Posts with the Don Barnard tag

Barris Beat

A new assault up Juno Beach

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Cpl Fred Barnard of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

It’s just 20 years ago I learned about the toughest battle of Fred Barnard’s life. On a spring morning in 1944, our Uxbridge neighbour (then just 22) found himself on a landing craft with the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada about to storm the Normandy beach codenamed Juno. He had no family in France that needed saving. He knew none of the German soldiers occupying those Norman towns and seaports.

Rifleman Don Barnard of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

Still, he’d felt so compelled by the call for Canadians to help liberate the French from Nazi occupation that he and his brother Don travelled halfway around the globe to join the D-Day invasion on June 6.

“Give ’em hell,” Fred had yelled to his 20-year-old brother on the same landing craft.

Then, moments later, as he dashed for cover, among the first Canadians to penetrate Hitler’s Fortress Europe, Fred faced a horrific dilemma. There, in the sea water not yet ashore, he saw his brother with a bullet hole in his chest – dead before he’d even reached the sea wall. (more…)

Barris Beat

Fred Barnard’s gift to town and country

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Fred Barnard as member of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in WWII.

I know this sounds like a cliché, but I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was 16 years ago, in the summer of 2003. I was standing in line at a bank in town waiting to pay my credit card bill. Ahead of me were an older man and, at the head of the line a friend of mine. My friend asked what I was doing these days.

“I’m writing a book about Canadians on D-Day,” I said.

“Big anniversary coming up,” my friend commented.

“Yes,” I said.

Then it was my friend’s turn for service at the teller’s wicket and he turned to the counter to do his banking. That left only the older man and me in the queue. That’s when the older fellow slowly turned to me and spoke.

“I was there,” he said quietly.

“A veteran, are you?”

“I was there,” he repeated and then continued, “on D-Day.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Making Remembrance Day instructive

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Outside the Southwold community centre, the sign invites participants to the annual Remembrance week service.
Outside the Southwold community centre, the sign invites participants to the annual Remembrance week service.

Just before I delivered a Remembrance talk in the southwestern community of Shedden, Ont., last Sunday morning, I walked along the back wall of the Southwold Township Complex, where I was to speak. There were perhaps 500 people waiting for the township’s annual pre-Remembrance Day observance to begin.

And standing politely along that back wall, so that older citizens – principally veterans and their spouses – could have seats, were about 20 young army and air cadets. I made a point of introducing myself to them and learning who they were before I spoke.

“I’m 18 and in the Elgin Regiment,” one of them announced proudly.

“And why did you offer your part-time service?” I asked.

“I wanted to say something about my generation,” he said.

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Barris Beat

Victories of heart and territory

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Mother Canada mourns her dead: key element of Walter Allward sculpture at Vimy Ridge memorial in France.
Mother Canada mourns her dead atop Vimy Ridge memorial in France.

It’s not often a person walks in the footsteps of an ancestor. Nor are there many opportunities to sense the sights, sounds and smells that someone who lived nearly a century ago experienced.

Recently, I read about such an experience when I was asked to endorse an application by a member of our community for the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize. As part of her application, Rebecca MacDonald, 17, wrote about her great-grandfather, Walter James MacDonald, an engineer in the 13th Canadian Mounted Police who served at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

“Standing in the trenches and the fields of Vimy Ridge, I could feel his spirit,” she wrote.

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