DECIMATED, DEMORALIZED & DISBANDED: No. 124 (Ferry) Squadron's Demise Following The 1946 Crash Of Dakota 962

 The remains of Dakota 962 are strewn across the field at the Estevan Airport. At 1020 hrs on September 26, 1946, while on final approach, the Douglas C-47 (DC-3) stalled and crashed a few hundred yards short of the runway. The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces and all 21 occupants were killed. All passengers were returning to Estevan after delivering Fairchild PT-19 Cornell planes to the U.S. Air Force Base in Minot, North Dakota.

(Volume 24-7)

By Anne Gafiuk

In the summer of 1946, at the age of 17, William Cameron was awarded an Air Cadet Flying Scholarship at the Regina Flying Club. He said, “Throughout that summer, the RCAF flew a large number of Fairchild Cornell aircraft to RCAF Holding Unit No. 201 at the airport at Estevan, Saskatchewan from Elementary Flying Training Schools (EFTS) of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, bases that are now closed.”

He explains, “The Cornell was a low-wing, two-pilot elementary training aircraft that had been supplied in considerable numbers to the government of Great Britain, by the government of the United States, for use in the BCATP, under the 1941 ‘Lend-Lease’ agreement between those two countries.”

At that time, Cameron was just learning to fly. “During the two weeks of my flying course, I witnessed, on two occasions, the arrival and departure from the Regina airport of an RCAF C-47, carrying a number of RCAF pilots. I was tremendously impressed by the appearance of those young men. Most of them were flight lieutenants or flying officers, and almost all of them wore a number of honours decorations below their pilot wings on their uniforms. There were many Distinguished Flying Cross ribbons, as well as ribbons for various theatres of war.”

Of those on board the C-47 known by its RCAF designation as Dakota 962, 11 had been awarded the DFC, with one having the DFC and Bar, another the DSO and DFC, and three had received the Burma Star for their service in the Second World War’s Burma Campaign. Twelve were flight lieutenants and eight were flying officers. The sole leading aircraftman was the airframe mechanic.

No. 38 Service Flying Training School, south of Estevan, Saskatchewan, and only a stone’s throw from the border with the United States, no longer exists. All vestiges of its former place in Canada’s aviation history have vanished. (vintage wings)

Cameron recollects, “Those men were in ‘high spirits.’ They had survived the horrors of wartime operations, and were in a holiday mood as they went off to Estevan to fly Cornells across the border to the United States. Possibly some of them had learned to fly on those very same Cornell aircraft at a Canadian EFTS. Our small air cadet trainee group was in awe of those vibrant, young, veteran pilots. The pilots that we saw at Regina Airport in August of 1946 were either on their way to Estevan for the ferry operations, or having finished their assignment, were returning to Ottawa for discharge from the service.”

On September 12, 1946, F/L Wilson Marshall Iverson, officer in charge of No. 124 (Ferry) Squadron, instructed F/L Stewart and his crew to proceed to Estevan, Saskatchewan.

On the morning of September 15, the 21 men, including one pilot, one co-pilot, 18 ferry pilots, and one airframe mechanic, checked out of the Roosevelt Hotel in Minot, North Dakota and headed to the airport. They were readying themselves for a routine 45-minute cross-country transport flight northwest to Estevan, as passengers aboard Dakota 962, getting ready to ferry another set of Cornells back to Minot.

The pilot provided the flight plan after becoming airborne at 0930 hours CST. He reported his ETA at Estevan being 1015 hours CST and did not report any difficulties, making no further contact with ground stations.

At 1020 hrs CST, the dispatching officer of No. 124 (Ferry) Squadron reported that Dakota 962 crashed upon landing at RCAF Station Estevan.

Witnesses on the airbase testified that only two men had signs of life when responders first arrived on scene, but remained unconscious. All men on board Dakota 962 were thrown to the front of the plane, many on fire, after impact. The medical officer identified the individuals by rings, laundry marks and billfolds, among other things including watches, five of which needed to be identified by the families.

The crash and the funeral procession to the railway station in Estevan made local and national news across Canada. The men’s bodies were returned to their homes coast to coast, via train, with the exception of F/O Henry Hugh Cowan, DFC, whose body was flown home to Ottawa, as his mother was on her deathbed.

The Court of Inquiry said it was difficult to determine what had transpired in Dakota 962 between takeoff and the crash, but concluded Dakota 962 crashed on landing at RCAF Station Estevan as a result of loss of control due to an elevator control lock being in the locked position. The pilot was guilty of negligence in the performance of his duties, in that he failed to carry out a proper pre-flight check.

Questions were also raised about who was piloting the aircraft; at Minot, F/O Pond was noted as the pilot, but the seventh witness at the inquiry claimed F/L Stewart was given the responsibility as pilot. Due to the fire, “It was not possible to determine which of these two officers were occupying the left hand seat.”

The Court of Inquiry recommended:

That on aircraft using outside locks, the duties of the airman in carrying out daily inspections be amended to include the inspection of control locks, ensuring that each lock carries a red streamer at least 4 feet in length.

That all aircraft be fitted with racks, one for each control lock. These racks should be positioned in the radio compartment of the aircraft so that the pilot and co-pilot can check visually that they are in their proper storage spot prior to flight.

That all units be instructed to emphasize once again to all pilots the necessity for carrying out the proper pre-flight check.

 Bill Cameron was just 17 in 1946, when he got his wings and learned to fly a Tiger Moth through the Air Cadets in Regina. The crash of Dakota 962 in September 1946 remains a vivid memory as he had probably seen several of those officers at the airport while undergoing his flight training.

Cameron recalls that, “A few weeks after the completion of the 20 hours of flight training at Regina Flying Club, I was shocked to learn about the crash of Dakota 962 at Estevan. It immediately occurred to me that the victims of that accident might well have been the same young men that I had so much admired at Regina Airport a few weeks earlier.”

Also shaken by the accident claiming many war heroes, the French, American and British military attachés in Ottawa sent their condolences to Air Marshal Robert Leckie.

On September 30, 1946, No. 124 (Ferry) Squadron was disbanded.

In October 1946, Mrs. Constance Marie Pond, wife of one of the designated pilots, F/O Pond, wrote the RCAF thanking them for their condolences and floral tributes, plus the honour paid to her husband at his funeral services in both Estevan and Montreal:

My husband did not even have his 2-weeks’ leave so he did not have a holiday this year, although he did not complain. The night he phoned from Ottawa to tell me they were going out West, he said he was at last signed up for his ‘leave’ and was called back and told ‘No you don’t. You’re going out West ...’

These are the things I can’t bear to think about — that seems so unfair and although I have had a report on how it is surmised the accident occurred, I believe, from my husband’s letters and cards written out there that they worked so hard, they were all tired out and the Pilot simply was so tired that he made a mistake.

With their findings and recommendations, the Court of Inquiry and subsequent memorandums between September 1946 and February 1947 made sure that this type of accident would not readily occur again.

Air Marshal Robert Leckie wrote in January 1947: “During this coming year as the Royal Canadian Air Force gets back to regular flying operations, there will be many pilots returning to active flying who have for sometime been employed on other duties. Many of these pilots will have done very little flying for some time and accidents are liable to occur during the period of their refresher training. For this reason the compulsory use of pre-flight and pre-landing checking list is to be reintroduced into the RCAF for all types of aircraft.”

 “Two years later, in 1948,” recalls Cameron, “I became an employee of Canadian Pacific Air Lines Ltd. (CPAL) as a radio operator/agent. On those occasions, when a company aircraft was to remain on the ground overnight or was unattended for a long period in windy conditions, it was my responsibility at airports to which I was assigned, to place the elevator gust locks on the company DC-3s. The locks were put in place immediately after the aircraft arrived at the airport terminal, and removed as soon as the pilots went to the cockpit, prior to start-up of the engines for departure.”

Cameron says, “Knowing that the cause of the tragic accident of the RCAF C-47 at Estevan in 1946 was the failure to remove the elevator gust locks, it was a source of great comfort to me in carrying out these duties, to know that it was almost impossible for the gust locks used by CPAL to remain in place as the aircraft taxied away. Attached to each gust lock was a long, red canvas ribbon — easily seen — and a length of flexible cable, about four feet long, that was attached to a 10-pound metal ring. In the event that the removal of the gust lock had been overlooked prior to the aircraft departure, the heavy weight lying on the ground would pull the locks from the elevators as the aircraft moved away.”

Cameron, now 88, remembers, “How tragic that such a simple, inexpensive device had not been available for that RCAF C-47 departure from Minot, North Dakota, on that fateful day of September 15, 1946. I was overwhelmed by the seeming injustice of their death in peacetime, after having survived the many dangers of operational flying during the Second World War.”

Estevan Crash Memorialized: Commemorating the men who died 61 years ago aboard Dakota 962

(Volume 24-9)

text & photo's by Anne Gafiuk

On September 10, 2017, Darren Jones, chainsaw artist from Rimbey, Alberta, delivered his latest Second World War memorial to the town of Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Only knowing a little about the story of the crash of Dakota 962 when he started, he felt he had to do this memorial. (For more information on the crash, read Anne Gafiuk’s article Decimated, Demoralized & Disbanded in Volume 24, Issue 7). “I have been thinking about this for a year. Who else was going to do this?” Having created the Estevan Soldiers’ Memorial almost two years ago, it seemed a natural fit for Jones.

Using red cedar, white oak and Douglas fir, Jones crafted a stunning tribute to the 21 men who lost their lives in the fiery crash of September 15, 1946.

“There is no fire in the design. Just straight up clouds! It will appear to be floating once it’s installed. There will also be a Lancaster above, and if time, a Spitfire and a Hurricane.” Jones carves up to eight feet a day with one of his collection of five chainsaws, following up with fine tuning, using side and die grinders, then airbrushing stain into the wood. “It brings out the highlights of the grain.”

Jones carves into the night. “When the light goes down, with the shading that occurs, the men’s faces come to life and they stare at me.” Having two storyboards with the men’s information upon them, he has gotten to know them on a first name basis. “Robert is one of my favourites. He reminds me of Humphrey Bogart. And then there is Raymond. I want to capture his youth.”

There will be a few blank faces. “I have photos of all the men, except [for a couple that we could not locate in archives]. The other blank face will be there to show respect for the other RCAF pilots who served in WWII. I am hopeful that families will find out about this memorial and perhaps I will get a picture of [those missing]. I can always carve [their faces] at a later date.”

“These men were heroes. I have empathy for the loss. My wife died last September. It seems right to be bringing this to Estevan, because Patricia and I made our last trip there together. I need to do this for my own healing.”

A PIECE OF HISTORY: German Field Howitzer From Vimy Battle Restored

 This 10.5-cm leFH 16 towed howitzer was captured from the German infantry by the 7th Battalion (1st British Columbia) on April 13, 1917 just after the Canadian Corps had secured Vimy Ridge. The gun has been restored and preserved by the Lincoln and Welland Regiment Foundation, and is currently on display at the St. Catharines armoury. (lincoln and welland regiment foundation)

(Volume 24-05)

By Micaal Ahmed

In a poll conducted by the Vimy Foundation last year, 60 per cent of the respondents believed that in 1917 — in the midst of a bloody battlefield — the country of Canada became a nation. And now, 100 years later, a reminder from that battlefield has been restored and preserved by the Lincoln and Welland Regiment Foundation.

“In a lot of ways, Vimy Ridge helped shape Canada as a nation,” said Garry Guitard, chair of the Vimy Foundation, in a press release. “It’s important to hold on to the tangible pieces left behind from that history — things you can see first hand.”

After taking Vimy Ridge, men of the 7th Battalion (1st British Columbia), Canadian Expeditionary Force, captured a German field howitzer — more specifically a 105-millimetre leFH-16 — outside the small French farming village of Farbus, on April 13, 1917.

“The gun may have been abandoned days earlier, when German gun crews proved unable to move their artillery after their horses were hit by a gas attack,” stated the press release. “The gun is one of four howitzers and a naval gun captured on April 13.”

“By April 14, Canadian troops, unable to move their own artillery forward, had captured several enemy guns and used a number of them to attack the Germans with their own shells.”

And this freshly restored gun seems to be one of them.

After the war ended, soldiers wanted to bring home objects symbolizing their achievements, and hence the government established the War Trophies Commission, which allocated such trophies. And while these trophies remained the property of the Crown, they were entrusted to different communities and organizations.

This gun was one such trophy, and was sent to what is today part of the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The gun is believed to have arrived in Niagara in the early 1920s, “being placed in front of the village school in Queenston.” And, “in 1926, the village cenotaph was unveiled; the gun was moved there at some point later, where it remained for decades,” according to the press release.

“In 1992 the gun’s custodianship was turned over to what is now the Niagara Artillery Association, which committed to restoring the weapon and finding a new place to display it. However, the Association did not have the resources to do more than sandblast and paint it, and in 1997 the gun was moved to Butler’s Barracks in Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

Then, in 2009, the foundation took over the custody of the gun, and started the restoration process with the help of various volunteers. The restoration was eventually completed in 2016, and the gun was unveiled in tandem with the battle’s 100th anniversary this year. The gun is currently being kept in the armoury at St. Catharines, but will become a permanent public display in the Niagara Military Heritage Centre, after it is built in the upcoming years, according to Drew Neufeld, the museum manager for the centre.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT: A Journey Of Remembrance For Students From Cole Harbour

In the village of Villons-les-Buissons, students from Cole Harbour High School reflect in silence in the garden of the Abbaye d’Ardenne, where Canadian soldiers were executed by Kurt Meyer’s 12th SS Panzer Division (the Hitler Youth) in the days and weeks following the D-Day landings. ABOVE LEFT: The plaque on the wall of the Abbaye is dedicated to the memory of the 27 executed Canadian prisoners of war. 

(Volume 24-05)

By Peter Stoffer

On April 6, 2017 a group of 40 students from Cole Harbour District High School, Nova Scotia, along with their principal, four teachers and myself along with my wife took a journey of remembrance from Nova Scotia to the battlefields of northern Europe. For most of these students it was their first time on a plane and their first trip overseas.

The itinerary included Passchendaele, Menin Gate, Wellington Quarry, Vimy Ridge, Beaumont-Hamel, Juno Beach, Abbaye d’Ardenne, Paris and London.

The lead teacher and organizer of this trip was Dave Denike. His efforts working with EF Educational Tours, the parents and with very active fundraising allowed these young people to have an experience of a lifetime.

I personally have had the privilege of visiting these sites of honour in the past, but never with such a large group of wonderful students. We laid wreaths and paid our respects to the fallen. Three events during this trip stand out for me.

We brought along with us a First World War-issued bible that belonged to John James Searle from Truro, Nova Scotia. The bible was discovered in Maitland, Nova Scotia about 19 years ago. Written on the back pages are detailed descriptions of the events at Vimy Ridge, from April 6 to April 9, 1917. Searle was injured at Vimy, sent to England and onward to Halifax, where he then survived the Halifax explosion of December 6, 1917. His grandson, Duncan Searle, allowed us to bring the bible back to Vimy, where it had been 100 years ago. Breanna, one of our students, read a passage from the bible as did John Searle’s great-granddaughter, Serena Matthews.

