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War veteran who survived D-Day will turn 100 on Remembrance Day

'I have a hard time believing I'm 100 years old because people don't live that long,' says war veteran

By Kamil Karamali, CBC News Posted: Nov 08, 2016 7:00 AM PT Last Updated: Nov 08, 2016 7:00 AM PT


World War II veteran Leslie Jacques will be turning 100-years-old this Remembrance Day.

With his sense of humour and hearty laugh, it's hard to believe Leslie Jacques will soon turn 100 years old.

Even he has trouble accepting it.

"I have a hard time believing I'm a 100 years old because people don't live that long," said Jacques laughing.

"Every day is a bonus."


Second World War veteran

It's rare to make it to 100 years of age, but what makes Jacques' story unique is that the Second World War veteran is celebrating the milestone on Nov. 11, Remembrance Day.

Jacques, who now lives in Surrey, B.C. grew up on his family's farm in rural Saskatchewan with his five siblings.

He volunteered to join the Royal Canadian Air Force after the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"My parents were doing quite well until the Depression arrived. Then, all of a sudden, we didn't have any money coming in."


Leslie Jacques joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at the age of 25 as a wireless operator. He served from November 1941 to February of 1945

Jacques trained to become a wireless operator and flew to England in December of 1942. He was 25 at the time.

Jacques joined a six-man squadron, tasked with flying over enemy territory and dropping paratroopers. The members of the team became inseparable.

"You were living in this dangerous time," said Jacques. "Every time we went out on an [operation], you didn't know whether you were going to come back or not."

"There was always that possibility, so we were a pretty close-knit group."

D-Day


Leslie Jacques (top right) says he his 6-man squadron was inseparable because they faced many dangerous situations.

Jacques said his most memorable day of the war was D-Day, also known as the Normandy landings.

He said he and his team were one of the first to begin the attack, by dropping paratroopers behind enemy lines just after midnight on June 6, 1944.

It's was also a day that he nearly died.

"I was just standing up and looking out [the window] and I can see tracer bullets going through the air and the tracers were just coming in behind us," said Jacques.

"I got on the intercom and said 'skipper, let's get out of here. They're shooting at us.'"

Health problems

Jacques glowed as he reminisced about the past. But his mood darkened when asked about his health.

"Eyesight is not worth a damn," said Jacques. "Pardon my English"

Jacques spends most of his time sitting on a sofa at the Rosemary Heights assisted living facility. He has a motorized wheelchair, but he doesn't see the point of leaving his home with his limited vision.

His memory is fairly sharp, but he gets frustrated when he forgets important information.

"As I'm talking, I forget things," said Jacques. "They won't come to mind. So it's a bit embarrassing sometimes when you can't remember your wife's name."


Leslie Jacques now lives in an assisted living facility in Surrey. He says his step-daughter is planning a party for him on his 100th birthday.

Secret to longevity

Jacques secret to a long life? "You have a scotch every night and that guarantees you won't have a heart attack or a stroke," said Jacques.

He was married three times and he adopted two daughters with his first wife, which he described as one of the happiest moments of his life.

He's also travelled back to England and vacationed in Zimbabwe with his current wife, Anne.

All of those happy moments have kept him going, he said, though he stressed again the value of his favourite drink.

"I have one drink of scotch every night and it works fine," said Jacques. "It works for me."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/war-veteran-100-remembrance-day-1.3841119

'War is a big mistake of mankind' says 95-year-old Guelph veteran

McCrae House hosts a Thank A Veteran event as part of Remembrance Day week activities

Nov 07, 2016


Dorothy Scott was 19 when she enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during World War II.


Dorothy Scott has a message for war for all those who haven't lived through it.

"As far as I'm concerned, war should never be. It's a big mistake of mankind," Scott said Sunday during the annual Thank A Veteran event at McCrae House.

"War is something that should be deplored. It does nothing," she said.

The 95-year-old Scott joined Canadian peace keeping veterans Jacques De Winter and Bob Harkness at Sunday's event to greet and chat with visitors.

Scott was a 19-year-old transplanted Canadian attending university in Scotland when war broke out in 1939.

She decided to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a female extension of the Royal Air Force assigned to non-combat duties.

Her roles included "plotting" aircraft, using pre-radar information to track where allied and enemy aircraft were while in the air.

"I worked marking the routes that aircraft took and trying to figure if they were ours or not," she said.

She later rose to the rank of corporal and worked in operations.

"It was much more interesting working in the operations room than pushing arrows around a board," she said of her increased role.

That's what she was doing as D-Day approached, never knowing when the massed soldiers and equipment were going to be sent across the English Channel.

One night she was out walking when she heard a massive roar grow, looking up to see the sky filled with the lights of planes pulling troop-laden gliders heading to France. That was how she knew D-Day had begun.

"It was like a cathedral ceiling with twinkling lights. They went on and on. They filled the sky," Scott said.

Her father, a World War I veteran, served in army intelligence and her brother in the ultra-secret role of trying to crack German codes.

Life during war wasn't all bad, she said.

"People think that living in England during the war was awful all the time, but it wasn't," she said. "There were some good, some bad."

But rationing, restrictions on communication and movement and occasionally coming face-to-face with the realities of war, like the time she saw a Spitfire and bomber collide mid air and was greeted with a wall of fire when she rushed to the crash site to try and help.

She left the WAAF right after the war and finished her education before returning to Canada. After marrying her husband in Toronto, they moved to Guelph where she has lived for many years, teaching the deaf. She still works with a support group of people with hearing loss.

Scott enjoyed the small gathering at McCrae house and the chance to share her stories, which she has done several times in the past in local schools.

"Getting a chance to talk and have people listen, how nice!" she said. "My family has heard it all before."

https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/war-is-a-big-mistake-of-mankind-says-95-year-old-guelph-veteran-457493

'We can’t forget'

By Michael Lea, Kingston Whig-Standard
Monday, November 7, 2016 4:17:35 EST PM


Daniel Chabot bends down to one the military graves on which to place Canadian flags in Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston on Monday, part of a pre-Remembrance Day tradition. (Michael Lea/The Whig-Standard)

His black leather vest is festooned with crests and insignia, but it’s the row of patches down the right-hand side that tell the real story of who Daniel Chabot is and what he has seen.

As you drop your eyes down the row, they start with the first Gulf War then descend to Rwanda, Haiti, Sarno, Aviano and Golan Heights.

“These are all places I have been on different missions,” explained Chabot as he clutched a handful of the Canadian flags he was about to place on the military graves at Cataraqui Cemetery, an annual pre-Remembrance Day tradition.

It’s also a list of human misery and the failure of politicians.

He had signed up for the air force, but, in another example of the military’s perplexing reasoning, ended up driving a transport for his 25 years of service, including during those tours with the United Nations and NATO.

