Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
Nearly 200 people filled the Wakaw Recreation Centre for the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies led by the Wakaw Branch No. 195 of the Royal Canadian Legion.
This year’s Remembrance Day ceremony opened with Legion President Noel Brunanski acting as emcee, and joining her for the service was former Armed Forces chaplain, Deacon Rick Lucas from the Roman Catholic Church. The Parade of Colours was commanded by Sgt at Arms, Paul Danis, and accompanied by an RCMP honour guard.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
Written in mid-September 1914, the poem, “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon, was composed around those four lines as the first casualties of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I were mourned. These words were adopted by the Royal British Legion, from which stemmed the Royal Canadian Legion, as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen servicemen and women.
They were said again on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at the Wakaw Rec Centre, along with a recording of Leonard Cohen’s recitation of McCrae’s legendary “In Flanders Fields” as part of the Ceremony of Remembrance organized by Wakaw’s Royal Canadian Legion Branch 195.The colour party, the Last Post, the two minutes of silence, followed by the Rouse, were all familiar components, as were the prayers and the hymns. Wreaths were laid, as in previous years, with Wakaw Minor Hockey players assisting.
Deacon Rick Lucas acknowledged the invisible scars that often remained hidden by returning soldiers. Over the years, identified as ‘shell shock’, ‘war neurosis’, ‘battle or combat fatigue’, ‘combat stress reaction’, and ‘gross stress reaction,’ these ‘illnesses’, in 1980, were given credence as a lasting wound to the psyche, with the inclusion by the American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and were named Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Members of the military, by the nature of their training, are ’expected’ to be tough, and PTSD creates a fissure between that perception and reality. The wounds that create PTSD can be lifelong, and things once seen cannot be unseen. The stress of trying to ‘fit in’ to a regular world that cannot comprehend what a veteran has seen and experienced can leave them feeling isolated and alone, and suffering from an invisible disorder can be further isolating.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. In October and November 1944, Canadian and Allied forces defeated the Germans blocking the Scheldt Estuary. The Battle of the Scheldt was a series of military operations focused on opening the Scheldt river between Antwerp, Belgium and the North Sea for shipping, so that Antwerp’s port could be used to supply the Allies in north-west Europe. The operations were carried out by the First Canadian Army, with assistance from attached Polish and British units. This victory liberated the southern parts of the Netherlands and gave Allied shipping access to the vital port of Antwerp. (https://www.warmuseum.ca/liberation/)
In retaliation for a railway strike that harmed the German war effort, Germany stopped food shipments to the western Netherlands, creating the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945. By spring 1945, millions of Dutch civilians faced starvation. Throughout that winter, Canadian troops faced the challenge of liberating villages, towns and farms in the Netherlands. The Allies arranged emergency food deliveries, even before the fighting ended. Operations Manna and Chowhound saw British and American bombers drop food into and around occupied Dutch cities. The Royal Canadian Air Force’s 405 Squadron helped mark drop zones for British bombers, many of which had Canadian crew members.
In April 1945, the First Canadian Army swept north, liberating more of the Netherlands from German occupation and providing food and medical aid to the starving population. Throughout April and May, Canadian and other Allied forces were enthusiastically welcomed by the Dutch people, freed from almost five years of German occupation. Joyous crowds thronged the streets and mobbed liberating forces in what came to be known as the “Sweetest Spring.”
On May 5, 1945, Canadian general Charles Foulkes accepted the surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands at Wageningen. That morning, the First Canadian Army was ordered to cease offensive operations. The next few months were called the “Canadian Summer” because of the significant Canadian military presence in the Netherlands at the end of the war in Europe.
More than 7,600 Canadian service personnel died during the liberation of the Netherlands, and the liberation created an enduring friendship between Canadians and the Dutch that is felt in many ways. In the Netherlands, children and adults still tend to Canadian war graves, and on Christmas Eve, local schoolchildren come to the Holten and Groesbeek Canadian military cemeteries in the Netherlands to light a candle in honour of every soldier laid to rest.
Jack Jones and Mel Osolinsky read the names of the fallen: WWI: Thomas Bedford, Peter Ewaniuk, Charles F. Fisher, Harry Bowyer, George A. Grant, John Dubois, James W. Stanway, George S. Turner, Leon Forgue, George E. Thomas, Charles J. Sutherland, Malcom A. Sutherland, Louis Vizena, William H. Vizena, Francois Paintednose; WWII: Elmer A. Firneisz, John Pawliuk, Bartholomew R. Solymos, Victor Sherchuk, John A. Zip, Percy K. Fisher, Merl Cunningham, Walter J. Parenteau, John P. Chomyn, Michael A. Saruk, Herbert H. Billesberger, John J. Maier, Michael Frank, Alexander N. Komarniski, Henry J. Levesque, Fritz M. Lemke, Ignatius J. Zimmer, Laurent E. Bremner, Gerald C. Baribeau, James L Hodgson, James L. Baldhead; Peacekeeping: Myron J. Zimmer, Lorand A. Viczko, and Robert W. Kostiuk.
Through donations to the Legion Poppy Fund and monies made from selling wreaths and poppies, the Legion provides financial assistance and support to Veterans, including those of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, and their families in need.
