For me, this Remembrance Day more than any other has made me truly stop and think about the sacrifices made by so many young Canadians all those years ago.
Less than a month ago, I stood with my family on the windy beaches of Normandy and in the trenches and tunnels of Vimy Ridge. We heard stories of battle and bravery and were struck by the massive contributions the Canadians, specifically, made to the combined efforts of the Allies, during the two world wars.
It comes as no surprise to me that I don’t really remember learning about war history while in school. Some of it must have sunk into my cerebrum at some level, but it was long ago buried beneath a multitude of other facts and subjects taught in elementary and high school, most of which I cannot remember. I remember my family talking about Great Uncle Gavin, my maternal grandmother’s uncle and how he fought in WWI and about “Uncle” Tom, a close family friend, who fought, and was captured by the Germans, in WWII. Both men survived, but connecting these family members to what went on during the war on anything but an intellectual level was more than I could manage.
Mark’s borderline obsessive interest in all things war meant I was slowly starting to learn and retain some information about our countries history in this regard, but it wasn’t until we actually visited France and Belgium that I actually “got it”. I knew the Canadians had played important roles in both wars, but since they were “world wars”, I guess I figured everyone did and we just heard more about the Canadian efforts since we’re Canadian. However, touring the small towns and villages of Normandy and Belgium made it crystal clear that the Canadians, though small in number, put forth an enormous effort and contribution in more ways than I was capable of grasping.
Every single little village seemed to have a memorial erected specifically for Canadians. Not a general “thanks to the Allies” as a whole, but to Canadians. To stand in a foreign country and see the maple leaf on a memorial, a road named for Canada, or to see our flag flying was a curious and emotional thing. How could we stand there and not feel proud to be Canadian? Emotion swelled up my throat and made me stand a little taller.
The only inclement weather we experienced during our two-week holiday coincided with our arriving on Juno Beach in Normandy. Could the timing have been more fitting? We stood, a small group of four Canadians with a tour guide, listening to the battle plan that the Allies had formulated for D-Day and how the weather and the rough seas slowed the operation and created much difficulty for the landing crafts and crews (as if things hadn’t been difficult enough). We hunched our shoulders against the wind and rain and tried, if only for a moment, to grasp even a hint of the feelings those young soldiers must have felt arriving on that beach as part of a massive assault, to be battling the waves and sand, only to be welcomed by the site of an open beach with nothing but sand and your fellow soldiers’ bodies to protect you from the German gunners awaiting your arrival. How did they have it in them to get off those boats and thunder up the beach? What is in a person’s heart and mind that could possibly mobilize their bodies into action, knowing—they had to know—that the likelihood of survival was incredibly low?
We visited many, many Commonwealth cemeteries, walking up and down between the rows of tombstones where white crosses once stood. The Canadian headstones bore the maple leaf and what information, if any, was known about the soldier who lay beneath the ground. Some were only a name, or a regiment, but all too many were nameless. To give your life in such a way and to not even have your name inscribed to mark your sacrifice is a sad thing. Our guide explained why many of the stones butted up against each other, rather than following the pattern of the majority of evenly spaced markers. These were the graves of soldiers who were killed together, possibly by shell fire or some other such destructive force, rendering it impossible to discern who was who, just knowing their names and that they were together. They died together and were buried together.
Stories of individual acts of bravery blended together with battle plans and troop movement, strange names of foreign towns and regions, adding to the overwhelming amount of information and facts being thrown at us. Again and again we heard what the Canadians did, and our pride did not diminish. We heard of unspeakable acts against the Canadians and stood near an abbey where Canadian prisoners were shot in the head. Not killed in the heat of battle, but in a murderous action by the Germans. To stand there all these years later and believe that those things happened, there, where we stood, was an eerie feeling. What can you say and what can you feel—and how can you truly be the same after that?
We wound our way north and effectively back in time to Northern France and Belgium to visit some WWI sites. If the Canadians were honoured in France in Normandy, it paled in comparison to what we encountered in Northern France and Belgium. The frequency of memorials increased and the beauty of them impressed us. From the quiet, understated feel of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, to the towering, somber power of the Saint Julien Memorial of “the Brooding Soldier”, culminating in the breathtaking and spectacular memorial at Vimy Ridge, we slowly understood the magnitude of the Canadian contribution to the First World War.
At Vimy Ridge we descended into the communication tunnels that snaked their way for countless kilometres under the trenches and no-man’s land. We stood down there and tried to grasp how they were dug and operated and what life in the tunnels must have been like. It would have been bittersweet to be down there—living in darkness and among the wet and the rats yet safer than above in the trenches.
We stood in the bunker where John McCrae wrote the “In Flanders Fields” and saw the graves of yet more Canadians. We drove along the country roads of Belgium, seeing neatly stacked bombs at the end of virtually every farm yard’s drive, waiting for the daily collection by the Belgian army. 200 tons of unexploded munitions are still collected from the Belgian countryside every single year. Every year! This is a war that was fought 90 years ago.
We visited Passchendael and Ypres—towns that were completely descimated by the German bombardment. Not a building, not a tree, not a wall left standing. It was an overwhelming and mind-boggling thing to attempt to comprehend.
We left France and Belgium with a different perspective of the effects of the war—on the land, on the people, on the individuals. We left more prideful of our country and of what Canadians have stood for and continue to stand for. The people of France and Belgium haven’t forgotten the Canadian contributions and continue to erect memorials to our soldiers, attempting to thank them in any way they can.
“Lest we forget” means more to me now than it ever has.