He was a truck driver for a Canadian field hospital south of the Kuwaiti border during the first Gulf War in 1991, was in Rwanda in 1994 just after the genocide that so affected now-retired lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire, was on a United Nations mission in Haiti in 1997, was in Sarno, Italy, following the 1998 landslides that killed more than 350 people, and served at a U.S. base in Aviano, Italy. and on the Golan Heights.

Chabot has been out of the military for the past eight years and managed to come back from it all “more whole than others, probably.”

“We all have our issues,” he said. “It’s just that some are more extended than others.”

He heard about Dallaire dreading the memories that Remembrance Day forced upon him.

“I understand where he is coming from,” Chabot said. “Since I have been on tours, it holds a lot more importance to me, especially having people that I know that didn’t come back and people that came back and are not around anymore because of the PTSD suffering. There have been more suicides than people know of.”

His wife, Robin Chabot, has never been in the Forces, but comes from an American military family. She joined him for the morning in the cemetery and carried her own Canadian flags.

“It’s just to honour our veterans,” she explained.

This was the second year the two have taken part. They live in Gananoque and only heard about the flag-placing ceremony last year.

Thanks to a larger-than-normal turnout back then, they were among the last to make the cut and get their flags.

“They had to turn away a lot of people,” she recalled. “We were lucky.”

Robin still remembers seeing a headstone for a veteran knocked over on its side.

“That just broke my heart. I wanted to lift it but I couldn’t.”

They made sure they arrived early this year.

Robin noted the American equivalent of Remembrance Day always gets a strong turnout.

“We can’t forget and we can’t let the kids forget.”

Her husband agrees.

“It means a lot to me, especially for the veterans and what they went through. I know what the majority of them went through, even if I didn’t go through the same exact thing they did. I like honouring the veterans any way I can.”

They were joined for the morning by friend Jason Poirier of Kingston. He had served in the army and was in Kosovo in 1999, driving tanks and other armoured vehicles.

This year was the first time he took part in the event in the cemetery.

“It’s just a chance to honour my fallen brothers and sisters that are out there,” he said. “I am proud to be able to take part in something like this.”

The three are all members of Veterans UN NATO Canada and are also involved in the Flags of Remembrance display on Bayridge Drive.

Poirier said he keeps watch over the flags on Monday nights, to make sure there is no repeat of last year’s thefts.

As the three headed off to find their allotted section of the cemetery, Dave Donovan, chair of the Day of Remembrance veterans committee that organizes the event each year, was looking at his watch and wondering if he was going to run short of volunteers this year.

“This time last year you couldn’t move in here,” he said as he sat in the near-empty cemetery building where the flags were handed out. “I hope we are going to get enough this year.”

But people were still coming in in twos and threes, many in one uniform or another.

“I’m sure we’ll be all right.”

Placing the Canadian flags on the military graves “is very, very important,” Donovan said.

“It is necessary that we remember the veterans. They were ordinary people who gave up their lives. Whether they came back or they didn’t come back, they interrupted their lives to ensure that we could live in freedom.”

The number of veterans resting in the cemetery is growing steadily, Donovan said. Not too many days go by without an obituary appearing in the newspaper for yet another service member who has passed away.

There were once 500 graves in the military section. Now there are 730, he noted.

“It’s huge now.”

Donovan expected his volunteers would place flags on 800 or so military graves that are scattered elsewhere in the cemetery.

It is a point of honour to find them all, he stressed.

Many have military unit crests or ranks on them to signify the person resting below was in the Forces, but they can be hard to find when they are mixed in with thousands of other headstones.

“If they don’t have any markings on them, we don’t know,” Donovan said.

The volunteers are armed with maps that denote the names and their final resting place, but it can be a daunting task in the sprawling, 100-acre cemetery.

The veterans committee’s next event is a pre-Remembrance Day ceremony on Thursday at the military section of the cemetery. Schoolchildren are invited to take part in a service after placing their own flags on the graves.

mlea@postmedia.com

http://www.thewhig.com/2016/11/07/we-cant-forget

Journey of remembrance: Post-graduates explore battle sites in Northern France

MARIA RIZZETTO

Published November 7, 2016 - 12:14pm
Last Updated November 7, 2016 - 1:04pm


Barely noticeable from a far, the base of the Vimy Ridge monument is covered in names.

When I think about Canadian veterans my mind automatically flashes to Remembrance Day ceremonies. Unfortunately, these brief once-a-year acknowledgments are not even close to enough exposure to develop a true appreciation for our veterans. Remembering back to when I was in school, kids would do anything to slip away for the afternoon while the rest of us sat in fear we would make noise during the moment of silence, while the eyes of aging veterans stared down at us.

Twenty years later, my boyfriend Josh and I are backpacking Europe and about to take five days of our trip to embark on the most realistic remembrance ceremony there is — visiting Vimy Ridge, Beaumont Hamel, war museums in Calais, the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, and searching for the grave of my great-great grandfather who never returned to Cape Breton after the First World War.

VIMY RIDGE

The signs for graveyards and battle sites are countless in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and I can’t even keep track as we follow the signs to Vimy. As we pull into a vacant parking lot I wonder if it is closed since I don’t see a soul. Two days ago we walked shoulder to shoulder with tourists for eight hours at the Palace of Versailles. This can’t be it, we are in Europe, right? There is not a soul here. Josh points to couple in a car snacking on sandwiches, and a man walking by himself down a path in the distance. That is it — empty, silent. A true platform for appreciation and respect. The memorial is prominent against a murky sky leaving an unsettling solemnness that engulfs me. I wonder if this weather sets in at this time each day serving as a permanent backdrop and setting a necessary tone.

I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to expect, but whatever I had conjured up in my mind is far from what I’m seeing.

I look out at an open field. There are no graves, but the battles begin to come alive in my imagination while zeroing in on craters covering the field. “Those are from the bombs,” Josh says. I wonder how many Canadian soldiers took cover in these giant groves, covered in mud instead of the bright green grass we see now.

The white grey marble makes the monument disappear and reappear against the foggy sky as we approach. You get glimpses of it drawing closer while walking through the rows of planted maple trees, seven on each side, a patriotic and uniform entrance.

Josh reminds me that this monument is ‘a tribute to the dead’ and that it is the only war memorial that was not later destroyed by Hitler, for this reason. When you walk closer you can see individual poppies placed amidst the names covering the walls of the monument.

The monument is fittingly somber, exempt of colour. It is hard to even read all the names engraved up and down on the base of the statue. Perhaps the artist was symbolizing countless unmarked graves all around us, mimicking how the bodies of soldiers became part of the land, names bleed into the monument like bodies bled into the field.

As we walk towards another part of the historical park, the craters in the earth seem to become deeper and more narrow. Trenches. We pass dozens of sheep grazing in the fields, walking in and out of grooves in the field and see a sign, “DANGER: no entry: undetonated explosives.” That's about as real as it gets, isn’t it?

