A new D-Day story 78 years after June 6, 1944

Written by Ted Barris on June 6th, 2022June 7th, 2022. Leave a comment

D-Day: 78 Years After His Father Endured a Nazi Attack, a Canadian Man Travelled to France to Retrieve Remnants of His Harrowing Survival

Ted Barris | June 6th, 2022

Cobby Engelberg training in Canada as a wireless radio/air gunner (WAG) in 1943 at approximately age 23. A year later he survived a Nazi attack and plane crash during the D-Day invasions — the story of which his son has been tracing for decades. Photo: Courtesy of Harvey Engelberg

The mere mention of “June 6” triggers images of Allied troops storming the iconic beaches of Normandy during D-Day, the greatest invasion gamble of the Second World War. And with all those years of research, analysis and interviewing of the battle’s veterans since 1944, it seems impossible that any stories remain unfound or untold. Freelance contributor and military historian Ted Barris contends there will always be new D-Day stories unearthed — such as this one, in which a son is gifted physical remnants of his father’s harrowing survival following a Nazi attack.

One day in April, almost 78 years to the anniversary of D-Day, at a farm kitchen table in Basseneville, France, Harvey Engelberg came face-to-face with his father’s June 6, 1944, war story. There, on a red-and-white plaid tablecloth, Thérèse Férey and her husband Ghyslaine opened a towel to reveal 42 pieces of wartime-era aluminum. The Féreys had recently salvaged the Second World War artifacts from a forgotten corner of their farm. The jagged bits were all that remained of a DC-3 transport aircraft that had carried RCAF wireless radio operator Cobby Engelberg and a plane-full of paratroops into the middle of the greatest amphibious invasion in military history — Operation Overlord.

“Here,” Madame Férey said to Engelberg, now 69, at that first-ever meeting of the two. “We found these, but they belong to you.”

(more…)

Where have all our sentries gone?

Written by Ted Barris on June 2nd, 2022June 2nd, 2022. Leave a comment

Spruces, pines, basswoods and maples were Ronnie’s sentry trees on our street.

I remember a sultry afternoon in the 1990s, a few years after my wife and I and our two daughters had arrived and put down roots here in Uxbridge. I was sitting on our neighbour’s porch. The July sunshine beat down on Balsam Street North with all the intensity of a mid-summer heat wave. My neighbour, Ronnie Egan, had invited me to sit for a few minutes’ rest from cutting grass. We were both enjoying the shady respite, when she pointed to the Manitoba maple trees that deflected the intense rays of the afternoon sun from both her house and mine.

“Sentries,” she said. “They’re like sentries up and down our street.”

I noted her military terminology referring to the trees – she being a Second World War veteran of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service – and wondered why she’d chosen that word to describe the mature trees along our street. (more…)

Not quite Oz

Written by Ted Barris on May 24th, 2022May 27th, 2022. Leave a comment

Victoria Day weekend storm came right up my street in Uxbridge.

About midday on Sunday, nearly 24 hours after the storm that hit south-central Ontario, a cluster of people came walking down Balsam Street North toward us. My wife and I were piling a wall of tree debris in front of our home. We must’ve looked like zombies dragging branches and brush to and fro. We suddenly realized the cluster of people was our three grandsons, our daughter and son-in-law from a few blocks away in Uxbridge. My grandson ran up and embraced me.

“Just wanted to hug you,” he said.

“Me too,” I said and for the first time in hours I felt human again. (more…)

Peek-a-boo election campaign

Written by Ted Barris on May 18th, 2022May 18th, 2022. 1 Comment

More election signs in front of the arena than candidates inside at the forum.

At about 6 o’clock, last Wednesday night, my Cosmos editorial cohabitant, Roger Varley, and I arrived at the Uxbridge arena and began setting up chairs. It was the night of the election debate that the newspaper had organized. And, as usual, it was an all-hands-on-deck effort. By about 6:30, Roger and I had pulled about 50 or 60 seats from the storage closet out onto the floor. We paused a moment, each scanning the arrangement as if to say:

“Do you think that’s enough? How many people do you think will show up?”

During most federal, provincial and municipal elections over the past 20 years or so, our all-candidates forums here in town, have indeed reflected the title. All the candidates (and sometimes more than we expected) have arrived and joined the discussions. (more…)

A stage without Kenneth…

Written by Ted Barris on May 8th, 2022May 8th, 2022. 1 Comment

The look Ken Welsh often brought to his December readings of *A Child’s Christmas in Wales*. Photo – Charlotte Hale.

