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.