The trenches are lined with stone, but Josh tells me it would have been sandbags. As we walk through them I imagine the soldiers stepping over what’s left of their friends, trying to keep them safe in hopes of returning their bodies home. It’s hard to navigate in the trenches when we are the only ones walking in them, in the light and setup for tourists. I can only imagine what it would be like crawling through here in the rain, in the dark, through the smoke, fighting, but trying to navigate this maze with no pattern hoping to survive.

The most powerful part of Vimy, for me, was the fact there is no history to read. No ‘Did You Know’ platforms, nothing, just the raw reality of what’s left.

I guess people who make the journey here probably don’t want to be told what happened because they are imagining the heroic deaths of their loved ones, not the harsh realities of a field soaked in blood, covered in limbs and helmets, scattered with crumpled faces on the pictures they would have held tightly in their hands as they took their last breaths.

As I read some of what I’ve written to Josh he gives me the most realistic perspective: “Think of it this way, Maria, if I was born 100 years ago I would probably have died here.”

SEARCH FOR GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER

After we toured the grounds at Vimy we visited the small museum where we saw some artifacts found on the battlegrounds and got to see before and after pictures of places we had just been standing. We then found some benches and started to have our lunch outside, picnic style.

I struck up a conversation with the two couples eating next to us. They began telling us about visiting the graves of their relatives. “He’s been there for 98 years, and I’m 55. I can’t get over it,” one of the men says while describing his grandfather’s tombstone.

I soon learned, with a bit of friendly prying, that the two couples spend a lot of time at these sites because they are retired British military and the women were military nurses. They told us they’ve made it their life’s goal to visit all the soldiers from England, especially the graves of unknown soldiers. When I asked them to tell me how they came to such a specific goal, they told me a story about visiting their first unknown grave as uniformed soldiers. One of the men remembers saying, “It is a shame their family doesn’t get to stand here and have some closure,” to have an another, older man in uniform standing at the site with them respond to their comment with, “You are his family now. We are all his family. We are a family.”

As our conversation grew deeper one of the women told me they used to think about stuff they have seen and convinced themselves they had it bad, but said when they come here it puts it in perspective. “We get to see what is left. They don’t.” The other woman added, “We get to see what has become of what they died for. They don’t.”

I've never wanted to visit the grave of my great-great-grandfather — who never returned to Cape Breton after the First World War — more than I did at that moment. I was a little discouraged because I had looked in several cemeteries while en route to Vimy. We stopped at two different Commonwealth cemeteries. Although it is easy to rule them out fast with the registries, I still had no luck. I wasn’t about to get my hopes up, because after talking with the couples I knew it was no easy feat. “They bury the men as they fall, everything is a graveyard here. Good luck,” they told me as we left.

The next day, as we were driving towards Beaumont Hamel my head was swinging back and forth trying to catch all of the gravesite signs, that’s how many there are. After driving for over an hour without seeing signs for anything, I saw the name I had written down on a piece of paper: Thelus. We pulled over immediately but I couldn’t see a graveyard comparable to the ones we had already checked. But in the distance I saw a cross. We started walking across a large field out into the middle of nowhere. On one side there was rapeseed, the other was cultivated land. We walked, well, I think I might have been slightly jogging at this point, until we reached a small cemetery in the middle of the open land.

There he was: Third row, fourth in, Philip Walsh. The flowers around his grave seemed to have bloomed more than the rest. I am sure that the upkeep of these cemeteries isn’t taken lightly, but I couldn’t help but wonder maybe there was someone over here taking special care of him, or he knew I was on my way and made himself easier to find. I hope he knew I wouldn't leave until I found him. As I read the gravestone I realize he died at 23 — the age I am right now. I whispered, “I hope I am making you proud because the sense of pride I have for being a part of you will never cease.”

http://thechronicleherald.ca/halifaxcitizen/1413172-journey-of-remembrance-post-graduates-explore-battle-sites-in-northern-france

Remembering the wars still fought

By Andrew Glen McCutcheon, Pincher Creek Echo
Monday, November 7, 2016 1:00:28 MST PM



I’m an extremely lucky guy.

I mean, I’ve never won the lottery and I do terribly at the casino, but I know I can count myself among the luckiest people in the world.

I know where my next meal is coming from. I’m not in danger of falling shells. I can write and speak out with my opinions and not have to worry about being harmed.

However, being this close to Remembrance Day, it’s important to remember and keep mindful of those in our community who are less fortunate, especially when it comes to issues of mental health.

I’m not talking about the poor or the addicted, although they are equally as affected by mental health issues.

I’m talking about the people who have served to ensure that I am safe, I am fed, and I am free; Canadian veterans.

There is a stigma that surrounds this conversation that erroneously believes that those with mental health conditions are weak.

There’s nothing weak about being a veteran.

Ask Captain Don Delke, from Lethbridge. He’ll tell you.

Delke is a veteran of the Korean War and has been a tireless crusader for veteran’s rights following his service.

I had the pleasure to speak with him several years ago after he spoke about his wartime experiences at the University of Lethbridge.

He said something that day that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It made me sick to my stomach.

“It appears our bureaucrats have a policy of rejection. You apply for help and the immediate answer is ‘we can’t do that’ … They hope that you will eventually get frustrated and give up, or blow your brains out.”

I was terrified to print that. I asked him a second and third time that I could quote him on what he said.

Delke didn’t seem afraid, and he definitely didn’t seem weak.

And he wasn’t wrong. The Globe and Mail recently reported that there have been at least 70 soldiers who have committed suicide following their service in Afghanistan.

They are not counted across the official toll, and they are not honoured in military memorials.

But when they came home, they did not stop fighting. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is just one of several mental illnesses that veterans can face as they return home from battle.

For context sake, 158 soldiers died overseas in combat or combat related situations in Afghanistan.

That means the amount of people who have committed suicide after fighting an enemy at home is just under half of that.

This is unacceptable.

You could be the most anti-war, staunch advocate of peace.

You could be in favour of more military interventions across the world.

Regardless of your position on war, you cannot deny that 70 suicides, 70 deaths on Canadian soil, from a war that happened several thousand kilometres away, is utterly unacceptable.

And I don’t have the answers. Regardless of who’s running it, I trust the government about as far as I could throw it.

What I have faith in are people and community. When was the last time you went to the Legion just to see if someone wants to talk?

I know I haven’t lately. I know I probably should remember to more often because conversations are important.

Mental illness is a dark, ethereal enemy, which is most dangerous when it’s hidden.

It might be scary or make us uncomfortable when we have to face and talk about these things head-on.

But I think we can be brave for our veterans; soldiers who have been courageous in battle, and even stronger at home.

http://www.pinchercreekecho.com/2016/11/07/remembering-the-wars-still-fought

Beaconsfield pays tribute to soldiers, war veterans at Heroes Park

Annual ceremony honours war veterans at Heroes' Park

CBC News Posted: Nov 06, 2016 11:29 PM ET Last Updated: Nov 06, 2016 11:29 PM ET


Many who fought and died in past conflicts were no older than the cadets present at the ceremony.

