D-Day Reflections Some 70 Years Later

My Father passed away on January 4, 2003 at the age of 80. As his eldest son I was given the duty and honour of writing and delivering the Eulogy for his funeral. I still remember sitting at my computer late into the night that January 4th, trying to decide what to say about my Dad’s life.

One dominant theme kept recurring and remained in my mind and that was his experience as a 21 yr. old soldier with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles as they landed on Juno Beach in the first wave of the invasion known as D-Day.

That night, I pretty much completed writing the eulogy for my Dad and after finishing it I hardly changed 1 of the 3,219 words as these were pretty honest feelings and emotions that deserved to be left just as they were written.

Our entire family always knew that D-Day was an unforgettable day in my Dad’s life even though he rarely spoke about it. He lost way too many good friends that terrible day. After watching and reading all the tributes yesterday about the D-Day invasion,I thought I’d share these 415 words I wrote as part of my Dad’s Eulogy:

Each of us have important dates, times and places in our lives that we will always remember such as marriage, the birth of a child, a graduation. These are the major cornerstones of our lives where we always seem to remember where we were and what we were doing. My dad had those same types of memories.

But, for those of us who shared his life, we know full well that there was always one dominant date and place. The place was Juno Beach, the date was June 6, 1944 – D-day.

After enjoying what he called “the best year’s of his life”, my dad now found himself in a landing craft headed full speed for Juno Beach and he was about to experience both his worst day and his worst year!

In the book “Bloody Victory” about Canada’s D-day campaign, authors J.L. Granastein and Desmond Morton describe some of what the Winnipeg Rifles faced that day on Juno Beach, they wrote:

“They came under fire when their landing craft were still half a mile from the beach. Many of the “Little Black Devils”, as the Winnipeg Rifles were known, were hit as soon as they waded into the chest high surf.

Nonetheless the battalion took the beach defenses, cleared the small harbour, drove a gap through minefields planted with 14,000 mines and liberated the small villages just off the coast.

The cost was heavy. The battalion was reduced from 120 men to a mere 27 by the morning’s work”.

Fortunately, my dad was one of those who made it off the beach alive. Two days later, on June 8th, hungry, tired and suffering from gunshot wounds, he was captured and transported by train to Germany, as he liked to put it – “compliments of the Third Reich” where he spent the remainder of the war in a prisoner of war camp.

The next day on June 9th, with the whereabouts of my father unknown, i was born in Cowdenbeath Scotland. The army officially listed my Dad as missing in action and it wasn’t until October of that year that my Mother found out he was still alive. She received a simple postcard from my Dad saying he was o.k. but a prisoner of war.

Needless to say the relief was overwhelming both in Scotland and in Winnipeg!  My Gran and Pop in Winnipeg must have been especially relieved as two of their other sons, Dick and Charlie, were serving on warships with the Royal Canadian Navy.

- end of excerpt from eulogy -

Telegram from Minister of Nation Defense advising “Missing in Action”

D-Day always managed to bring back a flood of memories in our family for not only my Mother but my Grandparents and my Dad’s 7 brothers and sisters. These memories ranged from total sorrow and despair to overwhelming joy. The best way to demonstrate this, I suppose, is simply by displaying two images: the one above is definitely “total sorrow” as it was a telegram from the Minister of National Defence to my Grandparents advising them that their eldest son, Tom, was MIA after D-Day.

Postcard from my Dad on Jan. 13, 1945 from German POW camp

The overwhelming joy part of D-Day remembrances was the first postcard my Dad was able to send to his parents in Winnipeg while he was a POW in Germany. To this day, I still don’t know where exactly in Germany my Dad was a POW or what the name of the camp was. He never talked about it and just shrugged it off when asked questions. It seems to be a very common practice with WWII Vets.

Once in a while, during a conversation with friends or family he would say something that provided a small clue about life as a POW. For instance, he had a particular dislike for German Shepherds and Doberman’s. I guess they were the guard dogs that patrolled the camp. He also never allowed red cabbage in our home as that was pretty much a staple of his diet as a POW. That’s about all I ever learned. Too bad!

Even though I’ve blogged about this previously, some stories deserve never to be forgotten – just like my Dad.

Thanks for visiting!