Get some. Miss some.

Written by Ted Barris on November 14th, 2024November 13th, 2024. Leave a comment

The public-speaking appearance was half done. At intermission, last Friday night in the central-Alberta city of Camrose, I sat at a table signing books and listening to feedback from members of the audience.

A woman approached; with her British accent she offered her take on the subject of my evening talk, the Battle of Britain. She was a child in London during the Blitz in the summer of 1940, when she said her father had served in the London fire brigade fighting fires German bombers ignited each night.

“When he came home in the morning after fighting fires all night, I remember his face was completely black with soot,” she said, then drawing imaginary circles around her eyes, “except the white around his eyes where he’d warn protective goggles.” (more…)

Warrior with a bucket of sand

Written by Ted Barris on November 7th, 2024November 8th, 2024. Leave a comment

Fire watchers had tools, but during the Battle of Britain their greatest weapon was courage.

I’ve flown into Heathrow, the city of London’s major civilian airport, dozens of times – seeing a sky full of jetliners lined up to land at Europe’s largest commercial airport. But not until I met Torontonian Dorothy Firth, who lived there during the Second World War, had I ever imagined what the skies over that city might have looked like during a period known as “the Blitz.”

“It was always a nasty sound and a horrible feeling when the air-raid sirens went off,” she told me when I met her a few years ago, “because you never knew how fast the German (bombers) were coming.” (more…)

Jewel on the Hill

Written by Ted Barris on August 15th, 2024August 16th, 2024. 1 Comment

We were winding up our visit to the building just north of the Sandford Road, a structure my author friend Conrad Boyce called a “Jewel on the Hill,” when our wonderful guide took questions. The one I asked had nothing to do with the building, but everything to do with its namesake.

“What’s the story about Thomas Foster rewarding women for delivering the most babies?” I asked.

“In his will in 1945,” explained tour guide Nicole Greenly, “the recently deceased mayor of Toronto, Thomas Foster, awarded cash prizes to women who had the most babies in Toronto in the decade following his death.” (more…)

Will memory of D-Day fade away?

Written by Ted Barris on June 6th, 2024June 18th, 2024. Leave a comment

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…)

The two-per-cent insult

Written by Ted Barris on May 30th, 2024June 3rd, 2024. Leave a comment

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…)

There’re passwords and then real secrets

Written by Ted Barris on May 16th, 2024May 22nd, 2024. 2 Comments

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…)

Vimy and the value of work

Written by Ted Barris on April 19th, 2024April 19th, 2024. Leave a comment

Bandsman Lyman Nichols, eventually called upon for more than his musical skills in the Great War.

It was nearly the last question I fielded the other night. I’d just told the story of Uxbridge youth Lyman Nichols – how (underage) he had joined Sam Sharpe’s 116th Ontario County Battalion in 1915, but when he turned 18 how, as a bandsman, he joined the 116th officially and marched off to the Great War, how he survived the battles at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, and how he’d come home wounded among 160 surviving soldiers (of the regiment’s original 1,600).

“What had helped the Canadians get through?” someone at my Vimy dinner audience in Peterborough asked.

“They were task-oriented,” I suggested. “Perhaps more than all the regular soldiers from Britain and the Empire, the Canadians before the war had been farmers, lumberjacks, fisherman, labourers, even students who all understood the meaning of getting a job done.”

(more…)

A lesson in public speaking

Written by Ted Barris on April 11th, 2024April 15th, 2024. Leave a comment

Charlene Orrell, incoming president of the Army Cadet League of Canada, meets with volunteers.

When I arrived at the meeting, the executive director of the group was at the lectern addressing members. Rob Gill had finished his introductory remarks to the Army Cadet League’s annual general meeting, including a few jokes to break the ice.

Then he got to the theme of the weekend conference, “Community Engagement,” and wisely he chose to focus on the organization’s people. Among them, he complimented the outgoing president.

“Rick Brown doesn’t say an awful lot,” Gill said. “But he’s one of the best listeners I’ve ever known.” (more…)

A calling that rings true

Written by Ted Barris on November 30th, 2023November 30th, 2023. 2 Comments

Lew Gregor (far right) and Peter Viney (far left) of Royal Canadian Legion (Branch 170) executive welcome me and other new member Pam Forrest, Nov. 28, 2023.

I accomplished something this week I’ve wanted to for probably 50 years. I recently received an email from Lew Gregor, friend and membership chair of the Royal Canadian Legion. He was inviting me to the Branch 170 general meeting Tuesday night.

“I want to welcome you,” his note said, “as a new member of the Legion.” (more…)

Remembrance from witnesses and moviemakers

Written by Ted Barris on October 19th, 2023October 20th, 2023. Leave a comment

Commander Ericson (Jack Hawkins) makes life and death decision in “The Cruel Sea.”

Commander George Ericson is crouched on the bridge of his corvette warship. He’s peering through a sighting device, lining up his counterattack against an enemy he can’t see, a submerged U-boat in the Atlantic waters directly ahead of him.

“What’s it look like now, Number One?” Ericson calls to his first officer, who is on a sonar device.

“It’s the firmest contact we’ve ever had,” the sonar operator shouts back from below deck.

There’s sudden consternation on Cmdr Ericson’s face. Merchant sailors whose ship has just been torpedoed are thrashing about in the water. They’re shouting for help. “There’s men in the water just about there,” Ericson says.

“Well, there’s a U-boat just underneath them.”