Posts with the Vimy Ridge tag

Barris Beat

Vimy and the value of work

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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…)

Barris Beat

Warriors’ invisible battles

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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…)

Barris Beat

Wrong cause using the wrong symbol

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Rally at Vimy Memorial in Saskatoon’s Kiwanis Park. CKOM photo.

At first, I wondered why? Why would a TV news reporter in the middle of the country email me to speak about a COVID-19 question? I’m not a medical professional. When I called him back, he said he wondered if I would offer a comment on an event in Saskatoon? I lived there back in the 1970s, but what was it he needed?

“A group of anti-mask, anti-vaccine protestors staged a demonstration last Saturday,” he said.

“That’s disappointing,” I said.

“That’s not why I called,” Nate Dove of Global TV News continued. “A number of people showed up for the demo at the Vimy Memorial, here in Saskatoon. Some claimed that the location was important because it symbolized freedom of expression.”

“Not really,” I said. (more…)

Barris Beat

A tour to Remember

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Caitlin Wager and her father Rob shared a moment on Dieppe Beach during their recent Remembrance Tour.

A few days ago, Grade 11 student Caitlin Wager and several of her Uxbridge Secondary School classmates stopped on a bridge in the Netherlands. The overpass was situated amid newly blooming tulips at a popular springtime tourist spot, called Keukenhof. Not surprisingly, the teenagers decided to take some selfies. Suddenly, a Dutch woman approached the Uxbridge girls, and Caitlin thought the woman was going to ask her take a photo for her.

“No,” the Dutch woman said. “I want to take a picture of you.”

“Pardon?” Caitlin asked, not quite understanding.

“All of you,” the woman repeated. “I want a picture of all of you.”

And when the girls asked why, she said, “Because you’re Canadians.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Greatest loss from the Great War

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Globe and Mail (Nov. 8, 2018) front page features artist Tyler Briley and his sculpted relief of Sam Sharpe installed on Parliament Hill.

In one of the first notations he jotted into his combat journal, First World War soldier Sam Sharpe recorded the actions of his rookie Canadian battalion. The 116thOntario Country Regiment was experiencing its baptism of fire in France. It was April 9, 1917, the first day of the battle of Vimy Ridge. His men were not fighting German soldiers, but laying wire in communication trenches on the Allied side of the Western Front. L/Col. Sharpe noted that his men endured a hail of artillery shells as they worked. Members of the 116th were wounded or killed, including one of his closest friends in the battalion.

“It is awfully sad,” Sharpe wrote. “Lt. John Doble was killed instantly by a shell, while leading a wiring platoon. Ontario County is paying its toll in this great struggle.”

This Sunday – for the 100thtime – at the 11thhour of the 11thday of the 11thmonth – we will gather at the cenotaph at Brock and Toronto streets in Uxbridge. (more…)

Barris Beat

Simple actions. Astonishing results.

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Leslie M. Miller, lieutenant in the Canadian Corps.

The padre stepped up to the lectern this past Sunday morning in Shedden, Ont. The audience at the community centre for the Remembrance service settled into silence. The clergyman unfolded his papers, that I thought would contain a prayer, a piece of scripture or perhaps the words of a hymn. But, no, he looked out at the assembly of cadets, veterans and the public in the audience and introduced his Nov. 11 thoughts this way.

“From simple actions, come astonishing results,” he said. (more…)

Barris Beat

Was it stolen valour?

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Unknown to historians, Charles Loewen addressed the logistical challenge of landing an army in wartime France.

Early in 1943, the military planners in London, England, coped with the ebb and flow of the Second World War, but they did so secretly. Squirrelled away in his tiny office at the British War Office, an experienced Canadian-born artillery officer grappled with a logistics problem about an upcoming military operation. But the stress proved overwhelming for hm. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t focus. To switch his mind off before bed, he tried reading detective stories. Then, he tried something completely different.

“I set up a fly-tying table,” Charles Falkland Loewen wrote in his memoirs, “and before going to bed sat down to tie a fly or two. I found that this absorbed one’s complete attention … and really unbuttoned my mind from current problems.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The true cost of it all

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La Chaudiere Military Cemetery in France.

We arrived in the late afternoon. Shadows from an encircling grove of trees cast eerie slivers of light and dark across the manicured cemetery grounds – the grass cropped short, the flowers freshly tended. I watched one of my fellow travellers, Valerie Flanagan, move from one line of tombstones to the next. Our walk through La Chaudiere Military Cemetery just below the famous Vimy Ridge, a few days ago, was the culmination of a long journey for her. Then, she saw it – her grandfather’s grave.

“I’m so glad I made it here,” she said. “I didn’t know how I’d feel.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Never again

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Uxbridge Secondary School students pose in front of German gun emplacement during their field trip to D-Day beaches in France.

They all looked sharp in their specially tailored commemorative jackets. They responded to the atmosphere of being away from home on a field trip with not unexpected exuberance; they looked pretty pumped. But when several of them spoke publicly the other night in Ypres, Belgium, I could tell these teenagers had changed even in the few days we’ve been away.

One of them, Sam Futhy, a Grade 10 student from Uxbridge Secondary School, noted a visit to one of the Great War cemeteries.

“When I saw the number of grave stones,” he said. “I don’t know. It just hit me.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Make it awkward

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Mother Canada sculpture at Vimy Memorial.
Mother Canada sculpture at Vimy Memorial.

The man sat at the back of the audience area through most of my presentation. I spoke, as I usually do in those situations, walking among those in the audience, in this case 30 people seated at about eight tables. My topic was the Battle at Vimy Ridge coming up to the 100th anniversary next year. And I was speaking at a small Ontario fair last weekend. I could see the man was reacting to what I had to say. He frowned a lot and when I’d finished he put up his hand.

“Is it true that all the French-Canadian troops threw their rifles overboard on the way over to France?” he asked.

I paused a second, wondering where he was going with the question. I didn’t want to think there was prejudice involved. “No. I don’t think that’s true, since one of the key regiments at Vimy was the Royal 22nd from Quebec.” (more…)