A Remembrance Day to Remember

2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War2 but commemorations in Canada this year will be limited due to the global pandemic.

The Canadian Legion website states,” National Remembrance Day ceremony 2020 : A more intimate commemoration”.

“For the first time, spectators will be discouraged from attending in person, due to the limited space and requirement to physically distance. The smaller number of people participating will be required to remain 2m apart and will need to wear masks unless performing certain duties related to the ceremony”.

Since these special remembrance day ceremonies will involve limited in person participation, I thought it appropriate to reflect and salute the contributions of some of my family members made during the war from my current COVID-19 Homefront location starting with my father George.

My father did not speak about the war very often except on the D-Day Anniversaries and Remembrance Days. He did not glorify war especially the second world war, but said

World War 2 was a necessary evil to stop the Nazis.

My father told me he joined the Royal Canadian Navy at the age of 17, which would have been in 1940 or 1941 depending on when he enlisted. He said he was a big for his age and therefore was not rejected for being underage.

As a member of the Combined Operations of land , sea and air he participated in raids against the Germans in occupied Europe. (My father always referred to the Combined Ops. as the Combined Forces under Mountbatten. He once mentioned he was fortunate to hear the Chief of the Combined Operations Louis Mountbatten address the troops in person).

One time when I asked my Dad for more details about his activities during the war, he informed me in his usual low voice that he was trained in hand to hand combat and the use of explosives. When I looked sceptically at him after his surprising revelation, he demonstrated his quiet assertion by putting me in a complicated head lock which didn’t hurt. He said if I moved my neck it would break. I didn’t question his war recollections after that.

He also revealed he was stoker mechanic in the engine rooms of the ships he was assigned to and also an anti-aircraft gunner on deck. I asked him if he ever shot down any planes but he didn’t answer.

Since the Combined Operations were involved in raids, I knew my father would have been part of some major attacks. After asking him directly if he participated in raids, he said the Dieppe raid of August 1942 was “a disaster.”

According to a 2014 CBC story, “Remembering Canada’s Role in WW2”

“The raid on Dieppe “ became one of the darkest chapters in Canadian military history”

An estimated 907 Canadians were killed, and 1,946 became prisoners of war”.

No major objectives were accomplished, but some later believed that valuable lessons were learned that would be later applied on the beaches of Normandy”.

My father also confirmed that he was also involved in ‘Operation Overlord” also known as D-Day on June 6, 1944.

Five beaches were raided that day with most of the Canadians concentrated on Juno beach.

As per the aforementioned CBC article, “In the first six days of battle, about 3,000 Canadians were killed or wounded. Yet Canadian infantry pressed on, moving inland to capture enemy positions throughout June and July”.

My father was in the thick of the raid. Two ships on either side of his ship were hit.

Dad piloted one of the landing craft to take troops ashore. (He would have been 20 years old then.)

He said an officer stood at the landing ramp with a gun and if any troops turned back they were shot. Many drowned before they reached the shore.

My father recalled that there were so many bodies on shore they had to be bulldozed into large pits to prevent the spread of disease. He also said the Canadians captured very young German soldiers who seemed relieved for the opportunity to leave the direct fighting.

Outside of the actual fighting, my father shared a few on leave stories.

He loved being on leave in Scotland where he said Canadians were treated like royalty and all the drinks were free. He was assigned to maintain an ice skating rink while in Scotland, about as Canadian a job as you could do in the U.K.

He didn’t mind being furloughed in England but said with a wry smile that he didn’t like the small English cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off because he couldn’t hold them in his big hands.

Also while in London, he revealed that he heard Bing Crosby sing to himself outside in one the squares, two pubs on either side of the pub he was in were bombed, a soldier challenged him to a fight outside a pub & my father punched him and broke his jaw and later apologized to the soldier for hitting him so hard- (Saying sorry is quintessentially Canadian even when out of their country) My father also told me all his pictures of the war were stolen at a train station in London. He said sadly, “Maybe it was just as well that happened.”

My mother Lisa told me another surprising story about Dad’s war time experience.

She divulged that Dad told her he had proposed to a red headed girl in England but she rejected him. Dad later threw the engagement ring he bought her into the English Channel.

