Dieppe and Normandy

Uncle Wightman wrote scores of letters from from the First War trenches; some went to my other uncle, then a boy at boarding school in New Brunswick. Uncle Bayard, seen below, would become a Lieutenant Colonel in World War Two. He was Brigade Major of the Second Canadian Army Tank Brigade and then appointed to the Allied Military Government responsible for Belgium and Holland. The Netherlands would decorate him for his work in re-establishing civil authority.

The Great War was largely prolonged stalemate and much useless slaughter, which makes it so terribly poignant. For Canada, World War Two was, other than the long wait in Britain, mainly a war of advance. But, no visit to France is complete without Dieppe. Hong Kong and Dieppe were the Canadian low points.

In just a few hours, nearly a thousand Canadians died in the abortive 1942 Dieppe raid. Many more were wounded and taken prisoner. It was a cock-up and much of the blame falls on the British commander, Mountbatten. Then, as now, Dieppe was a resort and the pebbly beach – so unsuitable for a landing – was covered with burning Canadian tanks and dead.

One of our group was 85-year old Fred Davies who won a Distinguished Flying Cross as a ‘Pathfinder’ with the RCAF. These were the bombers that led the way for the main bombing forces. Just before D-Day, his plane was shot down and he was on the run from the Germans along the Belgian-French frontier. Below, he looks at Pourville beach, to the west of Dieppe, where the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the Cameron Highlanders of Canada came ashore. A Victoria Cross was won on this beach.

Two of Fred’s fellow airmen are buried at Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian cemetery. The stones are placed together because they were in the same crew – downed on the 23rd of May, 1944, just before D-Day. On the right is Flying Officer J. Hong, an RCAF navigator. I include this picture especially for my Chinese friend Si-Si. The inscription at the base reads: 'Union of a Chinese Heart with a Canadian Spirit.'

The next two pictures show German guns defending the D-Day beaches at Port en Bassin, Normandy. Offshore, as part of the invasion force, were 109 Canadian vessels and 10,000 sailors.

Here’s a still from some of the most famous D-Day footage. It shows Toronto’s Queen Own Rifles at 08:12hrs, on the 6th of June, 1944. They are in the first wave as the landing ramp goes down on Juno Beach, Bernières-sur-Mer .

I have been on the D-Day beaches before, shooting news and documentaries. The beaches are wide and flat, and the tide rolls out a long way. Which, of course, is why they were chosen. It means that, for peacetime pictures, they are not particularly spectacular. So, I decided to photograph one of the three Canadian beaches from behind a cyclist. He is peacefully sitting at Bernières where, as well as the Queen's Own, New Brunswick’s North Shore Regiment landed.

Just to the cyclist’s right is the first house liberated by Canadian troops. The Queen’s Own used it as a guide for their landing craft. As in the picture below, it features in many D-Day photos.

And here is the house today. One half is still a private residence and the other side designated as the Queen’s Own Rifles House.

By the evening of June 6th, Canadians were the farthest inland of all the Allied armies. Although casualties were heavy, they were far less than at Dieppe.

Unlike the First World War, some soldiers (mostly officers) carried personal cameras. As I crossed Juno Beach, I remembered a picture taken by Uncle Bayard before he got off his landing craft. Fortunately for him, he arrived after the initial assault.

And here is his first ‘home’ in liberated France, covered by camouflage netting, a couple of miles inland from the beaches. I can see his jacket hanging from a chair.

Over the next eleven months, on the left flank of the Allied armies, the First Canadian Army would advance through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into northern Germany. Uncle Bayard would return safely home. With Germany and Japan defeated, Canada, by then a country of eleven million people, had the third largest navy in the world, the fourth largest air force.

In the autumn of 1945, the British Army sent my father to Vancouver to help supervise the return of British POWs from Japan. Some transited Canada on their way back to the UK. It was because of the war that I was born in Vancouver.

This was obviously not a pleasure trip, but one well worth taking. It allowed time for thinking - of my family, of my country and the awfulness of what happened in places now so peaceful. It has, of course, been said before, but so many of the graves are of teenagers, more than a few under 18. As I age, I am reminded of what a privileged life I have led.

The concluding picture was taken at the Abbaye d'Ardenne on the outskirts of Caen. Here Canadian prisoners-of-war were massacred by the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division shortly after the D-Day invasion. The abbey garden is very quiet, filled with flags and poppies.

The Somme and Vimy

The Somme is in France, some distance south of Ypres. There is a brooding quality to the Somme, even today. The track below leads north, the British and Empire lines to the left, Germans to the right. On July 1, 1916, 20,000 British and Empire soldiers died as they went over the top. Some officers kicked footballs (soccer balls) into no man's land for their men to follow. They were mown down in waves.

Here are the lines of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel on the Somme. The Germans were down the slope to the left.

In the next picture, you can see a red sign in the distance, roughly where the German front line lay.

On July 1, facing a torrent of fire, the Newfoundlanders advanced 'with chins tucked down as if walking into a blizzard.' By the end of the day, 310 were dead. According to the Veterans Affairs Canada website, 'Of the 780 men who went forward only about 110 survived unscathed, of whom only sixty eight were available for roll call the following day.'