Less than a month ago, I stood with my family on the windy beaches of Normandy and in the trenches and tunnels of Vimy Ridge. We heard stories of battle and bravery and were struck by the massive contributions the Canadians, specifically, made to the combined efforts of the Allies, during the two world wars.
It comes as no surprise to me that I don’t really remember learning about war history while in school. Some of it must have sunk into my cerebrum at some level, but it was long ago buried beneath a multitude of other facts and subjects taught in elementary and high school, most of which I cannot remember. I remember my family talking about Great Uncle Gavin, my maternal grandmother’s uncle and how he fought in WWI and about “Uncle” Tom, a close family friend, who fought, and was captured by the Germans, in WWII. Both men survived, but connecting these family members to what went on during the war on anything but an intellectual level was more than I could manage.
Mark’s borderline obsessive interest in all things war meant I was slowly starting to learn and retain some information about our countries history in this regard, but it wasn’t until we actually visited France and Belgium that I actually “got it”. I knew the Canadians had played important roles in both wars, but since they were “world wars”, I guess I figured everyone did and we just heard more about the Canadian efforts since we’re Canadian. However, touring the small towns and villages of Normandy and Belgium made it crystal clear that the Canadians, though small in number, put forth an enormous effort and contribution in more ways than I was capable of grasping.
Every single little village seemed to have a memorial erected specifically for Canadians. Not a general “thanks to the Allies” as a whole, but to Canadians. To stand in a foreign country and see the maple leaf on a memorial, a road named for Canada, or to see our flag flying was a curious and emotional thing. How could we stand there and not feel proud to be Canadian? Emotion swelled up my throat and made me stand a little taller.
The only inclement weather we experienced during our two-week holiday coincided with our arriving on Juno Beach in Normandy. Could the timing have been more fitting? We stood, a small group of four Canadians with a tour guide, listening to the battle plan that the Allies had formulated for D-Day and how the weather and the rough seas slowed the operation and created much difficulty for the landing crafts and crews (as if things hadn’t been difficult enough). We hunched our shoulders against the wind and rain and tried, if only for a moment, to grasp even a hint of the feelings those young soldiers must have felt arriving on that beach as part of a massive assault, to be battling the waves and sand, only to be welcomed by the site of an open beach with nothing but sand and your fellow soldiers’ bodies to protect you from the German gunners awaiting your arrival. How did they have it in them to get off those boats and thunder up the beach? What is in a person’s heart and mind that could possibly mobilize their bodies into action, knowing—they had to know—that the likelihood of survival was incredibly low?
We visited many, many Commonwealth cemeteries, walking up and down between the rows of tombstones where white crosses once stood. The Canadian headstones bore the maple leaf and what information, if any, was known about the soldier who lay beneath the ground. Some were only a name, or a regiment, but all too many were nameless. To give your life in such a way and to not even have your name inscribed to mark your sacrifice is a sad thing. Our guide explained why many of the stones butted up against each other, rather than following the pattern of the majority of evenly spaced markers. These were the graves of soldiers who were killed together, possibly by shell fire or some other such destructive force, rendering it impossible to discern who was who, just knowing their names and that they were together. They died together and were buried together.
Stories of individual acts of bravery blended together with battle plans and troop movement, strange names of foreign towns and regions, adding to the overwhelming amount of information and facts being thrown at us. Again and again we heard what the Canadians did, and our pride did not diminish. We heard of unspeakable acts against the Canadians and stood near an abbey where Canadian prisoners were shot in the head. Not killed in the heat of battle, but in a murderous action by the Germans. To stand there all these years later and believe that those things happened, there, where we stood, was an eerie feeling. What can you say and what can you feel—and how can you truly be the same after that?
We wound our way north and effectively back in time to Northern France and Belgium to visit some WWI sites. If the Canadians were honoured in France in Normandy, it paled in comparison to what we encountered in Northern France and Belgium. The frequency of memorials increased and the beauty of them impressed us. From the quiet, understated feel of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, to the towering, somber power of the Saint Julien Memorial of “the Brooding Soldier”, culminating in the breathtaking and spectacular memorial at Vimy Ridge, we slowly understood the magnitude of the Canadian contribution to the First World War.
At Vimy Ridge we descended into the communication tunnels that snaked their way for countless kilometres under the trenches and no-man’s land. We stood down there and tried to grasp how they were dug and operated and what life in the tunnels must have been like. It would have been bittersweet to be down there—living in darkness and among the wet and the rats yet safer than above in the trenches.
We stood in the bunker where John McCrae wrote the “In Flanders Fields” and saw the graves of yet more Canadians. We drove along the country roads of Belgium, seeing neatly stacked bombs at the end of virtually every farm yard’s drive, waiting for the daily collection by the Belgian army. 200 tons of unexploded munitions are still collected from the Belgian countryside every single year. Every year! This is a war that was fought 90 years ago.
We visited Passchendael and Ypres—towns that were completely descimated by the German bombardment. Not a building, not a tree, not a wall left standing. It was an overwhelming and mind-boggling thing to attempt to comprehend.
We left France and Belgium with a different perspective of the effects of the war—on the land, on the people, on the individuals. We left more prideful of our country and of what Canadians have stood for and continue to stand for. The people of France and Belgium haven’t forgotten the Canadian contributions and continue to erect memorials to our soldiers, attempting to thank them in any way they can.
“Lest we forget” means more to me now than it ever has.
1 comment:
More Canadians should be aware of this part of our history and the consequences of our troops actions and all that they sacrificed. Nice
work.
P.S. on a completely different note, we are in Vancouver and have found raclette. How much do we bring back?
Post a Comment