My father was stationed for a while in Vancouver B.C. near where my mother was living at the time but they never met there.

They both returned to Port Arthur Ontario (now part of Thunder Bay) where they married.

Below is a picture of my father when he was in the Canadian Navy in WW2.

My father -in-law Bill (Mr. B.) also served in the war but in the Royal Canadian Air Force( RCAF).

He was a navigator on the large Lancaster Bombers.

He was also a member of the famous 617 “Damnbusters” Squadron of which books were written and a movie was made. The squadron was assigned to bomb damns in Germany during operation Chastise.

My father in law often regaled family and friends and anyone else who would listen with many stories of his war time exploits, usually about off duty good times.

He did tell me the Lancaster bomber was small inside and difficult to manoeuvre around.

He also said one of his duties was to signal the bombardier when to drop bombs.

One time he proclaimed, “I may have bombed your namesake”.

I was named after Glenn Miller. Glenn Miller mysteriously disappeared flying over the English Channel on Dec. 15, 1944. No wreckage or bodies were ever found.

At the approximate time Glenn Miller was flying in a small Canadian made single- engine plane- a C64 Norseman, a large group of Lancaster Bombers were returning from an aborted mission because of poor weather.

They had to drop their bombs in the English Channel because they could not land with them.

There are reports from former Lancaster navigator Fred Shaw that he saw the Norseman plane crash into the English Channel as the Lancasters were ditching bombs.

So the plane carrying Miller could have been hit by ‘friendly fire’ from exploding bombs.

However, a US Military inquiry into Miller’s disappearance convened on January 20 1945 concluded that,“Miller’s aircraft had been lost due to a likely combination of factors: pilot error, bad weather and possible engine problems.”

Since no wreckage or bodies have ever been found from the Miller crash, I still believe the “friendly fire” theory of the Lancaster bombers is plausible.

Below is a photo. of some of Mr. B.’s RCAF World War 2 medals

Below is a Pic. of Mr. B. taken about 5 years after the war.

Last but not least, I salute my Uncle Mel who joined the Canadian army at age 19. He was a forward operating observer with the 19th Army Field Regiment, an artillery unit.

He was quoted in the Maclean’s magazine special 50th anniversary issue of June 6, 1994 “D-Day Remembered.”

“I had to transfer from one landing craft to another out in the Channel because ours became disabled. There were snipers firing at us from this big old house at the edge of the beach… There must have been half a dozen dead guys on the beach when I went in. As I ran up , I was loaded up pretty heavily with my pack-sack, wireless set…Sten gun, ammunition and six hand grenades.

One of the British commandos was running faster than me, probably because I was weighed down.

He crossed in front me and the moment he did he got hit.

He went down and I tripped over him. I always said that bullet was meant for me instead of him”.

Uncle Mel returned to Holland as part of the group that was invited back to Holland 50 years after it was liberated.

As per. the previously quoted CBC article, “About 7,600 Canadian servicemen died while fighting in Holland. Because of Canada’s role in Holland’s liberation, a close affinity between the two countries remains to this day. After the war, The Netherlands thanked Canada with a gift of 100,000 tulip bulbs and still sends Canada 20,000 bulbs annually.

Below is a photo. of my Uncle Mel used in the 1994 Maclean’s magazine article

My family heroes of the war are gone but not forgotten.

EPILOGUE

To finish my reflection on the war, I will conclude with a strange story that occurred in the military park in Barrie Ontario Canada.

In October 2017, my wife Linda and I went for a walk on Barrie’s waterfront on Monday when the weather was nice. We stopped to look at sculptures that will be part of a new military park. A photographer named Mark Wanzel who was taking photos. of the sculptures said he overheard me talking about my Dad’s war experience so he asked if he could take our pics. while looking at the sculptures. We also told him about my father-in-laws’ war involvement with the 617 squadron.

The photo. in the Military Park in Barrie of my wife and I was published in the 2017 edition of the Barrie Examiner newspaper with the caption “looking back at military park in Barrie.”

The Barrie Examiner newspaper closed its doors permanently on Nov. 27, 2017.

The Military Park photo. appears below.

© 2020 G.G. Niemi