The City of Beaconsfield was one of many Montreal communities that came together this weekend to honour the service and sacrifice of soldiers and war veterans.

Veterans, cadets and civilians took part in a ceremony at Heroes' Park on Sunday afternoon ahead of Remembrance Day.

"It's amazing how we as a community can come together to remember for those who fought for something that they believed was right," said Cadet Kevin Broadley.

Many who fought and died in past conflicts were no older than the cadets present at the ceremony. Joe Maxwell joined the army at age 18 and went on to serve in Burma.

"War's a hell of a thing, that's all I can say," he said.


Montreal communities honour soldiers ahead of Remembrance Day

It's hard for him to talk about past battles and his experiences, but he takes the time to remember those who served alongside him.

"I think of comrades that's passed on and I give them a bit of thought. Lots of good lads," he said.

For many, the annual ceremony is important to ensure the memories and the sacrifices of war veterans continue to live on.


Kevin Broadley, left, and Guy Vallières, right, discuss the importance of honouring fallen soldiers. (CBC)

"I'm humbled by how many come out to these events," said Broadley.

Guy Vallières, the national vice chair of Royal Canadian Air Force Association, attends the ceremony every year. He hopes future generations will continue to honour the service of the men and women of Canada's military.

"We count on these guys to carry the torch for us," he said.

Beaconsfield wasn't the only city to hold a ceremony ahead of Remembrance Day. The communities of Notre-Dame-de-Grace and Westmount also came together to honour the sacrifices made by veterans and soldiers of today's armed forces.

More tributes will be held across Montreal this week.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/beaconsfield-heroes-park-ceremony-remembrance-day-2016-1.3839397

Canadian war effort surprised all

DAVID PITT

Published November 6, 2016 - 1:40pm
Last Updated November 6, 2016 - 2:53pm



J.L. Granatstein’s acclaimed biography of Canada’s senior commanders in the Second World War, The Generals (1993), was based on numerous interviews with Canadian veterans and their families. In his new book — call it a spin-off of The Generals — the author goes back to those interviews, showing us, in a sense, the raw material behind the original book.

When Canada entered the Second World War, Granatstein reminds us, the country had virtually no defence budget and no real idea how it would fight a war on a global scale. We were essentially putting an army together on the fly, training people and learning how to train them all at the same time. It was a massive undertaking and over the course of the war the government poured more than $5.5 billion into the war effort.

Rather than try to tell that big, sprawling story, the author tells us several smaller parts of it: a retired major-general talks about his service in Sicily as Commander of the Royal Artillery; another is still bitter about being scapegoated for the failure of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, which he commanded, during the later stages of the Battle of Normandy (other people interviewed for the book suggest he might have been legitimately relieved of his command).

There are more than 60 interviewees: four major generals, a dozen officers who served under them, nearly 30 staff officers and an assortment of family members. Because the author didn’t use a tape recorder during the interviews, the book is rather light on direct quotes from the interviewees; Granatstein is mostly paraphrasing, which occasionally leads to a bit on confusion. Did, for example, an interviewee describe someone as having as much personality as a dead dog, or is that the author’s interpretation? On the other hand, there’s no confusion at all when Granatstein tells us that a former Adjutant General says the Battle of Dieppe was “stupid,” and was entirely the fault of poor planning by Admiral Mountbatten.

Because the Canadian military community during the Second World War, at least at the command level, was tightly knit, many of the interviewees knew and worked with the same people. Commanders like General Andrew McNaughton (who oversaw units in the UK and France) and Major-General Christopher Vokes (who commanded the Canadian forces at the Battle of Ortona — and about whom opinion is rather interestingly divided) — are important elements of the book, although they were never interviewed for it. Similarly, the interviewees’ recollections are sometimes augmented, sometimes contradicted, by the memories of other interviewees. It makes for an interesting patchwork-quilt effect: many small pieces of a story join together to create a larger picture.

Although the book might have been better if we had heard more from the interviewees themselves — the subtitle is Voices of Canada’s Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them, but the voice is mostly Granatstein’s — it most definitely succeeds at what it’s trying to do: show us what the Second World War was like for its commanders, as remembered by the people themselves.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/thenovascotian/1412976-canadian-war-effort-surprised-all

Mission veteran Albert Wells was among Canadian invasion force on D-Day

by  Kevin Mills - Mission City Record
Mission, B.C. posted Nov 6, 2016 at 5:00 AM


Albert Wells, now 101, was 24 when he enlisted in 1942.

Sitting in his motorized chair, Albert Wells wheels his way through the lobby of Mission’s Chartwell Cedarbrooke retirement residence on his way to the bistro.

With Remembrance Day a week away, the 101-year-old veteran of the Second World War spoke to The Record about his experience.

Wells was in his mid-20s when he enlisted in 1942.

“What happened was three of my friends had joined the army and they sent them overseas to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the Japanese took over and they were all killed,” he said.

“When they got killed, I got so upset about it that I went right out and signed up. That was my main reason for joining.”

Because of his experience in mining, Wells became a member of the 6th Field Company of Royal Canadian Engineers.

He said they wanted him to go to officers’ training, but he declined and remained a private.

“I knew the basics of war is based on people who go to the front line all the time. So I was afraid if I got to be an officer I might get put into headquarters or something like that and I wouldn’t be up there with my buddies.”

Wells was serving with the 6th when they landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944.

From there they moved through France, along the coast and made steady progress until they reached Holland.

He said they had to stay in Holland for some time before they managed to carry on – at a slow pace of fighting – until they reached Germany on May 8.

“We were immediately sent back to Holland,” he said, as the Germans had surrendered.

Because of the huge number of soldiers being sent home, Wells said he had to wait in Holland for six months before he could find transport.

“We fell in love with the Dutch people. For quite a while I corresponded with people there who were so nice and helpful. We had a nice connection there.”

Last year, Wells became a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour. He received this title from the Government of the Republic of France for his service during the war.

During last year’s ceremony, held in Mission, Wells said he wasn’t sure why he was receiving this highly esteemed award. He joked that they may have “pulled his name from a hat.”

But the truth is, his service is still remembered.

Remembrance Day is Nov.11.

http://www.missioncityrecord.com/news/400047631.html

Awakening at Vimy Ridge: Diary of a granddaughter's pilgrimage

RUTH EDGETT
Published November 6, 2016 - 2:06pm


Walter Seymour Allward’s iconic war memorial at Vimy Ridge represents Canada’s contribution to the First World War and names 11,285 soldiers who died in France but have no known graves. In all, 60,000 Canadians were killed in that war. Here, the figure of Canada Bereft, also known as Mother Canada to locals, looks down upon a giant stone sarcophagus that lies on the battlefield below. Barely visible on the sarcophagus is a tribute left by an unknown Nova Scotian the same day as the author’s visit. Photos RUTH EDGETT

“If you’re going to die you might as well die trying.”