The second event that stood out for me was when Bill Quiqley, from Ontario, upon hearing that students from Cole Harbour were going over to Vimy, asked if we could lay a wreath at his great-uncle Private Robert L. McInnis’s gravesite. No one from the family had ever had the opportunity to visit the site. We laid a wreath, poppies and a photocopy of the silver cross that McInnis’s mother had received on his gravesite. McInnis, who served with the 25th Battalion, was from Caledonia Mine, Cape Breton.

The third event was at Abbaye d’Ardenne, where the murder of 27 Canadian soldiers took place between June 7 and 8, 1944. These heroes of our country came from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers. While laying our wreath at the site I noticed that all the students were very quiet. It then dawned on me that the students realized that there are some things more important than your own life, that the meaning of SERVICE BEFORE SELF is what all those heroes of Canada and her allies truly understood.

The students understood what the terms honour, valour, duty, sacrifice, loyalty, remembrance and what PRO PATRIA mean to the men and women who serve today. It was an incredible honour to travel overseas with such a tremendous group of young ambassadors of our municipality, province and country.

If any of our Esprit De Corps readers had any concerns about the youth of Canada today, I wish to assure all of them that … THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT …

REMEMBERING MINUGUA: Canada's Peacekeeping Mission In Guatemala

The 15 Canadian United Nations Military Observers (UNMOs) of MINUGUA. Standing (L-R): Luiz Araujo, Walters Watkins, Douglas Eaton, Robert Champagne, Robert Taylor, Alex Fieglar, Paul Lansey, Pierre van Doesburg, Louis Lafrance, Alex Dieryckx. Kneeling (L-R): unidentified escort, Carlos Belsham, Carlos Olivas, Eva Martinez, Claude Vadeboncoeur, Migel Gonzalez.

(Volume 24-4)

By Major (Ret'd) Eva Martinez

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Canada’s contribution to the Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace in Guatemala, it is only appropriate that the story is once again told.

In 1997, 15 Spanish-speaking Canadian Armed Forces officers were selected to serve as United Nations Military Observers (UNMOs) in Guatemala for a peacekeeping mission, dubbed MINUGUA (from the Spanish Misión de Verificación de las Naciones Unidas en Guatemala). The mission was established to verify a ceasefire following a brutal 36-year civil war that had pitted the government and the Guatemalan Army against the guerrillas of the National Revolutionary Unit of Guatemala (URNG).

An international contingent of 155 officers from various countries dismantled the URNG by collecting their weapons, ammunition, and uniforms before demobilizing the ex-combatants and reintegrating them into society as civilians. The Canadian contingent included Luiz Araujo (ARTY), Carlos Belsham (SIGS), Robert Champagne (CELE), Alex Dieryckx (MARS), Doug Eaton (INF), Alex Fieglar (LOG), Miguel Gonzalez (CELE), Louis Lafrance (INF), Paul Lansey (INF), Eva Martinez (AERE), Carlos Olivas (PLT), Bob Taylor (ARMD), Claude Vadeboncoeur (INF), Pierre Van Doesburg (ARTY), and Walter Watkins (INF).

Guatemala’s history is a complex picture to paint, like the intricate hand-woven huipils (tops) and cortes (skirts) worn by the indigenous women of Guatemala, with strong underpinnings in religion, politics, human rights, geography, and socio-economics. Over the centuries, it has become a tapestry of revolution, counterrevolution, exploitation and suppression, dispossession, and racial and economic oppression against the majority Indian population who have fought against brutal military dictatorships to defend their lives, fight for their rights, and regain their lands.

The guerrilla movement took root following a failed coup attempt in November 1960 by a group of reformist army officers who had become dissatisfied with the army command, the political tampering with promotions, the incompetence and corruption of the government, and the use of Guatemalan territory to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion. When their revolt failed, they and their followers went into hiding in Honduras, forged ties with Cuba, and began forming the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) guerrilla unit for armed insurrection against the government, returning to the Guatemalan highlands three years later. In 1966, the Guatemalan Army, with the help of U.S. Green Beret advisors, developed counterinsurgency tactics, defeated the FAR and banished them to the jungles of Petén, where the guerrillas then adopted an urban warfare strategy.

The URNG was formed in 1982 with an aim to establish a revolution that “will guarantee equality between Indians and Ladinos, and will end cultural oppression and discrimination.” The URNG was well structured and effectively organized with as many as 5,000 troops supported throughout the country by countless civilians who provided shelter, food and transportation as well as reserve personnel when required. The URNG consisted of four guerrilla armies: EGP (Guerrilla Army of the Poor), PGT (Guatemalan Workers Party/Communist Party), FAR (Rebel Armed Forces), and ORPA (Organization of People in Arms).

By 1982, the U.S. and other countries like Israel and Taiwan were providing support to the Guatemalan Army in a massive anti-guerrilla counterinsurgency campaign that resulted in the most violent period in Guatemala’s history. With the Army often resorting to scorched-earth tactics, the war ripped the country apart and led to numerous massacres. Over time, the URNG would assert its will to end armed conflict through dialog and political negotiations. Until the signing of the Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace, the civil war had reportedly resulted in the loss of 150,000 lives, 45,000 disappearances, 50,000 refugees, up to one million displaced people, and over 400 destroyed villages.

The international contingent of UNMOs was made up of officers and medical support staff from the armed forces of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. By military peacekeeping standards, this was one of the shortest missions (lasting only three months), smallest in terms of personnel, and cheapest (grossing just $3.9-million in expenses).

Eva Martinez and Paul Lansey storing weapons and ammunition collected from the guerrillas.

The UNMOs — completely unarmed during the mission — were deployed around the country to one of two headquarters — in Guatemala City and Quiché — or to one of six Verification Centres (VCs) — Las Abejas, Finca Claudia, Finca Sacol, Tzalbal, Tululché and Mayalán. The VCs were situated in very remote areas of Guatemala, near the URNG’s assembly points. From these VCs, military observers would conduct over 1,600 kilometres of foot patrols and 65,000 kilometres of road patrols in the Security and Coordination Zones, escort the guerrillas from their camps to the assembly points, and demilitarize them by collecting their weapons, ammunition, and uniforms before preparing them to be demobilized as civilians. Throughout the mission, the URNG demonstrated tremendous support for the process and a full willingness to cooperate.

At the same time, an intense demining operation took place on the Tajumulco Volcano — at 4,220 metres in elevation, it is Guatemala’s highest peak and the highest volcano in Central America (which last erupted in 1863). Surrendered as part of the peace agreement, the URNG’s largest minefield was cleared by UNMOs in April 1997. As a show of confidence, members of the Guatemalan Mountain Climbing Federation, with representatives from the Army, URNG, and UNMOs, climbed the demined volcano and christened it the “Guatemalan Peace Summit.”

A total of 2,928 combatants were demobilized — a number that reflects the diminished size of the URNG from its heyday of 5,000 in the 1980s, including those that had retired, been expelled, or had defected. While at the VCs, the combatants were identified and their weapons, ammunition, and uniforms were turned in. Various non-government organizations (NGOs) administered a comprehensive program of alphabetization, medical and dental care, and vocation testing in preparation for their new life as civilians. A total of 1,824 weapons, 535,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,321 explosive devices and mines, and 1,720 kilograms of explosives were turned in.

To the URNG, the weapons were symbolic of their struggle. Unwilling to accept defeat, the URNG refused to have the weapons turned over to the Army as this could be interpreted as surrender. It was agreed that the weapons would be donated to the new national police force being established by the peace process, although less than 50 per cent were considered in good condition.

As the end of the mission neared and closing ceremonies were carried out, much praise was given for the UNMOs’ impartiality, credibility, effectiveness and professionalism, although the contribution seemed more about ending the war and less about the resolution of the conflict.

In 1999, a United Nations truth commission found Guatemalan security forces responsible for more than 90 per cent of the human rights violations committed during the country’s 36-year civil war. Then U.S. President Bill Clinton travelled to Guatemala to apologize — an admission that the Guatemalan military had not acted alone. American support for Guatemalan security forces that had engaged in “violent and widespread repression,” the U.S. president said, “was wrong.” Although it has managed to avoid a fall back to full-scale civil war, Guatemala today isn’t much closer to achieving a true democratic and egalitarian society. There is still rampant corruption in the government and the momentum to fully implement the peace accords has waned. Criminal organizations have a strong hold on the country and the government has not been able to contain the violence.

Without strong leadership and adequate resources to keep moving the initiative forward, poverty, lack of education, social disparity, lack of infrastructure and administrative problems will prove to be insurmountable in the quest for peace.

AMPUTEES FIND MODERN-DAY INSPIRATION FROM VIMY BATTLE SURVIVORS

Rob Larman, a leg amputee, and Tiffany Ross, a left arm amputee and member of The War Amps Child Amputee (CHAMP) Program, lay a rose at the grave of Curley Christian, who lost all four limbs at Vimy Ridge, at Prospect Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario. Christian died on March 15, 1954 at 70 years of age. (john e. sokolowski, war amps)

(Volume 23-03)

The Battle of Vimy Ridge may have been 100 years ago, but it continues to have modern-day lessons for amputees like Rob Larman and Tiffany Ross of Toronto.

Larman, who lost his leg at the age of 14 when friends dared him to jump a train, now directs The War Amps PLAYSAFE Program, while Tiffany Ross, 10, was born a left arm amputee and is now a member of The War Amps Child Amputee (CHAMP) Program. 

To mark the Vimy anniversary, they laid a rose at the grave of Ethelbert “Curley” Christian at Toronto’s Prospect Cemetery, in honour of the remarkable sacrifice Christian made at Vimy that continues to inspire young amputees today.

Christian lost all four limbs in the Vimy Battle and is believed to be the only quadruple amputee to have survived the First World War. Despite his grievous injuries, he became a leading member of the newly established War Amputations of Canada and even returned to the battlefield for the dedication of the Vimy Memorial in 1936.

“Curley Christian passed away in 1954, but he continues to have a legendary status in The War Amps for how he overcame his amputations, particularly at a time when disability was very much a hidden and taboo subject,” says Larman.

“Curley was there to offer assurance and advice to the Second World War amputees from someone who had been there, and after my accident, those veterans did the same for me. Now we older amputees pass along this support and legacy to young amputees like Tiffany,” says Larman. 

He adds that laying a rose at Christian’s grave on behalf of The War Amps is both a way to honour him as a tremendous role model for amputees, and to put a face to the many Canadian soldiers who lost limbs at Vimy Ridge. “These young men showed great bravery both in fighting for their country and in readjusting to their new lives as amputees,” said Larman. “Through The War Amps, we will continue the work and the example left by war amputee veterans like Curley going long into the future.”  

HOW SPRING RENEWED SOLDIERS IN THE GREAT WAR: Spirits lifted as the ice and snow melted

This 1918 poster campaign borrows from LCol John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” and invokes hope with a field of blossoming poppies. (archives of ontario, war poster collection)

(Volume 24-03)

By Russ Chamberlayne

Anyone who experiences a Canadian winter knows spring as a much-anticipated blessing. On the battlegrounds of Flanders, Belgium and northern France a century ago, spring offered servicemen a time of spiritual healing, restoration and even redemption. Though it might turn chilly and rainy, spring provided a model to every hopeful soldier of nature’s unfailing resurrection, and to those despairing of civilization, an archetype of immortality.

Just the term “spring offensive” smacks of optimism, and Canada’s most renowned battle triumph in the First World War came in the British advance of April 1917. As it happened, the Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge at the end of a particularly harsh winter. The long-sought warmth and colour of the vernal season must have enhanced the sweetness of victory.

Letters written home during the Great War revealed much about the morale of the men and their living conditions, especially those at the sharp end. The springtime letters of James Wells Ross (right) and John Sudbury (far right) are prime examples of both.

Spring also bolstered a common spirits-lifter — letter writing. Letters home greatly benefitted the morale of Canadian soldiers, who used this reliable link with their base to vent (as censors allowed) burdens and worries, but also to express love for family and friends. University of Colorado professor Martha Hanna found in her study of war letters that personnel in all armies turned spring growth into tokens of attachment. “... Almost everyone affirmed their affection by sending home sprigs of flowers, incongruous snippets of beauty plucked from the mire of the front-lines.”

Spring’s restorative power was especially requisite in the blighted countryside on the Western Front. Above the mire stood limbless hulks of trees, now so emblematic of the war’s desolation. Corporal Will Mayse of Emerson, Manitoba found himself gazing out of a YMCA hut as he wrote in March 1918 to his wife, Betty. Nearby were “rows of Lombardy poplars — fine, magnificent old trees in pre-war days, but now splintered & shattered & dead from gas & shell fire; the valley in which we are was once a beauty spot of Old France, thickly wooded but now all the beauty has vanished under the devastation of war …”

The war’s bleak brutality corroded morale, but it could fray morals too. The continual loss of comrades to an enemy propagandized as evil and rumoured to commit war crimes challenged soldiers’ sense of right and wrong. University of Toronto medical student and artilleryman James Wells Ross revealed his homicidal thoughts about Germans in a letter written in mid-May 1915, late in the Second Battle of Ypres (in which the German army first attacked with gas). “It is now a fight to the finish,” he wrote, describing a friend finding his brother dead on the battlefield, and “then so far as we know at present his mother and sister went down on the Lusitania. He certainly has a big score to settle, and in his place I’m afraid I would even shoot a German prisoner if I saw one pass.”

But the soothing presence of springtime could temper hardened feelings. In the same letter, Ross wrote: “The apple trees are in bloom and fields green with spring clover, while the innumerable bird melodies help to quiet the nerves and quell the murder instinct against all Germans.” If an antidote to bitterness, however, spring’s softness and splendour could not displace the reality of war. On a brilliant Sunday in April 1916, machine gunner and Montrealer Jack Sudbury wrote his brother Bill:

[I’m] sitting with my back to a tree in a little wood or copse with my feet touching the babbling waters of a little stream, the banks of which are bespangled with the blue of a multitude of violets. It is a glorious afternoon but all the time the distant roar and rumble of the guns together with the continual hum of aeroplane after aeroplane passing makes one forget the Spring time and its glory and bring to mind, in its place, the many experiences I have had during my last visit to the trenches. [I must] keep them for the time when I can tell you about them by word of mouth. May that blessed time soon come.

Some soldiers were “lucky” enough to get a blighty, a wound requiring treatment in Britain, where they might enjoy spring far from the sounds of combat. Tom Johnson was one, laid up in hospital with his arm in a cast. In words of simplicity and longing, he wrote in mid-May 1917 to his future wife, Lulu, and gave an engaging sketch of spring in England:

Jim Bennett’s letter home in May 1918 revealed hope with coming of spring, dreaming of returning back to the farm.

As far as I can see from these windows the country is very beautiful just now. A soft light green clothes all the trees, while the grass is long & luxuriant. This morning a man was cutting it near my window with a scythe. The currant bushes, of which there seems to be a large number here, are laden with red & white blossom, & the birds are singing nearly all the time. Soon I hope to go out in time to see the hawthorne blossom & mayflowers on the roadsides. Won’t you come a walk with me, Lulu, along these beautiful English lanes?

