The Manitoulin Expositor has devoted virtually all of its front page this week in remembrance and celebration of an event that took place 70 years ago, on June 6, 1944.
Some staffers at the paper suggested that highlighting yesterday’s news, three generations old at that, was not likely to sell many papers this week.
That’s as may be. Naturally, it’s in the paper’s interest to put as many copies in as many homes as possible, week after week and, of course, we do a good job at that.
But some stories are worth retelling because of their significance, not merely as historical facts, but because the events they tell of have reverberated through the decades and influence us today.
The D-Day invasion by massed Allied forces on five beaches of the French province of Normandy, along its English Channel coastline, is certainly one of these events because its success or failure would certainly go on to shape the duration and outcome of the Second World War and, most assuredly, the nature of the world we live in today.
Canadian forces were assigned to land at and overpower German fortifications at a landing codenamed Juno Beach by those who planned the June 6 landing and Canadian military personnel, from army, navy and air force units, were involved in this mission. In the days of fighting that followed the Canadians’ landing at their Juno Beach goal, 340 servicemen were killed and 574 wounded among our fighting forces that included 14,000 troops landing at Juno Beach, 450 Canadian paratroopers and 10,000 Royal Canadian Navy sailors involved in the support of the landing in addition to the flight crews of Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft that provided air support for those who stormed the beach.
That was 70 years ago this Friday and this paper has only been able to locate one Manitoulin Island veteran who is still with us at 89 years-of-age and who landed on that beach in Normandy to begin to force the German military back and to liberate Europe from the Nazis’ grip.
That’s why the paper is making a fuss over the experiences a (nearly) 90-year-old man had over a particular few days when he was only 19.
In early November, in the lead up to Remembrance Day, we are encouraged to buy and wear poppies with the appropriate adage, “Lest we forget”.
Of course, we don’t want to forget but for so many Canadians, virtually all of us, the events in which our military men and women participated in the First World War and the Second World War are now stories we’ve heard or, for the younger people, facts they have learned at school as part of a history course.
Justin Roy is nearly 90 and he is, as noted, the only veteran from Manitoulin we have been able to locate who had the first-hand experience of landing at Juno Beach on June 6, 1944.
In another decade’s time, in 2014 when we reach the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing, virtually all that will be left will be memories of stories told and, of course, facts learned at school.
It’s an honour for The Expositor to be able to share the story of Justin Roy, a M’Chigeeng First Nation band member who was there in the prime of his youth on that Normandy beach, likely more than a little frightened, 70 years ago.
In England, it is still common to refer to those who fought in the Second World War as The Great Generation, (and, in written form, with all three words in the appellation capitalized as in the form of a proper noun).
It is a significant gesture of respect. This is not part of our Canadian tradition, but our tradition does include keeping alive the stories of heroism by ordinary citizens who volunteered for the dangerous business of wartime service in one or another branches of our military services just to “do their bit” to push back a truly evil enemy, and history has proven the Nazi philosophy that underscored Germany’s military ambitions in Europe was indeed evil in its intentions.
Last Sunday, June 1 was Decoration Day on Manitoulin and a large crowd gathered at the Manitoulin District Cenotaph to honour the efforts of Manitoulin’s military volunteers, especially those who did not return, in both 20th century world wars and in the Korean War.
There was a large crowd, as noted, but there was something less than a dozen veterans of these enormous conflicts that defined the 20th century. Poignantly, far fewer chairs were occupied by veterans than had been set out for them.
That’s why it’s so important to grab onto something, like Justin Roy’s story, to help us in the process of “Lest we forget”; to renew our appreciation of the efforts of ordinary people, almost all of them not military professionals, who left their families, their farms, their careers in business and the professions, who interrupted their education to enlist, in the case of the Second World War, in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 or even in 1945 and then to take basic training in the branch of the armed force’s they’d chosen, then more advanced training and, for many of them, then into battle in the Battle of the Atlantic, Africa, in Italy, the middle east, in Europe following D-Day and, of course, in the Pacific in the war with Japan.
And then they were de-mobbed after the war and came home and picked up where they had left off.
For Justin Roy, this was not an easy thing to do as he relates and he finally moved south to the United States to find work and has made his life there.
Canadians must not forget that ours was almost entirely a civilian military service. That is to say it was, through both First and Second World Wars and in Korea too, largely comprised of young men and women for whom military service was not their career choice. They enlisted because it was their patriotic duty, had their war experiences (including wounds both physical and emotional or both) and then returned to civilian life and the one, two, three, four or five years they spent as part of a fighting force became simply a part of their lived experience.
That in itself is remarkable. In today’s highly sophisticated armed forces, virtually all of our brave servicemen and women who have done so much to represent our country so well in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in the first Iraq war, in Rwanda, in Cypress tend now to be military professionals (or reservists) who enlist at a young age and plan on making their career in this way as highly trained specialists.
Modern military personnel and modern-day war veterans have their own demons resulting from conflict experiences due,in no small measure and also ironically that they came to their careers so very well-trained that many of them are continously so alert to danger that, as a group, they are likely more susceptible to the ravages of post traumatic stress disorder than were their counterparts of earlier conflicts.
It’s quite a compelling contrast to the young people of “The Great Generation” who enlisted “for the duration.” Just as we honour our older veterans, we must also honour those vets of recent conflicts.
Lest we forget.