This came to mind on a fine April morning in 2013 as I descended a steep foot path below Vimy Ridge and gazed back up the slope toward the colossal white monument that crowns it. I was thinking of my grandfather, George Millar, one of the Canadian soldiers who drove the German army off that ridge nearly a century before.

When he sprang from his sodden trench that Easter Monday in 1917 and began wading through the mud toward his enemy, Millar was nine days away from his 20th birthday. His baptism into infantry life had been the dying days of the bloody debacle at the Somme the previous fall.

Already wounded once, he would have witnessed more than enough sudden death on the battlefield, but here he was again in the thick of it. He and his brothers in battle had to have considered this day might be their last. I could well imagine him saying those words.

Having no mother or home to call his own, Millar had left Nova Scotia with his father around age 14 to try his luck in the wheat fields out west, where he eventually signed up with the 78th Battalion Winnipeg Grenadiers. Once overseas, the Grenadiers became part of the 12th Brigade within the 4th Canadian Division. On April 9, 1917, that brigade’s main objective was to capture the highest point on Vimy Ridge, Hill 145.

Nearly two decades later, when Walter Seymour Allward’s magnificent monument was ready for unveiling on that same hill, the Royal Canadian Legion organized a weeks-long “pilgrimage” to France, Flanders and England for 6,200 Canadian veterans. George and Ruth Millar were among them.


This simple but poignant, evocative plaque is placed in Vimy Ridge. A similar one is placed at Beaumont Hamel.

In her diary of that trip, which included lavish banquets, a gathering of 100,000 for the unveiling, tours of the battle sites and a garden party at Buckingham Palace, my grandmother wrote of the overwhelming numbers of crisp, white grave markers set in neat, green burial grounds throughout France and Belgium.

“At last one has seen so many cemeteries and memorials to such great numbers of our dead that the mind becomes, in a measure, numbed by it all and refuses to try to realize just how many were sacrificed in ‘The War to End War.’”

As I visited the same locale, it struck home that the terms battlefield and cemetery are synonymous there. By war’s end more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers had died, and all are buried where they fought. Nearly 3,600 died in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, most on the first day.

Grandpa never spoke of the war to his grandchildren and rarely to anyone else. Yet we were quietly told in his last years that he visited those old battlefields in his mind quite often. So I had to believe that underlying the legion’s triumphal pilgrimage was an undercurrent of deep sorrow, and that my grandfather and his fellow veterans must have felt it most keenly right there on that ridge where they had endured so much and lost so many.

It was this idea of a permanent, private mourning and a memory of unspeakable hell that had me doubting my place on the hill that day. What gave me the right, all these decades later, to arrive unasked and tramp like a tourist over this site that must have meant so much to him?

I was unprepared for my first encounter with the monument, blazing white and soaring toward an azure sky as it must have appeared that July day in 1936.

From the instant I saw it, I could not lower the camera from my eye, so perfect were the images and angles and carved figures there. By the time I was close enough to feel it looming above me, I had been squinting through the camera so long that I didn’t know if the tear on my cheek was due to that, or to the force of a country’s grief and gratitude so eloquently portrayed in all that stone.

By then I was on my knees, grateful the camera masked a need to bow down before this marker of my grandfather’s courage.

But, even after all this, I realized I had been approaching the sculpture from the rear.

As I rounded the other side, there stood Canada Bereft, known to the locals as Mother Canada, and seen in just about every picture representing Vimy Ridge. But looking at her photos is nothing like standing beside her and feeling the profound and palpable grief in the set of her face and the stoop of her giant shoulders.

I needed time to absorb it all, so I sat and looked out over the tree tops toward the plain below, then scanned the ridge, noting the entrance to that narrow dirt path I was about to take. And I marvelled at the peace that prevailed there, all the way to the horizon and beyond.

“Not bad, grandpa,” I thought.

Finally I wandered to the base of the monument and it was there I came upon the answer to my earlier doubt: propped against an out-sized stone sarcophagus that rests on the old battleground beneath Mother Canada’s gaze were three small Nova Scotia flags.

They were untouched by an early morning rain, so they must have been placed not long before I arrived. Beside them sat a small flat stone and on it had been painted two red maple leaves encircled by these words: A piece of home for those who didn’t return.

Seeing that bit of Nova Scotia so far from home — and feeling a connection with my grandfather that I’d never felt before — I knew that tribute held a message for me, too.

It has taken a few years, but I believe the message was this: for George Millar’s buddies who fell at Vimy and elsewhere, I was their piece of home.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/thenovascotian/1412979-awakening-at-vimy-ridge-diary-of-a-granddaughters-pilgrimage

The men and women of the 'greatest generation' deserve our thanks.

Nov 06, 2016

As he was growing up in the 1950s, ‘60s and early '70s, contributor Michael Lightstone’s knowledge of the Second World War was limited. He and other baby boom-era children had no clue about the horrors of battles overseas and the Holocaust. Studying history, and a career in newspaper reporting that included interviewing elderly Canadian veterans and Holocaust survivors, changed that.

By: Michael Lightstone

A Remembrance Day banner is fixed to a light pole near the cenotaph in the Grand Parade in Halifax.

Ours was not the “greatest generation,” as American journalist Tom Brokaw wrote years ago. No. Hardly.

But as the next cohort, we self-indulgent baby boomers benefited greatly from the sacrifices our mothers and fathers made during the Depression and Second World War.

This is one of the plain truths I think about every year as Remembrance Day approaches. We’re lucky, we aging boomers. Sadly, there’s a shrinking segment of the preceding generation to thank for that.

Unfortunately, for the first time in decades, I won’t be able to attend any of the solemn Nov. 11 events in the Halifax region, where I live. My wife and I should be on a plane heading out of the province on that date.

I will, however, be tapping into private memories. Not recollections of horrific battles overseas or happy postwar landings back in Canada, of course, but fond memories of my parents and other deceased relatives from the greatest generation — and of strangers I’ve spoken with who survived the Second World War and the Holocaust.

During a journalism career in the newspaper business that lasted almost 30 years, I had the good fortune to interview such elderly kindred spirits as concentration camp survivors, D-Day veterans, Allied commandos, merchant mariners, war brides and a conscientious objector who dedicated her long life to peace activism.


A pole at the Halifax Central Library is decorated with poppies on Sunday. The names of those to be remembered were marked on the poppies. The event was part of the From Vimy to Juno travelling exhibit and open house at the library that marked the start of Remembrance Week.

Teachers often recall the students who really stood out during their days in the classroom. I remember special interviewees, and almost all were Second World War vets or Holocaust survivors.