Back in the war zone, Canadian soldiers continued to take in the vitalizing power of spring, through to the last year of the conflict. Jack Malcolm Brown, a teamster from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, told his sister in March 1918: “Everything is jake on the western front. Spring is here now with the warm sun and green fields. The grain and grass is all growing fine. It seems to make a person want to live and enjoy life all the more.”

After describing a field of rye “all headed out” in mid-May, Jim Bennett of Spencerville, Ontario, concurred with Jack about the renewed will to live: “It makes a fellow think that life is worth living to get back this far from the line, when everything is looking so fine. When a fellow is up when he sees nothing but the destruction of war all the time, he hardly think that life is hardly [sic] worth fighting for.”

Not every Canadian soldier expressed his feelings in letters as much as these writers, nor felt the same way. But we can be sure that, apart from the most hardened, all soldiers appreciated the coming of spring in France and Flanders — for its beauty, its potency, and its comfort to battle-scarred hearts.

The Common Wisdom About Russia Is Not Wise: Looking beyond the propaganda

In September 2015, neither Russian President Vladimir Putin and American President Barack Obama were too happy to have their picture taken shaking hands after a United Nations meeting to discuss the disintegration of Syria. But with the election of Donald Trump to the White House, will a reduction in America’s animosity towards Russia thaw the new Cold War? (wikipedia)

(Volume 24-03)

By Chris Westdal

I write here first about the popular narrative of Russia as an aggressive marauder; second, about Ukraine on the brink; third, about the plans for détente of President Trump; and, along the way, about Canada’s roles in all this drama.

The Common Wisdom Isn’t Wise

I encourage readers to take a hard, sceptical look at the prevailing, ubiquitous Western narrative that Vladimir Putin is a demon, killer, thief, dictator, war criminal and fixer of U.S. elections and that the Russia he’s led for 17 years is a malignant, aggressive marauder bent on domination in eastern Europe and far beyond.

Vladimir Putin is no choirboy; no great power leader ever is. The president of Russia is many other things: a patriot, a patriarch — Tsar Lite, say — formidably intelligent, informed and articulate, pragmatic above all, a proven leader tough enough to run the vast Federation, ruthless if need be in serving its interests, and genuinely popular. Putin is also, proudly, a spy — and deception is an essential tool of espionage. So, of course, those “little green men” were Russian – but, of course, Moscow won’t say so. As Putin explained at a Munich Security Conference, “We’re all adults here.”

What’s more, beyond its leader, there is much we may not like in Russia’s domestic politics or in the unapologetically brutal, few-holds-barred way it wages war.

But still, I find the current narrative about Russia’s role in the world overblown, full of exaggeration about Russia’s record, motives and capabilities, while blind to its obvious economic, demographic and security vulnerabilities and its necessarily defensive strategic posture.

That narrative is also notably ahistorical, blithely ignoring the provocations which have led to what’s labelled Russian “aggression” — the vast expansion of NATO, a congenitally Russo-phobic nuclear military alliance; the unilateral abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, messing with Moscow’s perception of its nuclear security, and the forward deployment of missile defence (in Romania and Poland, to counter a threat from Iran, we’d have Moscow believe); and the billions spent stoking anti-Russian sentiment and regime change in Russia’s neighbourhood.

There has been much blood shed since the Maidan picked a fight with Moscow three years ago — a fight it can’t win — but the facts remain that Kyiv can’t make the (increasingly distracted and exasperated) West care more — and can’t make the Kremlin care less. We are not going to fight World War III for the Donbas. And the Kremlin, under any sensate leader, is not going to stop defining the geostrategic orientation of Ukraine, all of Ukraine, as a matter of fundamental national security. Call Russia’s reaction “aggression” if you will, but as we grew NATO by leaps and bounds, what did we expect? That Russia would just roll over in the face of obvious strategic calamity and meekly agree to rent historic Sevastopol, the Crimean base of its Black Sea Fleet, from a member of NATO?

Like them or not, theory aside, major powers’ zones of influence are real. We Canadians know that; we live in one. In the real world, Kyiv has about as much freedom to undermine Moscow’s security as Ottawa has to undermine Washington’s.

Ukraine on the Brink

Take a hard look too at the catastrophic circumstances of Ukraine and at the record and results of a quarter century of massive, sustained Western intervention, including our own. They must surely lead you to humility about our comprehension of Ukraine and our ability to mind its business.

In brief, the U.S. colony in Kyiv, the multibillion-dollar Western project there, of which we’re a vocal part, is a heartbreak, a corrupt oligarchy, unreformed, highly centralized (without even elected regional governors), littered with arms, full of hard men without jobs, ready recruits for private militias, and dominated by ethnic nationalists bitterly opposed to vital national and regional reconciliation.

More of the same from us will make no sense. In a hole, stop digging. At the very least, do no more harm. Our record proves we don’t have a clue how to solve Ukraine’s problems. They’ll have to be solved — or not — by Ukrainians.

Violent clashes between civilians and government forces in Kyiv, Ukraine on February 18, 2014 — known as the Maidan Revolution — resulted in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In its aftermath, the ethnic Russian population in the Crimean region held protests and eventually a referendum to secede from Ukraine. 

For President Petro Poroshenko, meanwhile, let us spare a prayer. With a 13 per cent approval rating, the economy in tatters, and U.S. and EU support fading, Poroshenko knows he has to do a deal with Russia, has to implement the Minsk peace plan. Yet he dare not even say so, let alone act. The Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) is adamantly opposed. In Kyiv these days, federalism and decentralization, at the core of Minsk implementation, are four-letter words.

We should do what we can to help him. We have no influence in Moscow — and it will be some time before we recover much — but we do have some clout in Kyiv. We should use it to counter lethally exclusive ethnic Ukrainian nationalism, to which we should stop pandering. We should use it as well to suggest proven Canadian solutions such as inclusion, accommodation and federalism.

And we should use it to promote essential reconciliation with Russia. No country in the world has more profound interest in good relations with Russia than Ukraine. None has more interest in East–West accord. None has more to gain by an end to this ruinous East–West tug of war. None has more interest in a better fence between Russia and NATO — a “mending wall” in Robert Frost’s phrase. Canada should aim for a new deal in which Ukraine, rather than having to make an impossible choice, gets to trade well with both Europe and Russia, while posing a security threat to neither, a deal in which Ukrainians get the space and peace and quiet they need to reunite, to recover, to reform and to succeed. By all means, bilateral and multilateral, that should be our goal.

Donald Trumps the World   

Despite entrenched bipartisan opposition, President Trump has appeared determined to achieve a measure of détente with Russia, to fight ISIS with it, to trade with it, to seek peace in Ukraine with it — to lower the temperature and tension and head off more Cold War. For the good of all concerned, especially Ukrainians, we should help him do so. Far from “sacrificing” Ukraine, as critics will claim, détente would permit its salvation.

We should help Trump deter Russia too, responding to his demand — and that of General James Mattis at NATO in Brussels — by spending more on defence. In my view, we have to do so anyway, if only to build a Navy and Coast Guard fit for the three oceans we have to sail.

As NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insists, there is no contradiction between détente and deterrence. One day, one may eliminate the other, but we’re not there yet. NATO’s not going away any time soon. It will go on balancing and deterring Russian power and ambition.

Meantime, as we do our bit for deterrence, we should also do our bit for détente — and keep our priorities straight about the two. As Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said at last year’s NATO Summit in Warsaw, the work behind the scenes to re-establish a NATO dialogue with Russia “really is the most critical piece. We need to make sure the tensions are reduced because it doesn’t help anybody.”

On August 25, 2015 Canadian Armed Forces personnel began Operation UNIFIER, Canada’s military training mission in support of the Ukrainian armed forces. The CAF’s role is but one of the tools the government has at its disposal, and our approach has to be designed to improve the situation between Russia and the West, not destabilize it. (dnd)

Exactly. Détente is a lonely cause these days — and Donald Trump may turn out to be the worst friend it ever had — but the last thing our sorry world needs now is this new Cold War we’re waging. We’ve got too much else on our plates and face far greater threats to our security and welfare than any posed by Russia — which faces them too. The Cold War blighted half of the 20th century. If we can avoid it — and I think we can, if we try harder — let’s not let Cold War blight any more of the 21st. 

A MAJESTIC MONUMENT: Ottawa's Iconic National War Memorial

The National War Memorial honours the more than 1,500,000 Canadianswho fought for Canada. (richard lawrence, compliments of the royal canadian legion dominion command)

(Volume 24 Issue 1)

By Gord Jenkins

It is located in the heart of Ottawa and rises from the horizon as one looks north along Elgin Street, framed by the iconic Parliament Buildings and the Château Laurier Hotel. It is ingrained in the psyche of our nation. Of course, I am referring to the National War Memorial, our national cenotaph, which is recognized by all through the yearly Remembrance Day ceremonies that commemorate the sacrifices that have been made in defence of Canada. These ceremonies are conducted by the Royal Canadian Legion and see thousands of Canadians attend in concert with veterans, currently serving members of our Canadian Armed Forces, foreign military and political dignitaries, and other service-related organizations.

This structure was created in «the memory of those who participated in the Great War and lost their lives in the service of humanity» ... the First World War, the «War to end all Wars.» Yet sadly, history has a bad habit of repeating itself and, over time, the memorial has seen the names of the other conflicts in which Canadians have participated etched into the granite: South African War, Second World War, Korea, Afghanistan.

Some things that you may not know about the cenotaph.

Until last year, if you were standing near the cenotaph, you were actually standing on an artificial «island of earth» under which a storage ‹cave› lays. This is due to two reasons. The first being that Ottawa, formerly known as Lower Bytown and Upper Bytown, is actually divided by the Rideau Canal which flows north-south, cutting through the downtown core as it enters into the Ottawa River. Secondly, as the old Grand Trunk Railway lines ran along the Rideau Canal to the main train station (now the Government Conference Centre), the cenotaph site was a confluence of bridges and the roof over the railway tracks. Not a pretty sight for the engineers, but I›ll get to that in a moment. 

The design for the cenotaph was awarded to Vernon March, a United Kingdom artist, in January 1926. March won the international competition to design a monument «expressive of the feelings of the Canadian people as a whole, to the memory of those who participated in the Great War and lost their lives in the service of humanity.» March was helped by his six brothers and sister, who completed the work after Vernon’s untimely death in 1930. The bronze figures were all completed in 1931 but had to wait until 1938 until the appropriate site in Canada was found and developed. For six months, Londoners were welcomed to view the bronzes in Hyde Park, prior to the figures going into a storage shed for seven years.

The 22 bronze figures going through the arch, called «The Response,» are surmounted by two figures on top of the arch representing «Peace» and» Freedom.» The arch and the base of the monument were constructed from seven types of marble; the monument itself consists of 503 tons of granite and 32 tons of bronze secured on built-up steel piles. All this weight eventually caused the whole marble and bronze and surrounding platform and steps, also of marble, to begin to sink and a major restoration was announced in March 2016. Numerous cement trucks were then seen at this site as Public Works quietly poured tons of cement into the train track cavern (used for storage) underneath the cenotaph.

Now that the cenotaph is adequately shored up, it will remain a beacon to the memory of those who gave so much in the defence of Canada and our way of life. Don’t forget to wear a poppy and come to the cenotaph on Remembrance Day. All Canadians can be proud of those who went before them and who continue to serve in the Armed Forces.

ROBERT ENGLISH: A fighter pilot's own story and an enduring mystery

Robert English, a bright and personable young man, was determined to join the war effort as soon as he could. On August 24, 1942, at 18 years of age, he travelled to Toronto to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. 

(Volume 24-01)

By Larry D. Rose

Robert English was a Canadian Spitfire pilot from St. Catharines, Ontario, a bright and personable young man who was killed right at the end of the Second World War in circumstances that are still murky and mysterious.

His warmth and decency shine through — even after all these years — in 75 letters he sent home, kept by his family in a scuffed brown suitcase as weathered as the letters inside it. In his clear and even script, Robert wrote of his progress from the time he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 to April 1945, when he disappeared while on fighter reconnaissance operations in Italy.

It is a thrilling journey: a young Canadian flying the legendary Spitfire in the midst of the greatest upheaval of the twentieth century. He was helping to make history. He wrote about some exotic travels, mixed in occasional humour but, every now and again, his letters make it clear that he was a long, long way from home.

At the start he was tentative, a bit awkward, every bit a teenager. After his first flight in a twin-engine Avro Anson aircraft he exclaimed, “I was very excited.” At another point he wrote, “Pay day, Oh Boy!” But over time the tone changes to one in which he understood the dangers very well. After being overseas for a year or so, he wrote, “We’ve got to finish this thing” — he was determined to go on.

In the letters Robert Mould English — called Bob or Bobby by the family — invariably referred to his hometown of St. Catharines as “St. Kitts.” While he was born there, he grew up mostly in Edgewater, New Jersey because his father, a plumber, couldn’t find work in Ontario during the Depression. All the letters in the suitcase were addressed to his parents, Richard and Hilda (née Mould) English.

The youthful innocence of Robert English, who grew up in New Jersey, is visible in this photo. After enlisting, Robert conducted flight training in Ontario and then Calgary. After getting his pilot wings on August 20, 1943 he was almost immediately posted to Britain. 

Despite the American connection, Robert always considered himself a Canadian and was determined to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he did, at age 18 on August 24, 1942. His RCAF service records show that shortly after enlisting he was interviewed by Pilot Officer W.D. Gilmore who gave a clear impression of the young recruit. Gilmore wrote, “Just 18 — nice type of lad … intelligent and alert — assertive and well organized … slender build, frank, sincere, and definite in responses … promising material.” That opinion was seconded more than 70 years later by one of Robert’s cousins who lives today in Mississauga, Ontario. Gert Penwill, now 94, described him as “outgoing” and “a good kid.”

Robert was a smaller man, only five feet seven inches and, at this point, just 120 pounds but, with the tough Depression years just ending, that was not so different from many recruits of the time. He had wavy blond hair, and in some of the pictures in a family photo album, a shy kind of smile.

The youthful innocence of Robert English (top left), who grew up in New Jersey, is visible in this photo. After enlisting, Robert conducted flight training in Ontario and then Calgary. After getting his pilot wings on August 20, 1943 he was almost immediately posted to Britain. 

Robert did basic training at an initial training school in Toronto and then took his first step toward gaining his pilot’s wings at No. 20 Elementary Flying School in Oshawa, Ontario. Both schools were a part of the colossal British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) — between 1940 and 1945, some 151 schools were established across Canada — which trained 131,500 aircrew for Canada, Britain, Australia and other Allies during the war.

Students first learned to fly the diminutive but sturdy de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane. For a considerable number of aspiring airmen even this simple aircraft was too much. After only three weeks, 10 out of the original 42 students in Robert’s group had washed out. Robert exclaimed to his parents that, at the rate things were going, there wouldn’t be anyone left by the end of the course.

Romance found its way into the early letters as Robert, rather candidly, told his parents, “I met a very nice girl in Toronto. Don’t laugh.” However, in time it becomes clear that he had been in touch with a young woman he went to school with in New Jersey, whom he only referred to in the letters as “Miem.” Gert Penwill identified her as Emilie Schwehm, a young woman who later became a school teacher. Robert and Emilie became much more serious as time went along and by 1945 Robert was hoping to marry her as soon as the war was over.