I can think of all kinds of memorable spoken quotations. Winston Churchill’s wartime proclamation, “We will fight them on the beaches…” Oprah Winfrey’s motto, “Think like a queen.” Danny Gallivan’s “Savardian Spin-o-rama” on Hockey Night in Canada. Not only are the words etched in my memory, so are their voices. But there’s another memorable voice I’ve always heard around Christmastime offering these memorable words:

“I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was 12, or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was six.” Of course, those are words of Dylan Thomas, from the opening of A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

But I have only ever heard one voice associated with those lines, that of Kenneth Welsh. (more…)

Warriors’ invisible battles

Written by Ted Barris on May 5th, 2022May 5th, 2022. Leave a comment

Anita Anand, stressing the important role family plays in treating PTSD.

It was a morning dedicated to dealing with invisible wounds among veterans. It brought together former soldiers and first responders who are coping with trauma, support groups trying to help them, and politicians finding workable solutions to post-traumatic stress disorder in Canada.

Among the first to speak, Anita Anand, the minister of national defence, climbed the podium steps on Tuesday to address the gathering. She paused, scanned the faces of those present and offered a personal note.

“This is a difficult time for the military community,” she said. “I wish to recognize and remember officer cadets Jack Hogarth, Andrei Honciu, Broden Murphy and Andres Salek.” (more…)

Adapting to saving the planet

Written by Ted Barris on April 28th, 2022May 2nd, 2022. Leave a comment

Since the time of Lenoir’s “hippomobile,” it’s taken us 150 years to wean ourselves off combustion engines.

I’ve never been afraid to seek advice, particularly when it comes to legal matters, health care or buying a car. Several weeks ago, I raised the challenge of buying an electric or hybrid car in front of some knowledgeable friends. I play summer hockey with a group of men almost all of whom have worked in the automobile industry all their lives. When I asked what make and model of electric or hybrid car I should consider, just about all of them had the same answer:

“Within a year or 18 months,” they said, “they’ll all be making EVs (electric vehicles) of some sort. Not just Tesla, Toyota and Hyundai. Everybody.” (more…)

“Sprinter” in April

Written by Ted Barris on April 21st, 2022April 22nd, 2022. Leave a comment

Hopes for an early patio gathering in Manitoba disappeared under a spring snowstorm. CJRB Radio.

It’s my fault. I admit it. I changed my car tires over from winters to summers last week. And that’s why we got whacked by a snow storm on Monday night. I tempted fate – figuring that mid-April wasn’t too early to switch over – and I caused all this rotten winter weather three weeks into spring. Mind you, I did hear Ed Lawrence say on the radio this week that if one wants to be brave planting some hardy trees and bushes early, it’s OK.

“Go for it,” said Lawrence, the former Globe and Mail columnist and chief horticulturist to six governors-general and seven prime ministers. And he was speaking on CBC Radio’s Radio Noon program just as winds and sleet were blowing past both his Almonte, Ont., home and mine here in Uxbridge. (more…)

The case against hoarding history

Written by Ted Barris on April 13th, 2022April 13th, 2022. Leave a comment

RCAF wireless radio operator Cobby Engelberg, during training in Canada in WWII. Photo courtesy Harvey Engelberg.

His original itinerary involved a flight from Canada to Israel, but when Harvey Engelberg received a letter of inquiry from France, a few weeks ago, his plans changed. Thérèse Férey and her husband, current owners of a farm in Normandy, wondered if Harvey was related to one Cobby Engelberg, a Canadian airman shot down in the early hours of June 6, 1944.

When Harvey explained that Cobby was his father, he changed his flight plans to include a side trip to Normandy.

“I own a farm in Bassenville,” Mme Férey wrote in her letter, “and we’ve found pieces of (your father’s) plane that crashed on our property. Would you like them?” (more…)

When atrocity prompts profanity

Written by Ted Barris on April 7th, 2022April 5th, 2022. Leave a comment

Civilian casualties in Ukraine. The Guardian.

For the past week, those of us trying to find words for the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have learned depravity has no end. First the invaders bombed apartment buildings and theatres indiscriminately. Then, they fired missiles specifically targeting civilian hospitals and schools.

Now Human Rights Watch has reported accounts of Russian occupiers raping women. Maria Mezentseva, an MP in Ukraine, reported one such case.

“There is one … scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house,” she told The Guardian, in the U.K. “His wife was raped several times in front of her underage child.” Added another Ukrainian MP, Lesia Vasylenko, “Most of these women have either been executed after the crime of rape, or they have taken their own lives.” (more…)