My father, who died on Valentine’s Day in 2002, was 22 years old and in the Canadian army when the war drew to a close in 1945. I think of him often, including on Remembrance Day, but his wartime contribution luckily ended safely at a military base at home when Germany surrendered.

One of the stories I recall my dad telling me is about his family’s wartime years in his neighbourhood in Vancouver: parents always dreaded the sight of a delivery man, carrying a small envelope, walking up to a front door. That’s because that would be a telegram announcing the death of someone’s son.

Growing up in the 1950s, ‘60s and early '70s, my knowledge of the Second World War was limited. My friends, too, probably got their information from the same sources: school textbooks, war photos in magazines, Hollywood movies, TV shows and war-themed comic books.

We were carefree kids riding bicycles and buying Popsicles — we had no clue. I learned more as I got older, and newspaper reporting helped fuel my education.

My news assignments involving Holocaust survivors and veterans always elicited emotional responses: personal feelings of respect, admiration and gratitude. And they’ve helped motivate me to get my rear end out to Remembrance Day ceremonies when the autumn sky looks ominous and the temperature dips to below seasonal norms.

If I’m perhaps considering skipping the annual memorial event, all I have to do is think of the 94-year-old merchant seaman I interviewed who had tears in his eyes when sharing a story of buddies who died at sea after their convoy vessel was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by the enemy’s navy.

Should I contemplate staying comfortably at home instead of attending an outdoor service at the local cenotaph, I let my mind drift back to the face-to-face chat I had with a D-Day survivor who told me of the young Canucks who drowned between his landing craft and the French beach they were all struggling to reach.

He made it to shore, he said, because of two crucial factors: pure luck, and the fact he’d been a competitive swimmer.

On that historic day — June 6, 1944 — some 150,000 troops participated in the joint-operation invasion of German-occupied France, according to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Of those, about 14,000 were Canadians.


Second World War British army veteran David Seager, who fought in the Burma campaign as a communications specialist, displays his Burma Star medal during an interview at the Halifax Central Library on Sunday. Seager was a special guest of the "From Vimy to Juno" travelling exhibit and open house at the library that marked the start of Remembrance Week.

During that day alone, Canada’s Armed Forces sustained 1,074 casualties, including 359 fatalities. Lest we forget.

When I have the urge to give Remembrance Day ceremonies a pass, I think of a Jewish man I’ve written about, now in his early 90s, who struggled with survivor’s guilt following his liberation from a Nazi death camp. Or I recall another interview subject, a retiree in his late 70s, who was from a Jewish family in Poland.

He said he spent part of his early childhood hidden in a secret space in an attic above a flour mill.

If I feel like putting off a trip to the cenotaph until another Remembrance Day, I think of the members of the greatest generation — men and women — who won’t be with us on the next Nov. 11. There are no more veterans from the First World War; vets from the Second World War are fewer in number as the 21st century marches on.

I remember covering an event outside Halifax more than three years ago, which trained a spotlight on Ottawa’s funeral and burial program for low-income veterans. A local business operator, who’s in his 80s and who said he’s an army veteran, was offering discount burials for needy military and police vets in the cemetery he owned.

As baby boomers graduate to grandparent status — lots of them already have — I wonder how many of us stop to consider what the world would be like if the good guys hadn’t won the war. As someone who studied history prior to getting journalism training, I sometimes think about that — especially when attending a Remembrance Day ceremony.

I’m a guy who doesn’t follow any religion, and I’m also a non-believer, but I had a bar mitzvah in 1969 at age 13.

If it weren’t for the efforts and sacrifices made by the greatest generation, which had no sense of security during the Depression and subsequent war, I wouldn’t be here.

Neither would scores of others.

That’s part of what I remember every Nov. 11.

Michael Lightstone is a freelance reporter living in Dartmouth.

https://www.localxpress.ca/local-news/commentary-the-men-and-women-of-the-greatest-generation-deserve-our-thanks-457261

REMEMBERING CANADIAN JEWISH WAR VETERANS

By Mark Mietkiewicz -  October 31, 2016


Excerpt from jewish War Heroes, Canadian Jewish Congress

On Nov. 11, millions of people around the world will pause to remember the men and women who served their countries and gave their lives. This week and next, I devote my column to our Jewish veterans and to the Jewish soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.

The history of Jews in the Canadian military dates back to the the Boer War (1899-1902) as well as the world wars, the Korean War and involvement in Canada’s other military activities. Almost 17,000 Canadian Jews volunteered for service in World War II, with 420 killed, died, or missing and presumed dead. “An additional 2,000 Jews enlisted, but did not declare their Jewish identity in order to avert danger if captured by the Nazi forces.”

The Canadian Jewish Congress has created an important database, Canadian Casualties in the Armed Forces, which includes the names of 577 Jewish men and women who gave their lives, including:

• Lieut. Myer Cohen, of Toronto was awarded the Military Cross. Lieut. Cohen stormed a strong enemy position at Passchendaele in November 1917. At the head of his men he reached the objective. No reinforcements were available, and with his few men he held the position until all were killed.
• Lance Sgt. Jack Faibish of Markinch, Sask., enlisted in the army on Sept. 11, 1939, and went overseas shortly afterwards. He was officially reported killed in action in the invasion of Normandy, France, on July 28, 1944. In 1951, the Saskatchewan government named Faibish Bay in his honour.
• Lieut. Joseph Levison of Halifax was a Canadian Army public relations officer attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He was killed when a jeep in which he was a passenger drove over a Communist road mine. It is believed that Lieut. Levison was the only Jewish Canadian casualty of the Korean War.


Canadian Jews in World war ii casualties published in 1948

In 1948, Canadian Jewish Congress published the book, Canadian Jews in World War II – Casualties. Bill Gladstone, well known to readers of The Canadian Jewish News, has done a marvelous service by scanning the pages of that book and preserving the memory of “those reported killed, dead, missing, presumed dead, wounded, injured, ill and prisoners of war.” Being able to see these original pages brings home the sacrifice these soldiers made and void they left behind.

One of the most striking artifacts that I came across was “Jewish War Heroes.” Created by Canadian Jewish Congress, it depicts in comic book form the efforts of several Jewish servicemen, including Col. David Croll (later Senator Croll), First Officers Lou Warren Somers of Toronto and Max Shvemar of Montreal and Maj. Benjamin Dunkelman (who later served in the Israel Defence Forces during that country’s War of Independence.)

Again, to put a human face on war, don’t miss a lovely feature from 2009 in the Toronto Star titled, Remembrance Day: The boys of Major Street. Dr. Joe Greenberg remembers Chucky and Porky, Solly and Harold, and the other Jewish immigrant kids from his neighbourhood who died in World War II. Dr. Joe was one of only two “boys” who survived the war. In 2013, the City of Toronto honoured them with the naming of the Boys of Major Lane. “I love it, but all I can think of are these kids,” Greenberg told the Toronto Star before breaking down in tears. “We’re talking about 17- and 18-year-old kids that never came home.”

