Archive for November, 2009

Danny Doyle grew up in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighbourhood of Bay Ridge, the sixth of eight children of Newfoundland-born ironworker Fred Doyle. His father’s friends were mostly ironworkers and most were former Newfoundlanders who left home for New York in the middle of the last century. They said goodbye to a place of high un­employment and dismal prospects to risk life and limb raising the steel columns and beams that formed the frames of some of the New York’s most famous skyscrapers. These men earned good money, lived in the same sections of Brooklyn and frequently spent their off-hours together. “My [...]

New Branch Welcomed In Newfoundland A new branch and, for the first time in a long time, an increase in membership gave delegates at the 61st Newfoundland and Labrador Command convention an extra spring in their step when they met at Pleasantville Branch in St. John’s, Aug. 15-19. “The absolute highlight of the past two years has been the creation of a new Legion branch in Pasadena,” Newfoundland and Labrador Command President Dave Flannigan told delegates in his President’s Report. “Pasadena Branch is alive and well with an increasing membership and new accommodation. This branch is an absolute success story that continues [...]

Financial Status Strong In New Brunswick It was all business this year in New Brunswick. It took just two days and one quick election to set the command on its course for the next two years. This was the 79th New Brunswick Command convention held Sept. 4-6 at Herman Good VC Branch in Bathurst and it was there that delegates confirmed Clayton Saunders as the new president, Paul Poirier as the new first vice, and elected Rick Love as second vice. Bathurst is a picturesque town of about 13,000 on the inward edge of Chaleur Bay on Canada’s Atlantic coast, a place which [...]

In the November/December issue we tested your knowledge of the First World War. Here are the answers. True.  Still a colony of the British Empire, Canada had no control over its own foreign affairs.  Canada was granted autonomy in foreign policy in 1931. a. Canada had two obsolete cruisers, the HMCS Niobe and the HMCS Rainbow. “Wipers.” Sir Joseph W. Flavelle, a wealthy Toronto businessman who made his fortune as president of a large pork-packing enterprise.  Beginning in November 1915, he led the Imperial Munitions Board, which oversaw Canada’s military-industrial output. False.  The Royal Canadian Air Force did not exist in the First World War. [...]

This year’s Royal Canadian Legion National Youth Athletic Championships, held Aug. 5-11 once again in Sherbrooke, Que., was a veritable blizzard of record-smashing and otherwise incredible performances with athletes from all over Canada trying to outdo each other to become national champions. After two days of training and practice, the event itself began with an opening ceremony on a cool Friday evening at the Sherbrooke stadium. While the crowd of several hundred youth sat casually on the track, Dominion Command First Vice Pat Varga briefly conducted the opening ceremony and somberly read the Act of Remembrance. This event, held in close co-operation [...]

Poppies mean so much to our readers and you responded wonderfully to the Poppy Photo Contest announced in the July/August issue. We received 238 entries from across the country and it was Sharon Snider, a Legion member at Hugh Allan Branch in Port Dover, Ont., who took first place. Having just moved into a new house in nearby Delhi, she was surprised to find poppies growing there this spring and captured her winning shot (below). PHOTO: SHARON SNIDER First Place. Second-place winner Jeff Bentley travelled to Flanders, where John McCrae wrote his famous poem. Bentley took his winning photo (below) in 2007 [...]

The postcards-for-troops campaign launched by Legion Magazine is catching on across the country. Students from a number of schools are turning it into a classroom project, ordering huge quantities of the postcards published in Legion Magazine’s November/December issue. In several e-mails sent to the magazine this week, the magazine has learned that students, teachers and parents are busy putting pen to paper and writing short, personalized messages on the back of the postcards, all of which are destined for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. “Students enjoy participating in campaigns such as this,” says teacher Shelley Knott of Mayerthorpe, Alta., Junior/Senior High School. [...]

The single point of failure. This short phrase hides an idea powerful enough to make a special operations aviator professionally uncomfortable. The phrase makes them tense. It makes them speak of dangerous things. Up in the sky, there are few places to hide. And while commanders do their best to make plans resilient enough to avoid any single point of failure, it’s a rare plan that survives first contact with the enemy and recent military history shows that occasionally even the most elite forces can become undone. It takes just a single piece of bad luck—a dust storm that blinds and disorients, [...]

Brad White became the new Dominion Secretary for The Royal Canadian Legion on Sept. 12, 2009. White wants to increase the Legion’s relevancy and make the organization more active in all aspects, particularly in its service to veterans. White, a Canadian Forces veteran, is accustomed to the leadership role and is willing to take risks to get the job done. He has firmly positioned himself to fight the tough battles ahead—increasing membership, building unity and public awareness. Out of this, he believes, will emerge a more modern Legion, one that is even stronger in its ability to support veterans. The Dominion Secretary [...]

At 5:20 a.m., July 16, 2009, on a rocky beach in France, a group of 30 Canadians raise a toast in a solemn, if impromptu, ceremony to a sacrifice made by their countrymen in this very place 67 years ago. The Aug. 19, 1942, Dieppe Raid was the single most costly day for Canadians in the Second World War. Almost 5,000 members of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division landed as part of Operation Jubilee. More than 3,300 became casualties, including 913 who paid with their lives. Another 1,946 Canadians became prisoners of war. “We will remember them,” pledge members of The [...]