Oshawa and Toronto were good postings for Robert because at this time his parents were living in Buffalo, New York and he had relatives both in “St. Kitts” and Toronto. He passed his elementary pilot’s course and in the spring of 1943 was posted to Dunnville, Ontario, west of Hamilton. There, and at 14 other schools across Canada, many students flew the Harvard single-engine trainer, one of the iconic training planes of the war. There are dozens of Harvards still flying today, the mere sight of which still conjures up near-religious fervour in pilots young and old alike.

Robert found the Harvard a “hot” aircraft compared to the Tiger Moth, but then the Tiger Moth took off and landed at 40 miles an hour, so anything more than that might have been considered hot. Despite being a trainer, the Harvard was not easy to fly. On landing or taxiing it was very prone to “ground looping,” which meant the plane skewed to one side, possibly scraping a wing in the process. Robert loved the Harvard, saying after his first flight, “What a ship. Really lovely,” but he acknowledged, “it’s no toy.”

During the war, 856 trainees were killed in air crashes and accidents. Pilots got lost in bad weather or just plain lost, there were mechanical failures, and all too often students were killed while attempting foolish stunts. In Robert’s letter of June 25, 1943 there were sobering words that one of the student pilots had been killed, although exactly what happened is not clear. Robert said, “The C.O. gave us quite a talk … and he’s making things pretty tough … He had lots to say, all unpleasant.” The prospect of death had become a sudden reality.

On August 20, 1943, while on a course in Calgary, Robert announced to the family that he had won his wings. A telegram read: “DEAR FOLKS POSTED CALGARY ALBERTA INVITATIONS WINGS PARADE … LOVE BOB.” This was an optimistic time for the Allied forces that were, more and more, reversing years of German and Japanese victories. As Robert’s telegram was being sent, Canadian, British and American soldiers had just cleared Italian and German forces out of Sicily.

* * * * *

Pilot Officer Robert English was ordered overseas, sailing for England on October 12, 1943. He arrived at the Canadian Personnel Reception Unit in Bournemouth, which in sunnier days had been a resort town. At this point, Robert and many others in the RCAF were caught up in an enormous logjam, with airmen waiting to be sent to a training squadron or base. Robert still did not know if he would be a bomber or a fighter pilot.

A Spitfire Mk IX in flight during the Second World War. This is the type of aircraft Robert English was flying when he was shot down. The Spitfire was still a formidable ground attack aircraft in 1945. The majority of
Mk IXs used the standard “c” wing, which could carry four 20mm cannon or two 20mm cannon and four .303 inch machine guns.

He wrote a reassuring letter: “I’ve been reading the papers and they sure are optimistic in this theatre … I’m well and fit and eating like never before. Don’t worry.” However, he was bothered by the inactivity. “A nice quiet life. So quiet in fact that I’m about to go nuts ... We are eager to be flying again.”

Soon it was coming up to Christmas, which undoubtedly was the hardest time for anyone away from home during the war. Robert spent two Christmases overseas and from his letters it was obviously emotionally difficult for him. Letters and packages from home meant everything, especially at that time of year. Robert’s family and even his former co-workers at an export company where he worked before he joined up sent parcels packed with cake or cookies, canned fruit, socks and the one thing that almost everyone asked for again and again — cigarettes. Everyone smoked and cigarettes were also often used to repay favours or reward friends.

At Robert’s base there was a traditional turkey dinner and later someone sat down at the piano for a Christmas singsong. “I’ll be thinking of you on Christmas day,” Robert wrote while saying at least he had the company of a good friend, bomber pilot Pat Mahoney. “The only time I got a little blue was when Pat and I sat in a corner and started talking about home.”

In March 1944 Robert was sent to a training squadron while at the same time being promoted to the rank of flying officer. Many Canadian airmen in Britain were being posted to bomber squadrons at this time, but Robert was sent instead to train on “single engine kites,” as he called them.

After a gap of three months, there was a dramatic change. A letter Robert sent home on June 27, 1944 was postmarked, not from England, but Egypt. He had been put on a troop ship to the Middle East. Robert said his impressions were “heat and dirt,” but he was there for only a short time before being sent to what was then Palestine. “We went to Tel Aviv yesterday,” he wrote, “for a swim in the Mediterranean.” Later he spent a short time in Syria, but he does not say what he was actually doing or what squadron he was with.

Then, what he himself referred to as “a milestone,” occurred on August 27, 1944: “After one year as a pilot I flew my first operational aircraft. It was a Hurricane … we’ll be flying Spitfires soon. That will be a happy day.” The Spitfire flight took place only three weeks later, which Robert said went well, and as for Spitfires, “I’m crazy about them.” By this time in the war, the fighting in the Mediterranean theatre had shifted to Italy, where the Allies were pushing German forces north toward the Po River.

On November 1, 1944 Robert reported, “Your son is in Italy.” He was sent to the Naples area and posted to No. 208 Squadron, Royal Air Force, becoming one of tens of thousands of Canadians to serve with RAF squadrons during the war. No. 208 was a photo reconnaissance squadron which had moved to southern Italy in March 1944 and immediately begun operations in support of the British Army’s V Corps, which was made up of three British divisions and one from the Indian Army. The squadron flew Spitfire IX’s, a late model of the aircraft.

As the Allied armies advanced through Italy the squadron leapfrogged from airfield to airfield behind them, taking part in a number of battles including one at Monte Casino. From September 1944 until April 1945 the squadron carried out as many as 500 reconnaissance flights a month, but it also did some ground attacks. With Robert’s posting to that squadron, it would only be a matter of time until he saw action.

While he must have been absorbed with the task at hand, his thoughts were also turning to the future — after the war was over. In words that are almost aching to read today, Robert wrote in one letter, “When I get back I want to get into something I like and lead a normal happy life. My one big ambition is to buy a house.”

Robert also said there was a lot of anger in his squadron over newspaper reports that Lady Astor, the British politician, had criticized those serving in Italy, calling them “D-Day Dodgers.” She implied that they had somehow angled to avoid the hard fighting in Normandy and had a soft touch in Italy. Today, many survivors of the brutal and costly Italian campaign call themselves D-Day Dodgers as a kind of badge of honour, and commemorate their losses and their contribution to victory each June. If there is any doubt of how costly the campaign was and how long the casualty list is — more than 5,900 Canadians were killed in the 20-month-long campaign — any visitor to Italy is welcome to view the Canadian graves at war cemeteries like Agira in Sicily, Coriano Ridge near Rimini or, for that matter, the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Florence, where Robert Mould English rests today.

* * * * *

Very likely Robert began combat flying about mid-February, 1945. On the ground, fighting pitted determined German troops along with Italian fascist holdouts against Allied troops and anti-fascist partisans, with the partisans having recently managed to kill a Luftwaffe general. In Robert’s last letter home, dated March 25, 1945, he said he had flown 35 sorties. Squadron flights ranged across Italy, but included the Italian west coast, near the port of La Spezia where troops of the American Fifth Army were battling north. All fighting in Italy ended on May 2, when German forces in Italy finally surrendered.

Gert Penwill, a cousin of Robert English, lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Her son Grant has all of the pictures and letters of Robert’s, still kept in an old leather suitcase. (larry d. rose)

However, to go back a bit, the No. 208 Squadron history said that on April 15 “twenty-eight sorties were flown, [but] three pilots failed to return from reconnaissance missions their fate being unknown.” One of the missing aircraft was flown by Robert English. He either bailed out or crash landed near La Spezia after his Spitfire was hit by ground fire. At first, Robert was listed as missing and only later listed as “presumed dead,” but exactly what happened after his plane crashed was not clear at that time. For some months the only thing the family knew was that he was missing. So what had happened?

There may have been inquiries as soon as the war ended, but they are not in Robert’s service record. However, among his papers is the summary of an investigation the Royal Air Force conducted in 1948. When looking through military records there is always the prospect that something unexpected will be uncovered and that is the case with Robert’s service file. The RAF report is heartbreaking.

The inquiry concluded that Robert English and a second pilot both survived their aircraft being shot down and were taken prisoner. They were put into a local jail, but the report does not say by whom. Three days later, the two were taken out of the jail and shot “while trying to escape.” There can be little doubt that the last part was a fabrication. Most likely the two men, along with an Italian officer, were simply murdered.

The investigation quoted local residents as saying the prisoners were shot by Italian guards, possibly one of the fascist holdout groups, but it is also possible that retreating German troops or the SS were responsible. There is no evidence anyone was ever arrested for the crime and, after all these years, other details remain a mystery and more will probably never be known.

Robert English, the boy from “St. Kitts,” was one of more than 17,000 members of the Royal Canadian Air Force who perished during the Second World War. Robert’s parents died some years ago so today the suitcase, heavy with letters, memories and heartbreak, has now passed to Robert’s cousin, Gert Penwill, and her son, Grant.

Also in the suitcase is a book of photos showing Robert as a young boy and then as a young officer in the RCAF. In other pictures he is with some of his pals in London, and then later photos show him in a group at the pyramids. Among the most poignant pictures are the last two in the book: one shows Hilda English and the other her husband, Richard, each beside the gravestone of their only child, Robert, at the cemetery in Florence. When he died he was just 20 years old.

DRONE TRAINING FOR CADETS? An idea that makes perfect sense in 2017

A 27-foot-long Predator fires a Hellfire missile. The UAS, in use with the USAF and CIA since 1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. (usaf)

(Volume 24-01)

By Major (ret'd) Roy Thomas, MSC, CD

This statement was made by Michael Fagan, Chair of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, in front of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in 2010. It is now 2017! That many more drones are now flying every second around the globe. For in addition to military UAS, civilians are also flying recreational drones, some with extended capabilities. In fact, the wide use of drones in low altitude airspace has led organizations such as the Small UAV Coalition and NASA’s Unmanned Traffic Management group to help create rules and meet FAA regulations.

On the 150th anniversary of our Confederation, it is time that the cadet movement — army, navy and air force — introduce unmanned vehicle training, not only in operating drones but also in learning to control unmanned submersibles.

A major reason for having cadets learn to operate drones is “safety” — writ LARGE! Our youth need to be made aware of the need to share airspace when flying any form of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). No one wants to see a drone out the aircraft’s window as their flight is on final approach. Cadets are generally leaders among their peers. The knowledge that cadets learn about safely flying drones or robotic submersibles would circulate among their classmates, teammates or work colleagues, especially those with privately owned drones of their own.

The value of currently available off-the-shelf drones for emergency use has already been made evident in our media. The Halifax and Winnipeg fire departments have both submitted requests for drones that would give on-site fire commanders a top-down view of an ongoing fire. In 2016, a recreational drone user employed his UAV in a Renfrew County missing person search. From Africa’s East Coast, we learn that drones are transporting critical medicine to locations that cannot be reached quickly by any other affordable mode of transport. The list of emergency uses of simple, recreational drones is quite extensive. What better organization to provide emergency assistance than a cadet corps with its hierarchal leadership, respect for regulations and military style of discipline? Cadet drone operators would also have been exposed to the use of maps or charts, compass and GPS.

Our cash-strapped Canadian Armed Forces would benefit as well. Many cadets go on to serve in Regular or Reserve units of all three services. Having a reservoir of recruits familiar with drone operation, albeit of the short-range recreational varieties, would be a big plus. However, the biggest benefit to our Armed Forces, in yet another era of money shortages, would be that there would be wider appreciation among the voting public about the use of unmanned vehicles. After all, many cadets are of voting age or about to become eligible to vote! Cadets also have family members who can vote.

As a fisherman, I hope some cadet, operating some underwater submersible on training, captures an image of a monster muskie, complete with GPS coordinates and shares this information. To improve our safety, to assist in emergencies and to indirectly help our Forces, starting in 2017 cadets should be trained to operate unmanned vehicles — above, on and below the earth’s surface

BACKING 'EM UP! Canadian WWII explosives expert shares insights

: Scientist Norman Randall weighs ten ounces of TNT and ten ounces of RDX explosives on a scale prior to ballistics tests to compare the power of the two explosives at the National Research Council explosives laboratory, March 1944. (library and archives canada, 3197143

(Volume 24-01)

By Drew Tapley

Bob Mercer strikes you as a man who has enjoyed a full life, with an astonishing ability to recall exact details from it.

“In the peak production years during the war,” says Mercer, “the military explosives plant where I worked in Nobel, Ontario, employed about 4,000 people in the small town.”

The product he once made would end up in the hands of British or American Allied forces thousands of miles away; and their lives would intersect.

Mercer was an explosives expert during the Second World War. He did not serve overseas, yet his expertize played a key role in the war effort.

At 96 years of age, Bob Mercer still vividly remembers the fatal explosion of November 18, 1941 at the plant where he worked in Nobel, Ontario. As an explosives expert during the Second World War, Mercer went on to build a 40-year career in the development, regulation and transportation of high explosives for the Canadian explosives industry.

Arriving in Canada from Northern Ireland at the age of three, Mercer grew up to build a career of more than four decades in the development, regulation and transportation of high explosives for the Canadian explosives industry. The 96-year-old was a representative on air transport regulation at meetings of the UN Committee of Experts on Explosives, and the International Civil Aviation Organization. But the majority of his career was spent developing cordite and other propellants used to drive rounds of ammunition during the war, and for postwar commercial use.

After graduating with a degree in chemistry from the University of Manitoba in 1941, he landed a job as a chemist with the wartime subsidiary of Canadian Industries Ltd.

“There were three large military explosives plants, all built in less than a year and a half,” Mercer said. “In July of 1941, I was in the military explosives department manufacturing cordite and TNT.”

These are very different explosives, explains Mercer.

“Cordite is a propellant. It burns so fast that it almost explodes when it’s burning. TNT is extremely insensitive. You could throw a case of it off a two-story building and nothing would happen. The newspapers used the term TNT like calling every car a Ford. It was usually the main element in the shell, but there were more sensitive components to set it off.”

Cordite was the primary product of the Nobel plant, used to propel ammunition from 16-inch cannons on naval battleships. It was unaffected by extreme climates, giving it a greater quality of preservation and storage.

“When you saw a battlecruiser like the HMS Hood operating — that’s where it went. They would load about 400 pounds of cordite to propel a shell 20 miles.”

Bob Mercer and his wife Fran in 1946. Soon after graduating with a chemistry degree from the University of Manitoba, Mercer found himself a job at one of two explosives plants built in Nobel, on the shores of Georgian Bay and about 50 kilometres north of Parry Sound.

The Nobel plant had five lines for cordite, with each one serviced by kneader rooms. On the other end of the range, press rooms extruded the cordite into various shapes and sizes that resembled spaghetti. From there it went to a drying room to be blended, packed and cased into magazines.

“The packaging of explosives had to pass rigorous standards. We filled the cases with dummy explosives, and put them through a tumbling and shock test to see how they would stand travelling in a freight car.”

Nitroglycerin is the active ingredient in cordite, with other elements acting to stabilize it and control the speed it burns.

