CSM Lyster and his English wife, Eswyn, on the day of their wedding
21 August 1943.
Photo courtesy Eswyn Lyster

Lyster not only attended the course, but passed out at the top of his class, becoming the first Canadian ever to win the Belt and Sword of Honour, the traditional reward for the first place student. Under wartime circumstances, a Sword could not actually be bestowed, so Lyster accepted a Sam Browne belt and a medallion.  The promised sword never materialized after the war; Eswyn Lyster commissioned Wilkinson to produce one; it is currently on display at the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary.  Commissioned as a lieutenant, Lyster returned to the Highlanders on 17 October 1944, as the fighting near South Beveland was reaching its height.

He found himself Left Out of Battle, as new man in the company, during the fighting west of Hoogerheide.  At the end of October, he found himself tasked with helping the padre retrieve the dead.

That was an experience for me.   It was a little hard picking up fellows that you knew personally.  (One man) was on his knees and he had his hands in his stomach.  He had stuffed his field dressing into his stomach.  And he looked as if he had been praying.  He was stiff as a board; rigor mortis had set in.

After the Scheldt battle, the Highlanders went into static positions in the Nijmegen Salient.  Even here, though, no one was safe from harm.  One of Lyster's tasks on Christmas day was writing to the parents of Austin N. Yeoman, a private belonging to his company.  Lyster was now acting company commander, and Yeoman had been killed the day before.  "I remember sitting down and writing a letter to Mr. Yeoman...I told him what a brave son he had and all this sort of stuff and I didn't even know the lad.  That was our job."

Christmas 1944

When the Highlanders left the salient in February to participate in the drive to the Rhine, Lyster was in command of "C" Company.  While planning an artillery shoot on February 27th, along with the CO and a Forward Observation Officer from the 5th Field Regiment, a shell landed next to the farmhouse they were standing in.  Nixon and Lyster were both hit and evacuted.   Lyster had received some shrapnel in his nose; the FOO had been hit in the temple and died shortly after reaching the Regimental Aid Post.

Lyster returned to "C" Company very shortly afterwards, and was wounded once again on the 22nd of April, one day from being confirmed in the rank of Major.  He had been conducting a recce near Oldenburg when he was shot in the chest and arm.

When the Regiment returned to Calgary in November 1945, Lyster was still in hospital, and in fact remained hospitalized in both Calgary and Edmonton until November 1946.

After the war, he was given a courtesy title of Major by the Regiment; he worked as a sales manager for Canadian Bakeries Ltd. and later became the Chief Park Warden in Banff.  In 1968 he moved to Vancouver Island with his wife.

Lyster passed away in December 1996.