Sam Garnet, Jewish Canadian WWII Veteran



I was heartened to come across a website for the Jewish Canadian Military Museum. “Established in 2000, the Jewish Canadian Military Museum houses a large variety of war memorabilia that has been donated throughout the years.” Unfortunately, seeing those artifacts will prove difficult. “The Jewish Canadian Military Museum now resides in a small office… where all records are stored. Artifacts are all in storage and now need a permanent facility to preserve and display these valued Military Treasures and a place for the Public to visit.”

If you would like to pay your respects to the fallen this Remembrance Day, you can visit the Toronto monument to their memory unveiled in 2011 on the grounds of the UJA’s Sherman Campus just north of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue. In Montreal, a monument to Jewish war veterans can be found in the city’s Jewish Community Campus. It reads in French, Hebrew and English, “In tribute to the thousands of Jewish War Veterans who fought in Canada’s wars and in memory of the hundreds who lost their lives in service to their country.”

The monument quotes Psalm 23:4, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou are with me.”

http://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/jewish-learning/remembering-canadian-jewish-war-veterans

Vaughan unveils public display paying tribute to local veterans

Exhibit features photos, maps, artifacts telling story of war hero, politician Major Addison Alexander "Lex" Mackenzie

Tribute to veterans
Photo courtesy of City of Vaughan
Peter Glynn (left) Sandy Agnew and Jim Agnew, grand-nephews of Major Addison Alexander "Lex" Mackenzie, attended the unveiling of a new display at city hall paying tribute to the war hero and other local veterans. Nov. 1, 2016

Vaughan Citizen
By Adam Martin-Robbins

A main thoroughfare, two hospitals, a school and the local Legion branch bear his name, but the story of Major Addison Alexander “Lex” Mackenzie, a war hero and long-serving politician, isn’t widely known.

A new exhibit honouring Vaughan’s veterans on display at city hall may help change that.

“It’s terrific because it remembers him and it gives people context; why is it called Major Mackenzie Drive?” Peter Glynn, Mackenzie’s grand-nephew, said following a special Remembrance Day ceremony and exhibit unveiling Tuesday, Nov. 1.

“It’s the story of his whole life. He served in the war and then became a politician. He was an old-time politician. … His view was that you served the people, you solved their problems and you helped them with government issues and everything else.”

Mackenzie was born Nov. 1, 1885 to Donald Mackenzie and Lydia Ann Addison on the family’s Woodbridge farm.

Raised in Woodbridge along with his four siblings, Mackenzie pursued a military career, joining the Governor General’s Body Guards in 1904 as a private.

He eventually attained the rank of squadron sergeant-major and received a commission to lieutenant in 1912.

Mackenzie was transferred to France as part of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles at the beginning of the First World War.

In 1916, Mackenzie fought bravely at Regina Trench during the Battle of the Somme, one of the war’s bloodiest battles, for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

He rose to the rank of major before being severely wounded by shrapnel from an artillery shell at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917.

Though Mackenzie survived, his younger brother, Donald Ross, was killed in 1918 fighting in France.

Upon returning home, Mackenzie settled on the family homestead in Woodbridge and took up farming.

A few years later, he became immersed in municipal politics, serving as a Village of Woodbridge councillor from 1922 to 1926 and as reeve from 1927 to 1935.

In 1945, Mackenzie jumped to provincial politics, serving as a Progressive Conservative MLA representing York North until 1967, when he retired at age 82.

He died May 13, 1970 and is buried at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church Cemetery on Pine Valley Drive, just north of Major Mackenzie Drive, named in his honour.

Alexander Mackenzie High School in Richmond Hill, Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital, Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital and the Royal Canadian Legion Mackenzie Branch 414 in Woodbridge also bear his name.

The exhibit tells his story through photos, maps, personal items and historical artifacts including the sword he carried as a member of Governor General’s Body Guard and a piece of shrapnel removed from his shoulder in 1935.

To honour Vaughan’s other veterans, the display at city hall features plaques bearing the names of Vaughan residents who served during the First World War and the Second World War.

There’s also a poppy mural. Residents are invited to write a personal message on a paper poppy to post on the mural, which will hang in the atrium until Nov. 30.

“Nothing rejoices the human spirit, the human heart, than to have people that actually live meaningful lives,” Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said.

http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/6941712-vaughan-unveils-public-display-paying-tribute-to-local-veterans/

Island museum hosts impressive military exhibit

Monday, October 31, 2016 10:17:30 EDT PM

By Ben Leeson, Sudbury Star


A military exhibit running at the Kagawong museum on Manitoulin Island from Nov. 1 to Nov. 11 includes uniforms, weapons and other equipment, vehicles such as a jeep and motorcycle, and audio and video displays about Canada's history at war. (Photo supplied)

With Remembrance Day approaching, and with fewer and fewer veterans of the Second World War left to tell their stories, Rick Nelson figures it's more important than ever for Canadians to keep in touch of their military history.

Nelson is curator of the Old Mill Heritage Museum in Kagawong, which next month will host the largest collection of military artifacts in Northern Ontario, every day from Nov. 1 to 11.

"We recognize the importance of Remembrance Day and we salute our veterans," Nelson said. "We have a lot of local veterans and this is one way to give back to them and an opportunity for folks, for young people, students to come in and actually see it up close, things that they could only have read in a book or seen on TV or in a documentary.

"You have to go to Ottawa, to the war museum, to see a larger exhibit. We are the largest military exhibit in Northern Ontario."

It's an annual exhibit, but one that is changed and revamped each year to offer visitors something different.

Artifacts have been supplied by Christian Shoebridge, a private collector. The exhibit includes uniforms, weapons and other equipment and even vehicles such as a jeep and motorcycle, as well as audio and video displays about Canada's history at war.

"We have schools come in, bus tours, and we try to always have a veteran available, so after they have done the tour, then we do a question-and-answer session with a veteran," Nelson said. "Obviously, we are running out of World War II guys, so we're dealing mostly with Cold War veterans and Korean War veterans, too. Now, we have another generation of soldiers who are coming up, the ones who have served in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and we have family members who live in the area who have sons or sons-in-law or brothers who have served over there in Afghanistan."

A highlight of the exhibit is the Wall of Heroes, bearing the names of current members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

"We have a salute to them and we have a wall with their pictures and what their service record is," Nelson said.

The exhibit will remain open seven days a week during its run, from noon until 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.

"We're going with extended hours this year, because we have lots of people who can't make it in the daytime, so this year, we're extending to the supper hour, as well," Nelson said.

Far from a series of static displays, the exhibit is a multimedia experience.