“Making nitroglycerin was a batch process in an iron tank, six feet in diameter, with air agitation inside and cooling coils around the outside. Thermometers kept track of the temperature, and at the end of this process you had about 3,300 pounds of nitroglycerin. I used to get these incredible headaches from the fumes.”

In the blending and packing of the dried cordite, pieces broke off that had to be carefully collected and managed. It couldn’t be mishandled or thrown away like garbage, and to do so could prove fatal, as Mercer witnessed firsthand.

“Our little group went out to have a smoke and were walking back to the plant when I saw the roofs of the cordite lines exploding, one after the other. What happened was that the scrap cordite, which was reworked into the fresh, was put into bags and left in the corridor to be taken out on carts. Some of this scrap fell out and under the wheels of the cart, and the friction ignited it. The corridor went up, and anyone in there was caught in it. I think there were five people killed. I saw some of them carried out. Just a black mass of a person. It has stayed with me my whole life.”

In those days, the corridor had galvanized tin walls with an emergency fire door every 30 or 40 feet. After the explosion, they took the galvanized coating off and put in a flimsy layer so that if anything happened again, people could jump through the wall and escape the worst of it.

Mercer worked at the Nobel plant until it closed in January of 1944, only to reopen five months later when the U.S. Navy funded the development of a granular form of flashless cordite. This product was designed to eradicate the muzzle flash when a shell or bullet was fired. 

On Thanksgiving weekend 1945, Mercer relocated a few miles outside of Chalk River, Ontario, to concentrate on a national research experiment. He was part of a small team working on the Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP), conducting research into the production of atomic energy. ZEEP was the first nuclear reactor in Canada, and the first of its kind outside of the U.S.

 Longshoremen loading cases of TNT explosives into the hold of an unidentified merchant ship, Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 29, 1942. Unlike other volatile components, Bob Mercer asserts that “TNT is extremely insensitive. You could throw a case of it off a two-story building and nothing would happen.” (library and archives canada, mikan 3572366)

It wasn’t long before he started to funnel his wartime explosives experience into postwar activities like developing grades of dynamite.

“Making dynamite is like baking a cake,” Mercer shared with a smile. “Some ground-up wood pulp for absorbency, a bit of chalk for stability, ammonium nitrate, sodium nitrate, and cornstarch. The most dangerous thing about handling it is when it’s in the point between freezing and melting, where the crystals bump and it becomes unstable.

“Since I retired, dynamite has virtually gone out of existence. What they call slurry explosives have replaced it, which is like a porridge, based on ammonium nitrate and a few other ingredients. It is much safer to handle.”

Mercer’s early work was focused on the production and testing end of explosives. One of his regular activities was conducting velocity of detonation tests in a large metal blasting tank inside concrete walls, with exhaust fans and a door like a bank vault.

He went on to produce ammonium nitrate fuel oil explosives at small satellite plants in remote regions of Canada. This is now commonly associated with terrorist fertilizer bombs, and an incident that gave rise to its widespread use was the Texas City disaster in 1947.

A docked cargo ship in Galveston Bay, with approximately 2,300 metric tons of ammonium nitrate onboard, detonated and became a chain-reaction of explosions on nearby ships and an adjacent oil storage facility. This snowballed into a giant blaze killing almost 600 people and injuring thousands more, resulting in the first class-action lawsuit against the U.S. government. To this day, it is regarded as the worst industrial accident on U.S. soil.

Mercer explains the key oversight of the disaster, and how this was a key insight for the explosives industry.

Only the steel frame of this five-story rubber factory, located next to Texas City’s dockyard, remains after the massive explosion on April 16, 1947. When the SS Grandcamp’s cargo of 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded, it set off a chain reaction of events, including a 15-foot tidal wave that flooded the surrounding area. Windows were shattered in Houston, 75 kilometres to the north, and people in Louisiana felt the shock 400 kilometres away. (special collections, u of houston libraries)

“The thing they should have done was to pull the plug and sink the ship. What they did was to close the hatches and try and smother it. Well, you can’t smother it because every 100 grams of ammonium nitrate has 20 grams of oxygen — so it provides its own fuel. The disaster gave people in the explosives business the idea that ammonium nitrate could be used with fuel oil.”

The commercial application of the postwar explosives he made was destined for mining, road construction, and demolition.

“These were tremendously different to the products I was making for the war effort. The commercial plant was across the street from the military explosives plant in Nobel, and this did little business during the war because they ran mining at half capacity.”

From 1957 to 1978, Mercer was the liaison for the federal chief inspector of explosives. Following this, he became the explosives advisor with the secretariat in charge of dangerous goods; and retired in 1985, a few weeks before his 65th birthday.

Although he was never in the usage end of explosives, the destination for the materials he produced during the war was not lost on him. He says that this was something he thought about, but after hearing what Hitler was doing, he wanted to help the Allied forces.

“I was 20 years old when I started my career in explosives. If you’d gone through the pre-war years like I did as a teenager, and listened to the radio barrage of what Hitler was doing — it was quite something. He was a monster.”

Bob Mercer doesn’t make explosives anymore, and the most dangerous thing he handles these days are the batteries in his TV remote control at Woods Park Care Centre in Barrie, Ontario, where he has lived since September 2012. His wife Fran passed away in 2011, and his son has a suite a few doors down from him on the same floor at Woods Park. 

Now firmly in his retirement, he is keen to promote the historical importance Nobel played during the war, and donated a large book of photos to the Parry Sound Public Library. It once belonged to the general manager of the facility, and fell into Mercer’s possession many years ago. The book portrays the internal mechanisms and aerial views of the plant from 1940 to 1945, and he has kept it in pristine condition until a time came when he was able to find the right home for it.

“Parry Sound has seen two military plants come and go. The town should have care of something which is such a main part of its history. It belongs with them.”

HMCS HAIDA STILL GOING STRONG: Almost 75 years old and back from a refit, historic vessel will once again welcome visitors

Canada’s proud wartime naval service is vividly on display aboard the legendary HMCS Haida. Today, the WWII-era Tribal-class destroyer is outfitted as she was in February 1952, with new armaments, sensors and communications systems, and re-designated DDE 215. Thirteen of her sisters were sunk during the Second World War and today only Haida remains — the last of the original 27 Tribal-class destroyers left in the world. (parks canada)

(Volume 24-01)

By Bob Gordon

She earned the title “fightingest” ship in the Royal Canadian Navy. During World War II, the vessel sank greater enemy tonnage than any other RCN warship. Her commanding officer, Commander Henry George “Hard Over Harry” DeWolf, ended the war wearing both the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Service Cross. Substantially refitted, she later served two tours in theatre during the Korean War. Canada’s lone still seaworthy Tribal-class destroyer, she recently returned from a floating dry dock at Heddle Marine Services in Hamilton, Ontario, where she underwent maintenance and upgrading.

HMCS Haida is one of eight Tribal-class destroyers commissioned by the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Tribals also saw service with the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Goaded on by the Japanese introduction of the Fubuki-class destroyers, the Tribals were super destroyers. They offered the speed and manoeuvrability of a destroyer paired with armament equivalent to a light cruiser, and on the outbreak of WWII they were the state of the art in naval design. “I want those for my navy,” Admiral P.W. Nelles, Chief of the Canadian Naval Staff, remarked after seeing a photograph of the first Tribal in 1938.

Commander Henry ‘Hard About Harry’ DeWolf stands on the bridge of the Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Haida, May 5, 1944. Weeks earlier, as the vessel’s commanding officer, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for Haida’s sinking of German Torpedo boat T-27 and her heroic role in lingering to rescue survivors of its sister ship, HMCS Athabaskan.
(po guy goulet, dnd, library and archives canada, pa-134298)

HMCS Haida’s keel was laid down on September 29, 1941 by Vickers-Armstrong at High Walker Yard, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Two years less a month later she was commissioned into the RCN. Her official compliment was 14 officers and 245 ratings. According to Walt Dermott, Chairman and President of Friends of HMCS Haida, her original weapons suite was comprised of three 4.7-inch/45 Mk.XII twin guns (from the bow, Turrets A, B and Y); one 4-inch/45 Mk.16 twin gun; one quad launcher with Mk.IX torpedoes (4 × 21-inch torpedo tubes); and two Mk.IV depth charge throwers. For anti-aircraft defence, it deployed one quadruple mount 2-pounder gun and six Oerlikon cannons.

Coming into service in the fall of 1943, she initially served on the Murmansk Run while based at Scapa Flow. In this capacity she participated in the destruction of the German battleship Scharnhorst. In January 1944 she was transferred to the 10th Destroyer Flotilla (DF) operating out of Plymouth, England.

The 10th DF was tasked with securing the western approaches to the English Channel. As D-Day approached, the 10th DF aggressively sought out German vessels and Haida was engaged in a string of battles. In April 1944, DeWolf won the DSO when Haida ran German motor torpedo boat T-27 aground (although her sister ship HMCS Athabaskan was lost in the engagement). On June 9, three days after D-Day, along with HMCS Huron, she sank E-boats Z-32 and ZH-1, earning DeWolf a DSC. Less than three weeks later, she shared with HMS Eskimo the sinking of U-971. On her best day, in company of the Polish ship ORP Blyskawica, she sank two submarine chasers, UJ-1420 and UJ-1421, and a merchantman. Two other cargo ships were left ablaze.

When the American forces broke out of Normandy into Brittany, the 10th DF expanded its operations into the Bay of Biscay to isolate German garrisons and destroy U-boats. Haida remained with the 10th DF until September 1944. After a three-month refit in Halifax she returned to the north, ultimately joining the fleet that took custody of German U-boats in Trondheim, Norway. When the war ended Haida had sunk 14 enemy vessels.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula she was extensively refitted and updated before relieving HMCS Nootka in November 1952. A decade later, repeated cracking of the hull saw Haida take a farewell tour of the Great Lakes before she was paid off in September of 1963.

Slated to be scrapped the following year, the destroyer was sold to Haida Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring it. Moored at the foot of York Street in downtown Toronto, the ship was opened as an historical attraction in August 1965. When Haida Inc. proved unable to raise the funds to proceed with repairs, the Ontario government became the unwilling owner, berthing the ship adjacent to the new Ontario Place theme park.

By 2000 HMCS Haida was deteriorating, and the province was loath to invest in the needed structural repairs. Sheila Copps, MP for Hamilton East since 1984 and Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage since June 1997, sensed an opportunity. By e-mail she explains: “The chair of Ontario Place wanted to get rid of the Haida so I had dinner with him and took possession on behalf of Parks Canada for one dollar. Parks Canada assumed responsibility for the refit and the decision to move to Hamilton.” In 2004 HMCS Haida, berthed at Pier 9 in Hamilton Harbour, once again opened to the public. It then spent a decade on the revitalized Hamilton waterfront, bearing witness to Canadian heritage and the proud history of the Royal Canadian Navy.

On a grey December 17, 2016, 75 years after her keel was laid down, HMCS Haida returned to Pier 9 from dry dock at Heddle Marine Services, where she spent four months undergoing $5-million in repairs and upgrades. Parks Canada’s national historic site will once again welcome visitors aboard as of May 19, 2017. (friends of hmcs haida)

After a decade on display Haida again required significant refitting. According to Friends of Haida’s Walt Dermott, a wide variety of work was completed by Heddle Marine Services including:

Re-enforcing metal hull plates that have 25 per cent or more material loss or decay;

Removing the stone ballast in the fuel tanks that is currently trapping moisture, and replacing it with metal disks that can be moved from one tank to the other to help balance the ship when she’s back in the water;

Repairing five key areas where the bulkheads attach to the hull to ensure that these areas remain watertight in the case of a major leak;

Installing safety systems such as an alarm system and automated pumps that can start responding to a significant water leak in the hull immediately.

Haida was back alongside Pier 9 before Christmas and will reopen as scheduled on May 19, 2017. With the recent federal budget announcing free admission to all National Historic Sites in 2017 in recognition of Canada’s sesquicentennial, Lisa Curtis, Superintendent of National Historic Sites for Parks Canada in Southwestern Ontario, expects a boon year. “We are absolutely going to plan some special events so people have more opportunities to experience and learn and really celebrate Canada’s 150th.”

HMCS Haida is a priceless heritage resource in a manner a credit card company could never understand. Its ongoing preservation speaks to the level of commitment that is required. It took political will and a substantial injection of cash to get the ship into Parks Canada’s hands in Hamilton. A commitment to ongoing repairs and maintenance at significant cost, as this winter’s $5-million refit demonstrates, is also essential. Finally, it requires community support. Friends of HMCS Haida volunteers contribute directly to maintenance and operation of the ship. According to Dermott, roughly 75 volunteers contribute 5,000 volunteer hours annually, “running the gift shop, onboard tours, opening and closing the ship and ongoing maintenance projects including the re-building of motors, electrical systems, cleaning scuttles, etc.”

Political will, cold hard cash and community support are all essential to preservation of the material culture of Canada’s military past.

THE ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION: Ninety years of excellence of service

Proceeds from the Poppy Campaign provide financial assistance and spport to CAF and RCMP veterans and their families

(Volume 23-12)

By David P. Flannigan, Dominion President

Legion members care deeply about supporting the men and women who serve this country. Indeed, for more than 90 years, Legion members have been making a positive difference in the lives of veterans and their families. Not content with the status quo, the following is a brief overview of some of the recent initiatives the Legion has undertaken to help our veterans and their families as they face new challenges in an ever-changing environment. These initiatives will provide the foundation from which the Legion will embark on another 90 years of excellence of service.

Comradeship

First and perhaps foremost, the Legion has an extraordinary history of comradeship. For those who have served at war or in peace support operations, those who come back and seek friendship, the Legion is a place for veterans and their families that provides comfort and the solace of being able to communicate and, in some cases, be able to survive the next day with certain memories still haunting them. Indeed, with nearly 300,000 members in more than 1,400 branches in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe, the Legion remains a leader among veterans-based organizations.

However, it must always be remembered that the Legion is not an end in itself, rather it is a means to an end: “… To serve veterans, which includes currently serving military and RCMP members, and their families, to promote Remembrance and to serve our communities and our country.”

What follows are some initiatives the Legion has adopted as part of its 90-year legacy of service to our veterans and their families, our communities and our country.

Legion  OSI Special Section

This past year, The Royal Canadian Legion created the Legion Operational Stress Injury Special Section. The Legion OSI Special Section was established to provide enhanced outreach and support to veterans and their families affected by operational stress injuries. It will also help to focus research and education about Legion OSI. Finally, it will help to de-stigmatize OSI.

Invictus Games 2017

The Royal Canadian Legion announced its commitment to further supporting the recovery of ill and injured veterans by becoming a signature sponsor for the Invictus Games Toronto 2017. In the Canadian military, sport has always played a key role in building confidence, promoting health and esprit de corps.

National Poppy Campaign

The annual Poppy Campaign and Remembrance Day ceremony continues to be our most important calling of the Legion, with a new record of more than 21.5-million poppies distributed in 2016. Clearly, the Legion’s efforts to preserve the memories of service and sacrifice is resonating with an ever-growing number of Canadians. It has been reported that more than $17-million was returned to veterans in need across Canada in 2014. While the need to pay attention to their welfare and that of their families remains, the Legion is committed to helping our veterans through our Service Bureau Network — free of charge.

