Bill Stewart, Paul Moffatt and Al Thomas, firefighters from Toronto, prepare to pay tribute to veterans at Menin Gate on May 23, 2024.
The three of them seemed buried in preparations – arranging the wreath, adjusting their berets, straightening their blazers and ties – and they didn’t notice me approaching with my cellphone camera. Then, suddenly as they stepped to the curb beneath the Menin Gate, a shaft of sunlight caught them.
“Look here guys,” I called out.
Almost in perfect symmetry, the three men – Bill Stewart, Al Thomas and Paul Moffatt – all snapped to attention the way they’ve done thousands of times before. And I clicked the photograph of the three retired firefighters in their parade uniforms, ready to join one of the most poignant Great War commemorations in Europe. (more…)
D-Day veteran’s son, Don Henderson (r), presents RCAF base map to Jean-Pierre Banamou. June 2024.
Last week, inside a modest-looking but sizable Quonset building, known as the D-Day Academy, in Normandy, France, Don Henderson, a visitor from Calgary, made a small presentation. From his backpack, he pulled an official RCAF map of Normandy showing where his father, Leading Aircraftman Wilbert Henderson helped construct one of the first Tactical Air Force (TAF) bases in Normandy immediately after D-Day.
“My dad landed on D-Day-plus-11,” Don Henderson began. “He was the second driver in the air force vehicle. But when the first driver was shot, my dad carried on using this map to reach B4,” site of the TAF base.
Standing next to Don Henderson in the D-Day Academy museum, its director Jean-Pierre Benamou watched as the Canadian unfolded the fragile map revealing all the Juno Beach coastline that Canadians seized from the Germans beginning on June 6, 1944.
“I’ve kept this map all my life, but I want to donate it to your museum” said Henderson, and he handed the map to the clearly moved Benamou.
“Canadian veterans and their families are always bringing important artifacts back to Normandy, so that we don’t forget,” Benamou said. “D-Day is not dead for us. We relive it every day we welcome visitors here.” (more…)
Canadian soldiers marched through the streets of Dieppe, after the hit-and-run Allied raid on August 19, 1942.
About the time most people in North America were sitting down to dinner that summer day in 1942, a young Canadian whom many of us knew here in Uxbridge, Stephen Bell, was exhausted, bloodied by combat on Dieppe beach and throwing his hands in the air.
“Aufgeben! Aufgeben!” the Germans pointing their weapons at him were shouting.
Bell didn’t speak enough German to know they were shouting “Surrender!” but realized he was still wearing a revolver on his belt. He undid the belt, dropped it to the ground, and again put his hands in the air.
The hit-and-run raid on the French seaport of Dieppe that morning, August 19, 1942, had ended with Bell becoming a prisoner of war; he would spend the rest of the war in various German POW camps. He was one of 1,946 men the German defenders captured that day, more than the whole Canadian Army would lose in Western Europe in almost an entire year of action between D-Day on June 6, 1944, and VE Day on May 8, 1945.
Altogether 3,467 of the nearly 5,000 Canadians who embarked form England that day became casualties. More than 900 of those were killed in the bloodiest nine hours in Canadian military history. (more…)
Our 80th Anniversary of D-Day tour poses in front of the Normandy house captured in the famous D-Day film.
I walked the last few hundred metres along the beach looking expectantly at the skyline of Norman houses. Somehow, I knew I was on the right track. My walking companion, a fellow Canadian and military tour guide, was using a GPS map on his phone as we searched for a small seaside stretch of beach on the Normandy coastline called La Rive Plage. We passed an older gentleman, a local. I stopped and in my high school French I asked him a question.
“Is this the spot where the famous D-Day film was shot?” I asked.
He paused, then realized what I was asking, “Yes,” he nodded and then said, “Keep going farther. It’s up ahead.”
Minutes later, when my colleague Ian Cowan said we’d arrived at La Rive Plage according to his cellphone, I looked back to the man I’d consulted a few minutes before. He motioned, “Just a bit farther.” Then I saw it. A small, rather square two-storey waterfront home with a single-storey detached garage set back from the shore. And the two buildings matched nearly perfectly the image I’d watched in documentaries about the D-Day landings on Juno Beach nearly 80 years ago. (more…)
Reg Weeks kept the most vital intelligence of 1944 secret without using a password.
The other day, I needed to get an identification card replaced. The transaction required a password entry. Do you think I could remember it? I kept drawing a blank. Frustrating! If you’ve ever been around me when I can’t remember or have to create a new password, you’ll hear me repeat:
“If I were king of the world, I’d have all passwords eliminated!” (more…)
Pilot Officer Albert Wallace wearing his air gunner’s brevet.
In the dead of night in western Poland, Albert Wallace made sand disappear. That winter of 1944, he trekked through snow, his RCAF airman’s pants concealing long sacks of sand excavated from secret escape tunnels. Inside a now darkened theatre, his German captors had allowed POWs to build inside their prison compound, Wallace quietly stepped into a designated row of seats.
“I was told to sit there because that’s where the trapdoor was,” Wallace said. “I sat in seat Number 13, pulled the sack strings and emptied the sand inside my pants through a trapdoor hidden under the seat.” (more…)
D-Day vet Simeon Mayou leads into a conversation of his wartime experiences.
It’s the way he cajoles strangers into friendly conversation. And at age 99, it seems to have worked pretty well for Simeon Mayou. He points out some of the commemorative pins and service medals he wears on his Royal Navy blazer. Then, he pulls his beret off the table and asks for help.
“Just hold the edge of the beret,” he says, “and help me put it on.” (more…)
Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster helping the war effort on CBC and in-person behind the lines in Normandy 1944.
It’s June 1944. Two men in Canadian Army battledress are hunkered down waiting for orders. One’s a soldier with sergeant’s stripes. The other’s a private in a greatcoat.
“Time to move out,” says the sergeant.
“I won’t do it,” retorts the private.
“You will, too. When an order is given, it must be obeyed!” And the sergeant points a gun at the enlisted man. “Do it or else.”
At precisely the same moment, there’s the sound of an artillery shell exploding nearby, and the two soldiers dive for cover. Sgt Johnny Wayne then turns to Pte Frank Shuster and says, “And we’re still in Canada! Imagine what it’ll be like when we get overseas!” (more…)
Historian David O’Keefe and I share stage at Festival Place, Nov. 12. Photo courtesy Jana Semeniuk.
The performance had gone on through a first act. An ensemble of jazz singers had sung their hearts out. A quartet of musicians played with enthusiasm we hadn’t seen in months. Our daughter sat with us watching, listening. The energy in the club seemed electric. Then, in the second act, she was invited to the stage to sing her part in a tribute to American composer Stephen Sondheim. But before singing a single note, Whitney Ross-Barris looked out over a nearly capacity room and paused with a big smile.
“This is just the most exciting thing,” she said, “to be back singing in front of an audience.” (more…)
Alex Barris – my father and mentor – had a sign over his desk to inspire him to write.
My dental hygienist has her eye on a second career. The other day, after I’d passed the temperature test and questionnaire at the dental office, one of his hygienists, Vivian, got to work cleaning my teeth. Naturally, with my mouth wide open and instruments inside, she had me as a captive audience. So, she told me about wonderfully uninhibited things her children say. For example, one time her toddler son searched for the word to describe his elderly grandfather’s face.
“It’s crumply,” he said.
“He probably meant ‘wrinkly,’” Vivian said with a chuckle. Then, she added, “I think I’ll write a book about the darnedest things kids say. Maybe you can help me get it published.”
I mumbled an “Uh-huh,” through the gauze and dental instruments in my mouth. (more…)
