of the original investigation files.

Liam said: “I was determined not to give up despite the lack of files, and over the last 15 years of scouring military files, birth and death records and speaking to hundreds of people including retired police officers, historical groups and the Royal British Legion, I have put together what I believe happened to Gertie.

“The last sighting of Gertie was of her walking along a track. Old witness statements revealed she was being followed by a man.

“I believe Gertrude was attacked, sexually assaulted and then shot by the man who threw her into the ditch where she was found five days later. Her underclothes had been ripped from her, and I am convinced her attacker meant to rape her.

“If the horrific murder of my aunt had happened today, I do believe there would have been a prosecution and conviction. But back then, we were in the midst of a war and very soon Gertrude’s murder took a back seat.”

Liam is convinced the killer was an Englishman who was part of the Army’s Royal Pioneer Corps, the servicemen who do the hard labour when a camp is being established. He will reveal the name and identity of the killer when he launches his book A Wren For 99 Days next week.

Liam said: “I have done my best to provide a full legal argument to back up why I believe this man murdered my aunt. He left the forces within weeks of Gertie’s murder and was in a psychiatric unit for some time. He was known to the police, who described him as being of low intelligence.

“The book is the only justice we are likely to ever see for Gertrude.

“Gertrude has never been forgotten by the kind people of Inveraray. Every year the Royal British Legion Inveraray hold a remembrance commemoration at the memorial stone close to where Gertrude’s body was found at North Cromalt just outside the town every June 28 at 12.30.

“And at the war memorial, which sits at the head of the loch, a bench with a special plaque dedicated to Gertrude means a great deal to our family. I hope the book will answer many questions for the people who have kept Gertrude in their hearts all these years.”

Liam will launch A Wren For 99 Days at the Inveraray Inn on Thursday at 8pm.