Major David Craig, recently of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (yes, it is Welch!) and our excellent guide, gestures from one of the Newfoundland trenches.

Even now, parts of the Western Front are unsafe. Farmers regularly find shells, bones and equipment, and munitions disposal experts have been killed in the not-too-distant past.

For safety’s sake, sheep are still used to crop the grass in areas not ploughed by farmers. The sheep, by the way, are in a trench.

Y Ravine cemetery was the approximate location of a German machine gun that caused heavy Newfoundland casualties. As are all the British and Commonwealth war cemeteries, it is truly lovely, almost an English garden, as was the intention of the War Graves Commission in the wake of the conflict.

Vimy Ridge is to Canada as Gallipoli is to the Australians and New Zealanders. The taking, by Canadians fighting as a combined Canadian Corps, of one of the most formidable German strong points on the Western Front is major step towards our national sense of self.

The Ridge, to the north of the Somme, was German high ground dominating British and Canadian positions. On Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, as the snow came down, four Canadian divisions took what the French and British couldn’t. But, for two German positions taken later, it was done in a morning and afternoon. Four Canadian Victoria Crosses were won.

Below, from a Canadian sniper’s position, is the German front line, the little ridge just below the wire.

The next picture shows a German communication trench leading up to their front line. The Canadian flag is just behind the Canadian front line.

The Vimy Ridge National Historic Site is on Canadian soil given by France. Those who know say that Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel are among the best surviving examples of Great War battlefields. Perhaps only land near Verdun, still sealed off, is so pitted with shell holes and mine craters. The ground at Vimy will bear witness for centuries.

In the tunnels, which led to the Canadian front line, there are rooms with the remnants of furnishings and equipment.

I am not a great monument person, but the Canadian monument at Vimy (at the crest of Hill 145, which was taken on the third day) is unquestionably one of the most beautiful I have ever visited. It can be seen from miles, is inspiring and, reflecting our national character, unmilitaristic. On a sunny day, newly restored, it was stunning. I often avoid figures in my pictures, but felt that, in this case, they added perspective.

One of the central figures is of 'Canada mourning her dead'. The picture below looks northeast. Victorious Canadian soldiers on the ridge could see the Germans retreating below. In the distance, you can see the slag heaps, approximately where my uncle was gassed many months later.

The next picture shows the fields at the appropriately named Passchedaele, sometimes translated as ‘Vale of the Passion’. Canadians, called in as ‘storm troops’, took it in November, 1917, part of the Third Battle of Ypres. Men drowned in the mud. Casualties were so heavy that historians sometimes refer to it as a Canadian Calvary. My uncle was here.

Two people on the tour wanted to see family graves. Here, Jane Blackstock from Barrie visits an uncle, Captain A.C. Parsons of the Somerset Light Infantry, killed in 1918. With another tour participant, we also visited the grave of a soldier in the same battalion as my uncle, although killed before my uncle arrived.

Fittingly, we also visited a German cemetery. They are less garden-like than the British and Commonwealth cemeteries and the graves lie in shade. It is said that, unlike the Second War, Allied and German soldiers, sharing the prolonged misery of the Western Front, felt some degree of camaraderie. I was pleased to see that British schoolchildren had left Remembrance crosses.

The defeated Germans were allotted much less land for their cemeteries, so the soldiers are often in mass graves. I decided to place a Canadian poppy at one.

I returned to Canada with one memento (I refuse to call it a souvenir). The eagle-eyed Major Craig found it at Vimy. I hold it and wonder. It is a piece of shrapnel, quite heavy for its size, one of millions in the fields of Belgium and France. What was its effect? Did it hit someone as the Canadians advanced? It is a small, terribly lethal part of my country's history.

Some background and up to the Front

My family members were typical of their generations and backgrounds. They served in the great British and Canadian citizen armies of two world wars, endured the London Blitz, crossed oceans threatened by U-boats and, after final victory, immigrated to new lands. As I grow older, I think of them more and more.

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In January, days after arriving home from Tahiti, I glanced at the Toronto Star. There was a very small ad, about two column inches, for a springtime tour of Canadian battlefields in northwest Europe. I cut out the ad and put it away.

Coming across the clipping a month or so later reminded me that I’d wanted to reacquaint myself with the literature of the First World War – Sassoon, Graves and Blunden. And the Canadian monument at Vimy Ridge, which I'd never seen, had been rededicated in 2007 following a major restoration. Although not a great fan of guided tours, this was to be with a small group and specialist guide. I phoned the travel agency, booked a spot and then burrowed in a box for some family photos and papers.

This is my uncle, then a young captain and later to be Lieut. Col. Wightman Manzer, OBE. The picture was taken before he went overseas in 1916.

My uncle served in the 26th (New Brunswick) Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was in the trenches in 1917-18 and was twice gassed in vicious fighting at Hill 70 to the northeast of Vimy.