Support for veterans

The virtual poppy drop on Parliament Hill.

The Royal Canadian Legion renewed its contract with Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) allowing trained and security-screened Legion volunteers to visit up to 6,800 Canadian veterans in almost 1,400 facilities on an annual basis. These are veterans that are being supported by VAC in various long-term care facilities across the country.

Homeless veterans

In 2012, the Legion established a national homeless veterans program called “Leave the Streets Behind,” based on the ground-breaking work of Ontario Command. The program’s mission is to reach out to homeless veterans, or near-homeless veterans, by providing immediate financial assistance and support when and where needed. It also connects them with the appropriate social and community services to establish a long-term solution to meet their needs.

All told, the Legion, spearheaded by its Service Bureau Network, has helped thousands of homeless and near-homeless veterans since the program began.

Support to Deployed CAF Personnel and RCMP Members

Twice a year, the Legion provides gift bags to all deployed Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP personnel — Christmas and Canada Day. It’s a small reminder of home while they are deployed outside the country.

Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League

The Royal Canadian Legion supports 103 Commonwealth veterans and 108 veterans’ widows in the Caribbean region in 16 different countries, support that has been ongoing for decades. These veterans served His Majesty’s armed forces and Auxiliary during the Second World War. We also work with other Allied veterans and/or their families or widows in financial need who live in Canada.

The Legion Service Bureau is committed to helping currently serving and retired members of both the CAF and RCMP and their families

National Foundation

This year the Legion has created the Legion National Foundation to promote the effectiveness, efficiency, and morale of the active and retired members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their families.

Challenge

The Legion is well aware that veterans’ needs may change over the years and that the Legion must continue to adapt and uphold a high standard of leadership as we address issues as they arise.

To that end, the Legion has undertaken to further communicate the great work it does through new marketing initiatives and a continually growing presence on social media.

Experience has shown that veterans of all ages, gender and ethnicity tend to place service before self. The Legion will continue to reach out and make all veterans aware of the real work of the Legion, and ask them to join this highly respected Canadian volunteer service organization, dedicated to serving veterans, including currently serving military and RCMP members, and their families, to providing effective national leadership on Remembrance and to selflessly serve our communities and country for many more years to come.

UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING: The need to prioritize Canada's military needs, at home and abroad

(Volume 23-12)

By the Honourable Daniel Lang, Chair Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence tabled its report titled UN
Deployment: Prioritizing our Commitments at Home and Abroad. Participating in peace-support operations is a laudable goal, however, we cannot ignore the fact that Canadian military resources are stretched thin.

Canada has commitments to NORAD and NATO, which are not being fully met. In fact, our defence spending is below one per cent, approximately $20 billion short of our two per cent commitment.

Despite talk of “re-engagement,” Canada has never stopped contributing to the United Nations. Over the course of this study we learned that Canadians provide approximately $1.5-billion to UN programs and agencies annually — including $324-million for peace-support operations. We have over 100 Canadians presently deployed on UN missions, as well as over 1,000 military personnel deployed on coalition / NATO missions in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, and an additional 455 members of the military who will be deployed early next year to Latvia.

We noted that Canada has a proud tradition in which 120,000 Canadians have served on peacekeeping missions, though these missions have cost 122 Canadian lives.

UN peacekeeping missions have changed dramatically over time. Today’s missions are undertaken when there is often no peace to keep. They are more about the protection of civilians than they are about traditional peacekeeping, where parties agree to end hostilities and international observers monitor the “peace.” We must recognize that any deployment to a place like Mali, in Africa, will be dangerous and more of a counter-terrorism mission, rather than traditional peacekeeping.

The Committee believes that before the government increases our commitments to UN peace-support operations, they must ensure adequate funding is available to meet the current needs of our armed forces. Our first key recommendation calls on the government to table a “Statement of Justification” in both houses of Parliament outlining the specifics of any UN deployment including the size of the mission, its goals, the risks involved, the costs, rules of engagement and a fixed-term deployment plan so as to ensure bi-partisan and multi-partisan support through open parliamentary debate prior to confirmation and deployment of members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

This recommendation affirms in the words of House of Commons Speaker John Fraser, who ruled in 1989 that Canada is a parliamentary democracy, not “a so-called executive democracy nor a so-called administrative democracy.” While on deployment on a United Nations mission, the government must ensure there are clear rules of engagement so our soldiers can take action to defend themselves and/or civilians from harm or abuse. This is in response to the failures on previous UN missions. This must never happen again.

Additional recommendations note:

• Canada should move forward to expedite implementation of UN Resolution 1325 to encourage the inclusion of more women in all aspects of peace-support operations;

• recognizes the burden that a deployment to a francophone nation will have on Franco-Canadians, and calls for a strategy to better support those units and their families;

• if Canada were to become more involved in training, it would contribute to long-term capacity building for regional organizations and those developing countries that are deploying troops so they meet a basic performance standard. Hence our fourth recommendation focused in this area;

• we called on the government to ensure sufficient financial and support resources will be available for women and men who return from dangerous peace-support operations, especially those who develop post-traumatic stress disorders; and finally,

• we called for UN reforms to prosecute sexual exploitation and abuse which have occurred during UN peacekeeping missions.

To learn more about the report, visit www.sen.parl.gc.ca. 

STANDING TOGETHER: Families behind service and through rehabilitation

(Volume 23-12)

By Kari M. Pries

Zack held his daddy’s hand the whole plane ride home to Ottawa from the 2016 Invictus Games (IG16) in Orlando, Florida. All week he had seen injured soldiers at Disney World — people with legs missing, with glass eyes imprinted with patriotic symbols, with burn scars accompanied by dramatic tattoos on the swimming bodies of mothers and fathers alongside their shrieking, happy children at the hotel pool — and he had asked lots of questions. Who were they? What had happened? Where were they from?

The morning after his plane ride home with his dad, Zack took his mum aside and asked one more question: “Why do people like daddy have service dogs?” Zack’s mum, Marie-Andrée Malette, was used to answering questions as a registered nurse and advisory committee member for Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) on the health care approaches needed in response to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She adapted the complex terminology of illness and injury to words her son might understand. “[Dogs] help them to be less scared. We don’t know why their bodies react like that, but we know it is because he has been at war.” Zack paused for a moment. “So, on the plane,” he said thoughtfully, “I was like a service human.”

Five Canadian Armed Forces members and 23 veterans made up Canada’s IG16 team in Orlando, Florida. Almost all were accompanied by family members or close friends who were hosted at Disney World and attended the events as honoured guests. They provided the ever-present cheering squad for Team Canada who represented their nation in sporting events from track and field to swimming and archery. A Canadian service dog even had a go in a special swim event.

Many people wonder why the Invictus Games, as an international sporting event for serving members and veterans, puts so much emphasis on competitors’ network of families and friends. Zack’s innocent observation explains the reason in a way that reaches to the heart. He was one of hundreds of children who attended IG16 in support of a loved adult — a mother, a father, an aunt, or an uncle — and learned along the way that there are many other children and many other families just like them who act as “service humans.”

As is so often observed by military family networks and resource centres, when a service member enlists, their families are thrown into a life they may not have chosen or of which they have little understanding. Effectively, they have been enlisted as well. And while the impacts of military service are studied and discussed widely — from physical and mental injury to lasting illnesses — there is much less focus on the friends and family networks that support those members, who make the sacrifices alongside them, and who live with the sometimes poorly understood impacts of a life of military service. Injury expands exponentially, leaving a community with the memories, reactions, and fallout as well as the struggle to offer the right support mechanisms to their loved ones.

Many may not realize for months or years what it is that they are dealing with. Jennifer Wyatt, the wife of one IG16 competitor, describes the feeling as “a frog in water that is coming to boiling point.” She continues, describing a decade of undiagnosed PTSD: “I always thought it was me. For him to start seeing someone, to put a label on ‘it’, really helped.”

For many families, attending IG16 was their first opportunity to witness loved ones challenge themselves in a new arena. The experience was as tantalizing as it was torturing. Sign-up was last minute, the training camps short. Competitors had personal hurdles to overcome and negative reactions and stressors to manage. But the message to competitors throughout training camps that “you are not alone” was generously extended to families who made personal connections with other families from around the world. There was also the support from Canadians across the country, poured out in what one family called “a genuinely humbling experience.”

IG17 brings the Games to Toronto, Canada, as the country celebrates its 150th anniversary of Confederation and the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The Games provide another opportunity for remembrance, not only of battles past but community brought together and dreams of the kind of community to which Canadians aspire for our future.

The Hoogendoorn Family

Mark lost his leg in a 2010 incident in Afghanistan after three years of service. During his recovery, he met his wife Leisa in a pub. It was near Christmas and an early date was spent at the mall, shopping for Christmas presents. Standing in the Toys R Us checkout line, Mark tentatively mentioned that he had lost a leg in Afghanistan. “He seemed really nervous about it,” remarks Leisa, “but I was like, okay.” And that was that.

Soldier On has been great for Mark, allowing him to engage in new activities from snowboarding to mountain climbing to golf. “He’s able to get out and do stuff as a good break from work,” states Leisa. However, she had not been able to really see what that part of his life was like until the opportunity to participate in IG16 arose. “I think it’s a bigger deal for me,” she laughs. “Mark’s all nonchalant about it but for me, it’s awesome.” Not only did Leisa get to meet Mark’s Soldier On friends, about whom she had heard a lot, but she saw first-hand the importance of the Games themselves. “They bring more light to the issue [of ill and injured] and increase visibility for the adaptive lifestyle” that has been so important for Mark.

Their year-old son Atticus will be too young to remember the year his daddy competed at Disney World, but his father got to walk away proud of what he did, with his boy smiling away in the grandstands. “It is something for the future,” Leisa concluded.

The Wyatt Family

At the appointed time for the interview, Rachael, Jennifer and Sean Wyatt crowd into the camera field against a backdrop of colourful walls and cheerful sunshine. They exude familiar comfort if perhaps a slight bewilderment that they are so easily sharing their experiences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) via Skype. Missing is Rhiannon, the younger of the two girls. “She wanted to be here, but work calls,” noted mum Jennifer.

Family time has always been a series of wishes and gaps for the Wyatts since Sean, 29 years in the Navy, was often away on deployment and missed large chunks of his daughters’ lives. Jennifer explained she used all kinds of tricks to keep his presence with them, despite the frequent distance. Nonetheless, sailing took its toll with the result that it is often hard to share personal feelings and experiences as a family. Throughout Sean’s time in the Navy, Jennifer observed that “soldiers were so well protected but families were not, if that, protected at all.”

With the distance, families become used to glossing over the difficult bits. Communication becomes a challenge, even as work ends with retirement and the distances narrow. Sean acknowledged that he was good at hiding PTSD and later, at hiding his tattoo — the symbol of a semi-colon — and all it implies. “An invisible disability is tough,” explained daughter Rachael. She calls him frequently, usually when walking home, as they find it easier to talk on the phone.

IG16 came out of the blue for the family. Although it was a significant event for them to take a “real together” holiday, it was not something that Jennifer or the girls could let themselves anticipate with pleasure. Rhiannon did not even look at the possibility of where families would stay at Disney World because she didn’t want to get too excited.

But Sean managed to work through his fears. He returned to archery as a sport he had once loved but had abandoned for six yearsduring the depth of his PTSD. And so the family was ultimately able to make their way to Disney World to support him. Jennifer underlined what that meant to her: “It started in Orlando Airport and having people cheer at our arrival. The experience was so surreal and I cried. The first of several times.”

Jennifer and Rachael are enthusiastic about the potential for the Invictus Games in 2017 and what they can bring to Canada. “We are closer together because of the Games and we benefited from seeing other families [in Orlando] and sharing with them.” Jennifer is happy to promote the Games at school, where she works, and Sean came home from the Games with new projects in mind. He has challenged a neighbour who is also struggling with PTSD: “I went over to visit him and I said, ‘You are signing up [for IG17.]’”

The Wyatt family is usually quite private but the Games have allowed them space to try something new. Father Sean pushes forward to medalling in a sport he learned to love again while Jennifer, Rachael, and Rhiannon are happy to share their experiences with other families and the rest of Canadians. “If we can make people here feel as proud as we experienced when we were in the States …” Jennifer trails off. It will be a job well done.

The Guindon-Malette Family

Joel left the CAF in 2008 after several years serving in the military — police and close protection — and found the transition hard. He had been renowned for his skills but found that they did not translate well in the civilian world. His wife, Marie-Andrée, a registered nurse, saw the warning signs of PTSD but found that few programmes were available at the time to help manage a life with mental illness. “You shouldn’t need a medical degree to navigate the system,” she argued.

She found that occupational therapy for mental injuries was badly understood by VAC and it took all of her expertise as a health professional to navigate the system. Marie-Andrée was pro-active and pushed for further services through work on a VAC advisory committee to help them explore and fill the gaps in mental health services.

Thus, she knew what to expect when Joel received a call from IG16 team captain Bruno Guévremont asking him to sign up for archery on Team Canada. Joel had been a marksman and had previously won trophies in competition, but archery was something new: a challenge. Marie-Andrée described Joel’s experience with the first round of training as very hard, but it became easier as he got to know the team and they bonded over the capricious nature of PTSD.

“With every day, he became better at managing stress,” Marie-Andrée explains. “IG was a huge step in his therapy, in his progress.” Their two boys, too, were ecstatic to see their dad compete, to join him on the podium, and to see their father engaged in something that inspired him. Marie-Andrée reflects how it was so important, the personal and recovery progress. “And I was crying like a baby when he got his medal.”

IG has helped Joel push his limits, and his family along with him. These days, they focus on the positive things but there is still a long way to go. “Anxiety can still dictate our lives, but there is also a new way of looking at things.” Just as Joel received the message over and over that “you are not alone, not the only one struggling with sleep,” the message was equally for the families. Marie-Andrée reflects, “At some point, the tasks I have to do every day, I will be able to hand some of them over.”

The takeaway from IG for Marie-Andrée was overwhelmingly positive. “We can think of vets with positive thinking rather than seeing them [as portrayed in the media] as angry old vets concerned only with their pensions.” There is still a lot of veterans’ anger portrayed in the media, but the Invictus Games allows Canadians to see ill and injured soldiers in a new light. “And that,” she concludes, “is definitely a win.”

Invictus Games 2017

IG17 promises to elevate the visibility of wounded, ill and injured soldiers across Canada. Its inclusion of family, friends, and community as essential components to recovery will push Canadians to reconsider what it means to offer support. Invictus’ collaboration with the WE Movement, founded to motivate exceptional youth to make the world a better place, expands the reach of the Invictus message to Canada’s younger generation. Over the next year, this partnership will challenge our ambitious young people to do “more together than any one of us could do alone.” Especially as Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, these activities will dare our country to imagine big the community we strive to build. Hopefully, sparking meaningful conversations about what Canadians ask of our military families and the inspirational role they can play in Canada’s future.

