To see the pictures from the ceremony, go to:
https://www.richardlawrencephotography.ca/rlpgalleries/2024/dday80/
D-Day. The 6th of June, 1944. The Day that was the start of the end of WWII. Eighty years ago this mass undertaking, the largest seaborne invasion in history, known as Operation Neptune (the entire Normandy Campaign was known as Operation Overlord), started in Northern France on the beaches designated as Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, and Utah and involved the militaries of 13 countries (14 if you count the Germans). The Canadians of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division were assigned Juno Beach close to the villages of Courseulles and Bernières which were defended by the two battalions of the German 716th Infantry Division and elements of the 21st Panzer Division held in reserve. In all, about 14,000 troops landed with 961 becoming casualties - 340 dead.
Today there are countless commemorations taking place to remember this day. In Canada, Moncton, N.B., has a week of events and most politicians are in France at Juno Beach along with the few veterans left that could make the trip. In Ottawa, however, a commemoration ceremony was held with the few people who could make it out on the hot and humid day in the middle of the week which featured rain throughout the ceremony. Luckily, Veterans Affairs Canada had the presence of mind to move the ceremony from the National War Memorial to the inside venue of Cartier Drill Hall. Cartier Drill Hall is home to the Cameron Highlanders who, coincidentally, took part in the D-Day Landings.
It was a normal remembrance ceremony with the standard Act of Remembrance, Commitment to Remember, and wreaths laid, the Last Post, 2 minutes silence and the Rouse following the Guide to Commemorative Ceremonies. In attendance and laying wreaths were the United States Ambassador, the High Commissioner of the UK, representation from France, along with Veterans Affairs Canada, The Minister of National Defence, the CAF, Royal Canadian Legion, Indigenous and youth representatives.
When all wreaths were in place and the guests were asked if anyone else would like to lay a wreath, two ladies came forward with a wreath with a ribbon that said “WWII Russian Veterans Ottawa”. Now, given all the animosity to anything Russian these days that took a lot of courage for those two ladies to come forth in front of everyone.
Now, I dislike the current Russian government as much as anyone else and wish only bad things upon them. However, putting everything in context, in 1944 the Russians were our allies and had been doing the bulk of the fighting in the European Theatre for three years. They had suffered immense losses and deprivation and had been waiting for the Allies to invade Europe to make Hitler move his divisions out of Russia to France, thereby lessening their load. Notwithstanding the British (and Commonwealth) contributions in Africa along with the United States and the subsequent push up Italy, it was the invasion of France that Russia counted on for relief. D-Day did that.
So, again, although I dislike the Russian government of the day and think they should be ostracized from any event, social, political, or otherwise, today was not that day. Russia did not directly contribute to the D-Day successes, but it was their continued fighting that kept Hitler from moving a hundred more divisions from the Eastern Front to France to stem the Allied invasion, so allowing a small concession of the placement of a wreath to remember their war dead seems appropriate.
That said, it was a small ceremony to remember a day in the history of the world of which the importance cannot be overstated and which, if it had failed, could have meant a different world.