During the war, as a result of continuing reinforcements to replace losses, the 26th Battalion had a total strength of 5,719. It lost 918 dead, had 2977 non-fatal casualties and gained 21 battle honours. In the war, Canada, then a country of only eight million, lost 66,573 dead.

Before leaving, I read – I’m ashamed to admit – for the first time, my uncle’s many letters from the Front. The crackly old envelopes were marked “On Active Service” and “Passed By Censor”. Here is one, sent to my grandmother.

Handwriting conveys an intimacy that no email can match. Ninety years after the letters were written in the filth of the trenches, it was humbling to have some sense of a young man’s thoughts as he daily faced death. This little electronic travelogue will vanish, but, with his letters, I could feel close to my uncle.

Into my suitcase went Denis Winter’s moving Death’s Men, Soldiers of the Great War. Being a sentimental sod, I also carried a little packet in the haversack normally slung over my shoulder when I travel. The picture below shows the packet’s contents.

In the centre is collar insignia from my grandfather’s Great War uniform. A dentist, he was a captain in the Canadian Army Dental Corps. In the top left-hand corner is one of my Uncle Wightman’s buttons from the 26th Battalion. In the bottom left is a button from my Uncle Bayard’s Second War uniform and, to the right, one of my father’s. Top right-hand is collar insignia from the 226th (Kootenay) Battalion. Some from the 226th were absorbed by the 54th (Kootenay) Battalion, which suffered terrible losses in a trench raid before the main attack on Vimy. My uncle may have been given it as a memento or, quite possibly, picked it up on the battlefield. Anyway, having been born in British Columbia, it seemed appropriate for me to take it back to the Western Front.

I loaded my iPod with songs of the First World War – 'Keep the Home Fires Burning', 'Roses of Picardy' and 'There's a Long, Long Trail a-Winding' – and set off for the airport.

My father was in the British Army from 1939-1945. He would finish the war as a captain – acting major – with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

Although not senior, Dad’s wartime work was sufficiently important that he sometimes travelled across the Atlantic on civilian flying boats. This was exclusive stuff. As a child, I was fascinated by his description of the airborne beds and small dining room. I was reminded of this as, for the first time when flying Air Canada, I had a bed, comparatively new on the Atlantic run, not simply the usual, reclining business class chair. A very good meal, a reasonable snooze and I was disembarking at Heathrow.

First stop, other than a quick foray to Foyle’s to raid the bookshelves, was the Imperial War Museum. Having lived in London, I’ve been before, but the exhibits are very good. I also spent a few hours at the National Army Museum in Chelsea.

In 1914-18, British and Empire soldiers departed from south coast ports such as Folkestone and Dover. Our small group took a ferry to Calais and then drove the comparatively short distance up to the old Front. Indeed, the Front was so close it was said that the guns could sometimes be heard in London.

Having been introduced to the Front at Armentières in French Flanders, the Canadians moved into Belgium and Ypres, ‘Wipers’ to the troops. At St. Julien, just to the east of Ypres, the Brooding Canadian Soldier, rifle reversed in mourning, stands at a crossroads.

The inscription reads:

'This column marks the battlefield where 18,000 Canadians on the British left withstood the first German gas attacks on the 22nd-24th of April 1915. 2,000 fell and here lie buried.'

The picture below, looking east to the German line, shows where the gas was unleashed and the Canadians held. Confronted by the first ever use of chlorine gas, the French broke and ran, perhaps understandably, as they had no idea what they were facing or how to deal with it. The surviving Canadians breathed through handkerchiefs soaked in urine and mud, plugged the gap in the line and counterattacked.

The next picture shows the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station, also near Ypres. In 1915, Lieut. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian Army doctor, was working here. He dealt with hundreds of gas victims and eventually with a friend killed in the fighting. And it was here, particularly shaken by his friend’s death, that he wrote ‘In Flanders Fields’, surely the most famous of all Canadian poems and known internationally.

‘In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row …'

McCrae died in 1918 and we later visited his grave near Boulogne.

Here is the hotel at Hooge, just east of Ypres where we stayed two nights. The dip between the hotel and the drive is a mine crater. The two roundish objects by the drive are gas projectors (similar to mortars).

Although it looks quaintly antique, the hotel was only built in the 1920s. An old picture shows what the immediate area had looked like.

'The whole place was a corpse, and the mud itself mortified.'

Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden.

In his letters home, my uncle largely omits what he is experiencing, because much would be censored anyway and he doesn't want to unnecessarily upset his family. So there is nothing of battle. However, some things do get through. He is amused that my mother, only five, was surprised that he has been living in the remains of a barn and he teases the family about the “large and plentiful” rats in France. He asks for lice powder: "I am not so bad now, but it won't be long before I will be nearly crazy." At one point, he mentions that he has gone nearly five weeks without a bath. Eventually, he bathes outside and, as it's cold, quickly gets into a blissfully clean uniform.

Near the hotel in Hooge is a massive crater from a land mine, blown under the German lines by the British in 1915. It formed this pond. In the distance, you can see what remains of a blockhouse.

At Hooge, the Germans first used flame-throwers against the British. Below are trenches.


The next posting takes me to the Somme and Vimy.