"We have a lot of screens and every screen will feature something pertaining to some aspect of the war, whether World War I, World War II, could be the Korean War – it's very multimedia," Nelson said. "When you first walk into the building, there's a radio playing the big band music the soldiers would have been listening to when they went off to the second world war, like the Glenn Miller stuff and everything like that. It gives you the ambiance."

Another radio plays news broadcasts Canadians would have heard at home, from the beginning to the end of the war, as well as items from broadcasters such as BBC or NBC and famous speeches from the likes of Winston Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

"There's lots to see and hear," Nelson said.

New this year are several unpublished photographs from wartime, not seen before in newspapers or magazines. Also new is a case of bayonets and other blades from different eras.

"We have lots of weapons – handguns, bazookas, grenades, you name it," Nelson said.

Separate from the rest of the exhibit is a room full of artifacts from Nazi Germany, including uniforms, flags and memorabilia which prominently features the graphic symbolism of the Third Reich.

"It's segregated from the rest of the exhibits, because it's dealing with a dark part of our history," Nelson said.

The exhibit features a motorcycle from World War II and a jeep from the Korean War, parked outside the museum, also from Shoebridge's collection.

"He's a local who has been collecting military artifacts from other collectors around the world for years," Nelson said. "He just picked up an autographed copy last year of Mein Kampf. He got it from a collector who got it from Hitler's lawyer. Not something you'd come across every day, for sure."

For more information, contact Nelson at 705-282-1442 or oldmillheritage@billingstwp.ca.

bleeson@postmedia.com

Twitter: @ben_leeson

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2016/10/31/island-museum-hosts-impressive-military-exhibit

No Stone Left Alone

By David Feil, Cochrane Times
Wednesday, October 26, 2016 9:23:05 MDT AM

The Cochrane Cadets and Legion are seeking the community's assistance in order to come up with a complete list of local graves belonging to veterans so that they can give the soldiers who fought for our freedom the respect they deserve leading up to Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.



To do this, the cadets will be taking part in the No Stone Left Alone initiative that was begun in Edmonton in 2011 to honour veterans by leaving a poppy on the headstone and give raise awareness among the youth of the sacrifice and experiences of the men and women who served overseas.

“I knew about the No Stone Left Alone program and thought why don't we do that here?” said Legionnaire Jerry Peddle.

During one of his three tours with the Canadian Armed Forces, Peddle had friends killed in Afghanistan who are now buried and knows how much it means to have the lives of those who did not return home recognized by the next generation of Canadians.

The program began with Maureen Bianchini-Purvis whose parents both served in World War II. When her mother died when she was 12, her dying wish was that Maureen would place a poppy on their graves every year.

While Maureen kept her promise, one year her daughters noticed that many headstones in the Field of Honour did not have poppies left on them so the family took it upon themselves to visit these graves themselves and start No Stone Left Alone. Since then, communities across the country have become involved with thousands of students laying poppies on the graves of veterans who would otherwise be left forgotten on Remembrance Day.

As the Legion's liaison with the Cadets, Peddle felt it would be appropriate for the group to take part in this burgeoning tradition.

“It's because of these people the cadets and everyone has the freedom they do today,” said Peddle, who would like to further personalize the act of laying a poppy by leaving a small Canadian flag and a coin at the headstones, the latter being an American tradition during the Vietnam war where a penny meant you knew of the person or simply visited the grave, a nickel meant you trained with the individual in boot camp, a dime that you served together and a quarter was left if you where there when the person interred was killed.

“I've heard there's about 30 graves [but] we don't want to miss anyone,” said Peddle, who is asking that anyone with family, friends or simply knowledge of veterans buried locally to contact him so that they can ensure everyone who served in the military is visited by the Cadets on Nov. 5. “I'm sure there's people who've been in the military with nothing on their gravestone [that indicates they're a veteran].”

If you know of any veterans buried around Cochrane you can contact Peddle at jerry_in_nb@yahoo.com.

dfeil@postmedia.com

http://www.cochranetimes.com/2016/10/26/no-stone-left-alone

Learning from veterans

Thursday, October 27, 2016 9:38:53 EDT AM


Attendees to the Remembrance Day Reception, to be held at Centennial Hall after the service at the London Cenotaph, will be able to view Remember November 11 Association’s displays about country’s military history.

For those in attendance at the Remembrance Day ceremony at the London Cenotaph this coming November 11, there will be an opportunity to learn more about our country’s history as well as say “Thank you” to the men and women who served our country. The Remember November 11 Association will be hosting their fifth annual Remembrance Day Reception for veterans and Canadian Forces members with food and beverages, which takes place immediately after the ceremony at the Cenotaph.

“I started this because I wanted to do something for the veterans after the service,” Sean Wilson of the Remember November 11 Association says. The idea for the reception came after Wilson attended a Remembrance Day ceremony with a veteran of Dieppe. Following the event, Wilson recalls a long line of people who came over to shake the veteran’s hand. Wilson decided there needed to be a warmer venue for those who wanted to meet with the veterans after the event.

“While we’re at the Cenotaph, we’re thinking about the fallen and this event gives us a chance to celebrate the veterans and what they’ve gone through,” Wilson says.

“We don’t do anything ceremonial at the reception,” Wilson explains. Instead, the reception serves as a place for cadets, youth groups and the general public to come and talk to veterans and learn more about their experiences. Wilson realizes there are many Remembrance Day events going on in London on November 11. “We just wanted a moment where people could come and talk,” he says.

In addition to having coffee and cake, those in attendance will be able to learn more about Canadian military history through the displays that Wilson has created “based on what the veterans wanted shown about their conflict.” He explains many of the discussions incorporate the displays. He gives the example of a Korean war veteran who will use the display to show where he served.

While “even adults seem to learn a lot from being there,” Wilson says that what he has learned from working with students is that “they connect better to a personal story” which is even more impactful if a veteran, someone who was their age when they served, is sitting right there.

Wilson says the veterans really seem to enjoy talking to the public and especially the students. He says, in many cases, “they don’t want to leave. They’ll sit there for two or three hours, because it’s comfortable for them. They talk about what they’ve been through.”

Cadets will continue to play a major role in the reception. “The cadets in the city are just thrilled to come out and support the veterans,” Wilson says. “I can’t give the cadets enough credit. When they show up, they are all about the veterans.”

“Last year we had quite a response,” Wilson says, estimating approximately 250-300 people were in attendance at the reception, including a number of cadets and leaders. With added exposure coming from events at the Remembrance Garden, located on River Road in London, the Association estimates this year’s turnout could be up to 50 percent more.

“We’re trying to honour our veterans but we’re also trying to pass this knowledge and wisdom on to the younger generation,” Wilson says.

If you go:

Remembrance Day Reception

November 11, 11:30 am -2:30 pm

(immediately after the service at the Cenotaph)

Centennial Hall

For more information, visit remembernovember11.com

Story written by John M. Milner, Special to Londoner

http://www.thelondoner.ca/2016/10/27/learning-from-veterans