Pushing The Boundaries: Supporting soldiers in recovery

Text & photos by Kari M. Pries

Amid the flashing lights and the roar of the city at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, CEO Michael Burns announced Team Canada’s co-captains for the 2017 Invictus Games. MCpl. (ret’d) Natacha Dupuis and Capt. Simon Mailloux will be guiding next year’s team of active and retired service member athletes in their training, supporting competitors in reaching their individual goals.

Toronto will be hosting the third rendition of the Invictus Games, founded by Prince Harry in 2014, receiving 500 competitors in 12 sports from 17 nations, along with their coaches and their families, from September 23 to 30, 2017. The announcement was part of an all-night interactive art installation, which saw members of the public build a 30-foot by 30-foot Invictus Games Lego-like structure along the backdrop of a 12-hour live mural painting by artist David Arrigo. The mural, titled From Darkness to Light, features key moments along the journey to recovery for both team captains.

“This city will become the focal point for hundreds of men and women who use the pull of Invictus glory to motivate their recovery from physical and mental injuries,” stated Prince Harry during his visit to Toronto earlier this year. One hundred Canadian active and retired service members will number among the 500 individual competitors who have overcome explosions, bullets, and terror — “injuries f**d up enough to be real” according to one — challenging themselves and each other to move forward, to overcome, and to reach new heights through rehabilitation. The Games also emphasize the contributions of friends and families as support networks in recovery — a completely unique perspective.

Toronto’s role as host city for the 2017 Invictus Games (IG17) was announced in a ballroom filled with VIPs in May of this year. Speaking about courage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looked directly to the small group of elderly citizens seated in the sixth row to his left. In wheelchairs or with canes and walkers propped within reach were these representatives of his grandfather’s generation — Second World War veterans who, Trudeau stated, had demonstrated a commitment to service and a dedication to serving for better: “a better world, better outcomes.”

IG17 CEO and Director Michael Burns tied today’s active service to the history of Canada’s commitment and sacrifice. In a Canadian tradition, as Burns highlighted, “We [Canadians] have a responsibility to care for [soldiers] when they get back.” The Games in Toronto will also fall during an auspicious time for Canada as it celebrates the 150th anniversary of Confederation and the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

In Orlando, where the 2016 Invictus Games took place in May, competitors were joined by 15,000 supporters and spectators, among them not only Prince Harry but U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, former U.S. President George W. Bush, and numerous artists from Morgan Freeman to singer and British Army veteran James Blunt. This was not your average military march. “[Soldiers] have shown us that in spite of the impossible, it [is] possible,” Jody Mitic, a veteran of Afghanistan, explained at the Toronto launch, choked with emotion. “[We] keep marching forward whether on two legs, one leg, or none at all and, as soldiers, we march together shoulder to shoulder.”

Aside from its fortunate royal founder, IG17 has a foundation in Canadian governmental and non-governmental charities. Running the games themselves is IG17 CEO Michael Burns, founder of national fundraising organisation True Patriot Love. Burns turned his sights from wealth management to veterans’ philanthropy after the Kingston funeral of a friend’s son who was killed in Afghanistan in 2007. He explained that the “emotional and moving experience” engendered “deep realisations that my generation was not doing enough or anything for military families.”

So Burns worked with former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier on the Military Families Fund — an effort that was designed to bring immediate relief to ill and injured CAF members and their family, as well as raise awareness among Canadians of challenges that military families face. That effort for him evolved into True Patriot Love. When Burns heard that Prince Harry was hosting the inaugural Games in London, with its incredible experiences, support from the community to stage the Games, and broad public engagement, he had a moment of inspiration about what those Games could mean in a Canadian context.

Supporting the recovery of ill and injured serving members through sports was already something taken on by government programme Soldier On, founded in 2006 by Greg Lagacé. Then a Canadian Paralympic representative, he approached then Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor and Hillier with a plan for sport to facilitate long-term recovery among ill and injured service members. With Lagacé’s guidance and a team of devoted serving soldiers and public servants, chief among them Maj. Jay Feyko and PO1 Joe Kiraly, the organisation spread throughout the country to reach out to those who needed the boost even if they did not know it themselves.

For MCpl Mark Hoogendoorn, Soldier On introduced him to a lot of activities that he didn’t originally realise he could do after he lost his leg in an incident in Afghanistan in 2010. Ranging from snowboarding to glacial ice climbing, he tries to balance the temptation of new experiences with a return to his sapper career and his young family. Retired CPO2 Sean Wyatt noted that while he used to shoot regularly, his bows had hung on the wall for six years before a Soldier On contact tapped him on the shoulder. His participation started slowly after a PTSD diagnosis. First he picked up kayaking, which Wyatt explained was “an excellent experience that put me in contact with other people like me.” Joining Team Canada to compete in archery at the 2016 Invictus Games was a feat beyond anything he had attempted to date in his recovery, but one that was eminently rewarding.

Soldier On, with its established network of ill and injured participants, was thus a natural conduit to develop Team Canada for the Invictus Games, providing the trainers and sport professionals needed to build physical and mental capacity for competition in a large event. While emphasising that high-performance activities are only one component of their rehabilitation programme — a programme that has now expanded to include the 15,000 veterans covered under Veterans Affairs Canada — Lagacé argues that the Invictus Games gives programme participants a new goal, and an ultimate venue for recovering veterans.

The goal is not high performance so much as growing the capacity for perseverance. Several participants recalled that they were ready to give up after the first training camp in January 2016 but were able to push through with the support of their new teammates. Travel proved particularly stressful for two team members who got caught in a snowstorm at the Ottawa airport, severely testing their PTSD coping mechanisms, but also creating a bond between them. A spouse observed that it got easier for her husband once the team had connected and that they grew in confidence to share their stresses during the long months of individual training through a Facebook group linking participants from across the country.

Collaboration among team members is part of the healing process, according to IG16 team captain retired LS Bruneau Guévremont. Hoogendoorn concurs. “I could see how much it means to [my teammates],” he said. “It was good to get away [during training camps] to meet all the other injured guys. To get together with someone with a similar injury and compare notes.”

These exchanges can take place in smaller sporting activities and events like those Soldier On typically organises, and some have questioned whether a large-scale event like the Invictus Games are necessary, especially when they can prove a significant challenge or even a trigger to some with PTSD. Guévremont argued prior to the Games in Orlando that high-profile events are not only beneficial but essential. “We learn through challenges, experience and success. We need to learn to control our environment or [we will] let the injury control us.” But, most importantly for him, the Games give ill and injured the opportunity to “once again be part of a team” and to be “representing and serving again.”

Burns agrees. “Our engagement in Afghanistan has been ended for a decade but injury and mental health are lasting. The issues do not end with the war.” This is why, he argues, “The support and recognition [from regular Canadians] is as important now as it was during the height of the conflict.”

He has the research to back him up. According to polls commissioned before and after the Games in Orlando this year, 93 per cent of Canadians agree the country should support veterans who have been mentally or physically wounded in service while 75 per cent agree that initiatives like the Invictus Games have the power to transform how people think about mental illness.

In discussing plans for IG17, Lagacé notes that “IG will bring significant attention and awareness [among Canadians] to the requirements for comprehensive core programmes for ill and injured participants.” But he cautions that the media attention, the pressure, and the time, can be an additional challenge for individuals who go from struggling alone or with the support of family and friends to nation-wide attention. Visibility is not what most ill and injured are used to. “Most NCOs would not have previously interacted with VIPs, for example,” Lagacé notes. “But IG also allows them to see that Prince Harry is a human with a human story like theirs. That sharing their story can help others too.”

It can be really beneficial for some and have a ripple effect to reach others who haven’t yet made contact. “Paying it forward to a colleague,” Lagacé calls it. He points to the exponential increase in activity applications Soldier On has received since the IG17 launch as evidence that many were still unaware that there were programmes for them. Wyatt confirms this is the case and that IG made it natural “to go out and do things again, like a run to Canadian Tire” and, equally, to go check in on a neighbour who also needed support to change direction from a destructive path of unacknowledged PTSD. “It was a project I had in mind coming home from Invictus,” he confirmed. “I went to my neighbour [with PTSD] and I said, ‘You’re signing up!’”

Still, there are those who are not ready for the Games, its competition, its attention, and time commitment. For those, Soldier On is ready and waiting with more relaxed activities among a small group of comrades. Others cannot wait for the next Games to begin. And in between, a family member remarks: “We live an active normal life — [a] life that is our normal, not someone else’s normal.” Wyatt reflected on his experience competing in Orlando, concluding, “You know, if we freak out, others are going to be there. [They are] not going to judge you for it.” For Team Canada, at least, there is no façade between mates.

CALLING OUT THE GREAT VETERAN PRETENDER

By Sean Bruyea and Robert Smol

For the last 90 years Canadians have looked upon the Royal Canadian Legion as the living embodiment of Remembrance Day, keeping the memory of our veterans’ sacrifices alive. Likewise, successive governments have recognized the Legion as the primary institutional stakeholder when it comes to setting policy for veterans.

Today, however, this alleged veteran organization has devolved into an institutional lie. In spite of the deference it continues to receive, the Legion is now little more than a social club consisting primarily of civilian wannabe and “wish-I-had-been” soldiers imitating the façade of military life and sacrifice.

So it should not come as a surprise that, in recent battles with Ottawa over veteran benefits, the Legion either found itself lost in the fog or, worse, siding with government. Meanwhile, various municipal governments grant tax-free status to several Legion branches.

The Canadian public, which almost universally welcomes Legion uniforms at public events, needs to know the truth about what the Legion has become. More importantly, modern veterans like us owe it to the Legion’s battle-scarred founders to refocus the Legion back to its founding principles as an organization of veterans standing up for other veterans against government neglect and intransigence.

It never fails to shock uninformed members of the public just how unmilitary and veteran-less the Legion has become. At one time, approximately 50 per cent of Canada’s more than 1 million Second World War veterans belonged to the Legion. Currently, there are nearly 700,000 serving and retired Canadian Armed Forces personnel. As of October 1, 2015, the Legion had 265,000 members. Of those, more than 200,000 never served in the military! This is contrary to the Legion’s specious claim on its website that its membership “includes approximately 100,000 Veterans.”

The truth is, online documents show military veterans are lumped into a category of 64,000 “Ordinary” members. However, this category also includes militaries of allied forces and all NATO nations as well as war correspondents, YMCA, Knights of Columbus, firefighters and forestry services who served in wartime. Coast guard, provincial and city police services also qualify. Of the estimated maximum 35,000 to 50,000 military veterans in the Legion, more than half are likely WWII veterans. That leaves approximately 17,500 to 25,000 who might be post-Korean War veterans or less than four per cent of all CAF veterans and only 10 per cent of Legion membership. The bottom-line: the Legion apparently doesn’t care enough about veterans to know how many veterans are Legion members.

Look around. Any adult walking the street qualifies to be a uniformed, marching, medal-bearing, saluting, colour-carrying member of the Royal Canadian Legion. Legion membership is open to any “citizen of Canada, or a Commonwealth or Allied country” who is of “voting age” and “agrees to abide by the Royal Canadian Legion Constitution, rules and General By-Laws.”

The result: failing to understand the military culture and sacrifices is endemic in an organization which, with increasing illegitimacy, has a legal monopoly on all images of poppies related to remembrance and sacrifice. For all its grandiose rhetoric about being “Guardians of Remembrance,” the Legion’s overwhelming civilian membership does much to imitate, trivialize and therefore dishonour sacred symbols of military service.

Unlike any other Commonwealth nation, Canada’s Legion awards medals for administering the affairs of the Legion, including recreational activities for the elderly. Legion medals include a Meritorious Service Medal and a Palm Leaf. To an uninformed public, these Legion-exclusive “medals” can be easily mistaken for bona fide military service medals. And one can purchase only from the “Guardians of Remembrance” poppy earrings, umbrellas, tea towels, toques, mitts, and poppy puppies, giving the appearance more of a commercial monopoly than a sacred responsibility.

To add denial to dishonour, the Legion, in its last National Convention, voted not to allow its minority military veteran members to wear their specialist badges such as paratrooper wings and submariner badges. These distinctions are rightfully worn with pride to identify hard-earned specialized skills that often carried them through combat. Yet the same Legion delegates voted that all its members could wear a forget-me-not flower pin to commemorate the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, although the tragically few Newfoundlanders who actually fought and survived that horrible First World War engagement have long since passed.

Community focus at the cost of veteran advocacy

Why did the Legion turn out this way? The Legion has admitted a prevalent “grumpiness” to potential new members. However, institutionalized age discrimination and the self-destructive veteran disease of one-upmanship are at the root of the problem. WWII and Korean War veterans during the 1950s through to the early 2000s saw CAF service as inferior. For much of this time, younger veterans could encounter a culture wherein the only true ‘veteran’ worthy of Legion support and recognition were those who served during ‘real’ wars, recognition restricted to two World Wars and, begrudgingly later, Korea. Conveniently ignored was the fact that many World War veterans never actually experienced combat.

As a result, younger ex-service men and women who may have endured full-blown combat operations in places such as Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, Kuwait, and Afghanistan were not seen as bona fide veterans. No doubt history will record the 50 years following the Korean War as a lost opportunity for the Legion to help CAF veterans — the leading edge of whom are now well into their 80s.

Instead, the Legion opted to offset its declining and dying veteran membership with a new “community-based” focus. From a policy perspective, this meant shifting efforts to charitable work in support of local communities. Administratively, this meant opening its membership and, ultimately, its executive positions, including its Provincial and National Commands, to civilians.

This ageism and rampant superiority complex combined with the rapid devolution of the Legion into a civilian-led and -managed organization left little to no incentive for younger veterans, such as ourselves, to join. And frankly, whenever either of us are invited to a Legion function and can overlook the “grumpiness,” we see little shared experience and knowledge of the military that would make us feel like we belong.

Selling out Modern Veterans: Legion support for the New Veterans Charter

By far the single most tragic and costly end result of this military devolution of the Legion can be seen in its open support for controversial veterans’ benefits that were rammed through parliament in 2005 without a minute of debate or a committee of elected officials to study it. This legislation, commonly known as the New Veterans Charter, replaced lifelong tax-free monthly pensions for military injuries with highly inadequate one-time lump sum payments. It has been a lightning rod for veteran disaffection ever since.

Veterans still scratch their heads wondering why Legion National President Mary-Ann Burdett signed a blank cheque to government while proudly proclaiming to a Senate committee: “There should be no doubt whatsoever that the Royal Canadian Legion fully supports this initiative … we want this legislation.” Yet, astute concerns articulated by the Legion’s largest provincial command in Ontario just one year later were ignored in the national headquarters’ public declarations.

Why did all this happen? Only an organization acting as a true advocacy group for veterans would have the political chutzpah to sacrifice its popularity among politicians for doing what is right by its principles. In 2005, the Legion was no longer this form of organization.

In the meantime, organizations with a fraction of the membership (such as the rapidly growing Veterans Canada) are perceived as carrying equal or more clout in defending the rights of injured veterans to an often-insensitive federal bureaucracy.

What Needs to be Done?

If there is a glimmer of hope it would be that there is a groundswell of civilians and veterans in the organization demanding that the Legion make itself more responsive and accountable to the veteran community. In 2016 some brave and thoughtful members of Legion Branch 15 in Brampton, Ontario conducted an online survey where 96.6 per cent of the 1,606 respondents identified as veterans or serving members of the CAF. Of these, 75.8 per cent were not Legion members. An overwhelming majority of this group claimed the reasons why they will not join is that the Legion “is out of touch with the needs of today’s veterans” and “the Legion has too many non-vets in executive positions.”

Among the recommendations put forth by the respondents is elimination of the term “New Veteran” as it promotes segregation, elimination of Legion “medals” and the seemingly obvious, but sadly necessary, demand that the Legion not support “any legislative action that is harmful to veterans.” Not surprisingly, some in the national headquarters appear to have largely dismissed the survey, claiming it is unscientific.

To reverse this membership stampede out the door, the Legion has to regain trust with not just its own members but the wider veteran community. Openness and transparency is a beginning. Headquarters salaries are paid for by membership dues. For Legion branches struggling to make ends meet just to stop the roof from leaking and keep the lights on, subsidizing such exorbitant salaries with membership fees must be disheartening. There is no privacy law that prevents disclosing the salary ranges or the actual salaries of each position in the national headquarters. Likewise, such salaries need to be dramatically curtailed. It just doesn’t look good when the Legion depends upon the sweat of volunteers that are represented by a highly overcompensated national leadership.

In addition to opening its books, the Legion has to stand up to government far more aggressively when it comes to veterans’ benefits. It needs to aggressively focus on and incorporate its founding principles — namely, to “secure adequate pensions, allowances, grants and war gratuities for ex-servicemen, their dependents, and the widows, children and dependents of those who have served, and to labour for honourable provision being made for those who, in declining years, are unable to support themselves.”

No doubt this can only be realized if the Legion takes the government to task at every level and opportunity for its failed policies and neglect of veterans. Certainly a Royal Canadian Legion doing its job will no longer be so popular with politicians who will surely seek refuge from Legion members rather than frequent photo ops. Perhaps a veteran-focused Legion might even lose its tax-free status. But at least the Legion can then stand proud and say that it remained true to the memory of its battle-scarred founders.

TEACHING THE KOREAN WAR IN CHINA

BY Matt Moir

It’s a sunny April afternoon and I’m standing at the front of a Grade 10 Canadian history class in southeast Beijing.

My Chinese students, about twenty-five 16-year-olds, are sitting in their seats as I begin to introduce the broad outlines of the Korean War. In terms of detail, I don’t get very far — the troops tasked with defending Seoul from Pyongyang hadn’t even yet landed on the Korean Peninsula — before a hand belonging to a clever, serious boy with the English name Jason, raises.

He informs me that the Americans — and, presumably, their allies — didn’t in fact arrive in Asia to defend South Korea from North Korea, but to launch an aggressive war to subdue China. I ask Jason to expand on his ideas, and he says that the United Nations force, which included 26,000 Canadians, was eager to invade his country, occupy the very capital whose cityscape stretches out just beyond our large classroom windows, and dismantle communist China. Several students nod in agreement.

It goes without saying that Jason’s version of the Korean War is not reflected in Canadian history classes.

To be sure, no one should be naïve enough to think that nation-states, including Canada, don’t construct self-serving historical narratives, or that those narratives aren’t reflected in history classrooms. But most educators would, I think, agree that provincial curricula do an admirable job critically interrogating many historical injustices — the Chinese head tax, for example, or the internment of Japanese-Canadians.

That’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement. There is no shortage of disgrace in Canadian history, and it’s a fair point that curricula might be able to do a better job reflecting underrepresented voices and viewpoints.

But it’s hard to see where or how the Korean War fits into those types of debates. I’m not aware of any Canadian material anywhere that frames this country’s involvement in the Korean War as an act of imperialism, of villainy. Why would it exist? Canada’s Army, Navy and Air Force fought under the banner of the United Nations, with its almost definitional sense of legitimacy.

But plainly there are interpretations of UN-authorized campaigns that are very dissimilar to the average Canadian’s, and the Korean War is clearly one of them. Not everyone views it as an honorable fight; quite the opposite, in fact. The Chinese curriculum identifies the conflict as the very definition of imperialism, according to Chinese students and teachers, as well as East Asia academic experts.

Whether that particular interpretation is valid — its ultimate source is the Communist Party of China — is, of course, another matter.

The demand for a Western-style education in the Middle Kingdom has grown significantly over the past several years, closely paralleling the growth of China’s middle class. Currently, there are nearly 600 international schools in the country, and some analysts predict that number will shoot up to at least 1,000 over the next several years.

I teach at a large Beijing public high school with a small international program. That means that about 100 of the school’s 1,000 students spend half their day studying a Canadian curriculum, and the other half in the traditional Chinese system.

The program is small because it’s expensive; only families with significant means can afford to enroll their children. For those parents, though, the return on their investment is considerable. Graduates of the international program are awarded a Canadian high school diploma with all of the benefits that come with it, including the opportunity to gain direct entry into a Canadian university and, crucially, an exemption from gaokao, China’s infamous university entrance exams.

There are, unsurprisingly, substantial differences between the Canadian and traditional Chinese education philosophies. Each has its merits. The Chinese system relies heavily on note taking and repetition and, consequently, many Chinese students develop phenomenal memories and test-taking abilities. Canadian curricula, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of creativity and critical thinking skills.

In my experience, however, the most significant problem faced by international school teachers isn’t how lessons are delivered but the content of the lessons themselves.

Most foreigners in authoritarian China understand that it’s probably not a good idea to discuss the ‘Three T’s’: Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan. What are a little trickier to navigate, however, are issues that teachers might not know are controversial, or events teachers might not know are viewed very differently in China than in their own country.

I don’t think what I teach my students about the Korean War is particularly one-sided: the communist North Koreans, supported by the Soviet Union and China, wanted to control the entire Korean Peninsula, whereas the U.S.-backed South Koreans wanted the same. After the North invaded the South, the Americans and their Canadian, Australian and British allies came to help Seoul, and the Chinese stepped in to protect the North. A seesaw conflict ensued, and the two sides technically remain at war more than 60 years later.

The Chinese history curriculum’s coverage of the Korean War by no means resembles the North Korean brand of propaganda, cartoonish and vulgar. In fact, the Chinese curriculum reaches the same conclusion as Canadian curricula, it just takes a different path to get there. By that, I mean it recognizes the fighting’s oscillation, but it de-emphasizes the illegitimacy of the North Korean government, magnifies the authoritarianism of the South Korean government and casts the Chinese forces as the last line of defence against an enemy eager to dominate the Chinese mainland, according to the educators interviewed for this article.

There’s also more than a small dose of glory to the version of the Korean War’s history my students encountered in their Chinese history classes: the volunteer army — simple, committed revolutionaries — pushing back the world’s most fearsome fighting machine, pushing it back to the very edge of the Asian continent’s mainland.

I spoke to a Chinese history teacher about my students and their ideas on the Korean War. He told me that they must have been paying attention in their history classes because their beliefs — that South Korea and the U.S. instigated the war, that NATO was keen on invading China — mirror what he teaches his own students.

But he also said that all content in a Chinese classroom “must be taught with Marxism in mind.” He explained that most history teachers he knows don’t really believe much of what they learn in university nor what they end up teaching their own students. If they want a job, however, the party line must be towed.

Over the past several years, school boards from the U.S., to Israel, to Japan have been accused of using textbooks that whitewash inconvenient historical truths. Canada, too, hasn’t been spared controversy; Quebec’s Ministry of Education recently came under fire for a lack of cultural diversity in the province’s new history curriculum.

Debate among subject experts, parents, teachers and even students over curricula and textbooks is essential in creating a rigorous curriculum. Obviously, curricula and textbooks designed by bureaucrats in the employ of authoritarian China have a particularly robust illegitimacy.

Tao Zhang is a professor of culture and media at England’s Nottingham Trent University. He believes that history education in Chinese schools is a “huge problem” and that it stems from a political culture that is built on a foundation of anti-Western sentiment.

“It is immensely fascinating and frustrating to talk about the topic of school textbooks and education in China. Despite many changes, [like] big improvements in educational technology and the emergence of international schools and private educational institutions, the Chinese state education system suffers from continuing interference and manipulation by the propaganda and ideological apparatuses of the state,” says Zhang.

Propaganda plays a significant role in the way the Korean War is depicted in Chinese classrooms, according to China scholar Matthew Johnson, but so do academics with anti-Western views.

“There is a way in which the textbooks do reflect Chinese scholarship, which is to say at the level of scholarship, [the Korean War] is somewhat regarded as … American imperialism. In other words, the United States trying to impose through military means its political and economic will on East Asia,” says Johnson, a history professor at Grinnell College in Iowa, and an expert in East Asian history.

Chinese academic scholarship and high school curricula might have less overlap concerning the details of the Korean War; Johnson points to recent scholarship on prisoners and the elite politics of the war, noting that he’d “be surprised if those perspectives have made it into textbooks.” But scholars and textbook writers are in agreement when it comes to the broad strokes.

“History is seen as very important to maintaining national unity so it’s very important that there is a clear national perspective on historical events, and the framework for developing this perspective is mainly created by the propaganda department. To label it pejoratively by calling it propaganda isn’t necessarily my intention but I would point out the same authorities in China, who are responsible for everything from media control to the regulation of soap operas on television are … responsible for the regulation of textbook content.”

After completing several days’ worth of Korean War coverage, I pulled my student, Jason, aside for a conversation about what he was learning in my class.

He said he enjoyed taking the time to critically analyze historical events and being encouraged to develop personal opinions that might conflict with the dominant narrative.

In reference to the Korean War, he didn’t quite say that his mind had been changed, though he did mention our class studied aspects of the war he hadn’t been exposed to before. I got the impression he was ready to jettison some of the ideas he had learned in his Chinese history class.

But it’s impossible to say with any certainty. As I mentioned earlier, Jason is a clever student, and he knows who is marking his history exams.

SHARING A LEGACY: Future generations of amputees remember the sacrifices of veteran amputees

People often can’t help but smile when they see six-year-old Kamryn Bond lay a wreath with her friend, Shannon Krasowski, 40, at their local Remembrance Day ceremony. Although an unlikely pair, they are both amputees and are part of a legacy that goes back nearly 100 years.

Kamryn is a member, and Shannon a graduate, of The War Amps Child Amputee (CHAMP) Program. It was war amputee veterans returning from the First World War who created The War Amps in 1918, its Key Tag service in 1946, and later, the CHAMP Program. Since 1975, thousands of child amputees across Canada have received financial assistance for their artificial limbs through CHAMP and attended regional seminars where they learn about growing up as an amputee.

When Kamryn was 11 months old, both of her legs, right hand, and several fingers on her left hand, were amputated due to a respiratory illness. Shannon’s left leg was amputated when she was 13 years old due to bone cancer.

They met three years ago at their local Remembrance Day ceremony in Grande Prairie, Alberta. That year, Kamryn watched Shannon lay a wreath on behalf of The War Amps Operation Legacy, but ever since, it has been a tradition they share.

While growing up as a Champ, Shannon met many war amputee veterans and heard their first-hand accounts of the devastation of war. “They passed this legacy to us younger amputees and now it’s our turn to share their stories, so that we never forget their sacrifices,” she says.

Although Kamryn is still quite young, her mom, Dale, says it is important for her daughter to lay a wreath on Remembrance Day. “It builds the foundation for her to understand how much our war veterans gave up for our freedom.”

When Shannon was younger, she shared a close bond with one particular war amputee veteran. He gave her a lion statue because he said that she had the courage of a lion. Shannon says, “I have since passed this statue down to Kamryn to recognize her courage, and I hope that one day she will pass it down to another young amputee, who looks up to her.”

According to Shannon though, Kamryn is already a role model to many people. “Kamryn epitomizes what CHAMP is all about. She has such a great attitude and her positivity makes everyone smile. You can’t help but be in a great mood when you’re around her.”

Dale says that because Kamryn and Shannon are both amputees, they share a unique bond. “It’s important for Kamryn to have someone who understands what it’s like to be an amputee, especially as she gets older, because she will have questions that I won’t always know the answers to.”

Dale adds, “We will always be appreciative of the work of the war amputee veterans and the message they have left for young amputees like Kamryn to carry into the future. It is for this reason that she lays a wreath every year in their honour, and will do so for many years to come.”

Proud to Serve: A Wren speaks of her service in the second World War and making a difference

By the late Ann O'Brian (nee Plunkett)

It has been 50 years since I stood on this platform as head of Frances Ridley House. I can’t talk about all of the Second World War in just a few minutes, but I can talk of myself in the war. I am your token veteran.

I came to Havergal in September of 1939, the very month that war was declared. I was 14, full of excitement and patriotism; the whole country was instantly consumed by the war. The Great Depression was over so everybody could get a job.

By Christmas time of 1939, my father and three of my four brothers had gone overseas. British war guests began to arrive at Havergal, sent to the safety of Canada by their parents. They were wicked field hockey players.

At my house on that Christmas Eve, the doorbell rang. A telegram in wartime meant bad news. My mother opened it in terror; the president of Imperial Oil wished her a Merry Christmas in the absence of her son.

By the fourth year of the war my youngest brother had been shot down over Germany. His body washed up on the shores of the Zeider Sea. He was buried in Holland.

Another brother, a naval officer, had two ships sink from underneath him and then was bombed while in hospital. He was invalided out. Afterwards, on the streets of Toronto, he was often asked why he wasn’t in uniform. My eldest brother was wounded in Dieppe and taken prisoner.

When I was 18 I joined the Navy. I loved marching in the uniform. When the band played I could have marched all the way to Montreal. Once on parade my silk bloomers fell down. I simply stepped out of them and kept marching.

I was shipped to Quebec to HMCS St. Hyacinthe; it was the largest signals base in the British Empire. After six months of training I was a signaler, a wireless operator who could copy Morse code at over 30 wpm. We practiced eight hours a day.

The food was appalling and we slept 50 to a room in the barracks, but the good news was that there were thousands of sailors and, of course, they could dance. I got my dance training here at Havergal in the Assembly Hall at lunchtime.

Being a Wren was rather like being in school, with rules and regulations and officers telling you what to do. In naval terms, here is a sample: “Plunkett lay aft on the Quarterdeck.” That meant you had done something wrong and you were to be paraded before an officer or worse, before the captain of the base. I was paraded seven times.

Then the war really started. I was shipped to Vancouver Island, to HMCS Naden in Victoria. We began our secret work. No one knew what we did and we could not talk about it. We were copying Japanese radio signals transmitted in the Far East.

Our radio station was a wooden hut, in a field surrounded by barbed wire, deep in the country. We had Japanese typewriters, so we could not understand the signals. There were five radio stations on the West Coast between Alaska and California. We sent our messages to Washington by Teletype to be decoded. We worked watches at eight to four, four to twelve and twelve to eight; a week of each as I remember. I believe we were paid $30 per month, and supplied with our uniform and the ghastly food. We felt safe, cared for and vital to the war effort while in uniform.

Well, we know who won, so to end my story I came home, went to university, left to marry an airman who had jumped out of two Spitfires, and lived happily ever after.

May I leave you with a message? I believe that with privilege comes responsibility. Serve your country. There are a thousand ways to make a difference