Memoirs & Pilgrimages

Guns fired in the distance as the 26 members of The Royal Canadian Legion’s Youth Leaders’ Pilgrimage of Remembrance stepped off the coach amid endless rows of potatoes and other vegetables in Belgium. These were not the guns of long past battles, but merely the propane gas guns that randomly fire to scare away birds from the maturing crops that rise from the First World War battlefields.

There is no living memory of what happened July 1, 1916, on the Beaumont Hamel battlefield in France, the day 801 members of the Newfoundland Regiment walked into a hailstorm of machine-gun bullets. History books record the facts and figures—it took only half an hour to decimate the regiment; only 68 answered roll call the next day.

Alex is pouring scotch when George arrives; 10 floors up in a hotel room overlooking the bursting city of Seoul, South Korea. Outside, rays of light explode from automated signs, creating late-night exclamation marks above streets that resemble run-on sentences in the ultimate story of growth. Westerners and Easterners alike call it The Miracle on the Han, after the massive postwar reconstruction effort that sprang up along the river running through the city which now boasts more than 10 million people, and contributes immensely to the country’s domestic and global economic success.

This August the weather in France is perfect—blue skies for photographs and moody clouds for paintings. I came to Europe to paint. World-class museums are filled with landscapes of the Norman and Flemish fields. This land is valuable both for its artistic and agricultural production. But it is cherished for another reason. This is where the world came to fight, not once but twice. More than 111,650 Canadians died as a result of the First and Second World Wars. They are buried here. As an artist, the juxtaposition of war and peace interests me. I imagine European citizens picnicking with their families on the same shores Canada stormed—busy with modern lives on old battlefields. I want to see if remembrance exists in the off-season—when no one knows company is coming.

This August the weather in France is perfect—blue skies for photographs and moody clouds for paintings. I came to Europe to paint. World-class museums are filled with landscapes of the Norman and Flemish fields. This land is valuable both for its artistic and agricultural production. But it is cherished for another reason. This is where the world came to fight, not once but twice. More than 111,650 Canadians died as a result of the First and Second World Wars. They are buried here. As an artist, the juxtaposition of war and peace interests me. I imagine European citizens picnicking with their families on the same shores Canada stormed—busy with modern lives on old battlefields. I want to see if remembrance exists in the off-season—when no one knows company is coming.

For 65 years his body lay in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery near Ortona, Italy, beneath a grave marked “Known unto God.” Ortona and its surrounding area had seen some of the fiercest fighting endured by Canadians in the Second World War. The 1,614 other graves in the cemetery attest to that. But while the body still lies there, he is no longer unknown. In a simple Canadian Forces ceremony, delegates of a Veterans Affairs Canada pilgrimage to mark the 65th anniversary of the Italian Campaign and Canadian students from CCI Renaissance School in nearby Lanciano participated in the dedication of [...]

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 [...]

Ambush At The White School One of the first battles for the infamous white school in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan occurred on Aug. 3, 2006—one month prior to the launch of Operation Medusa, which has been the subject of a three-part series in Legion Magazine. In the August battle, Canadian soldiers fought with great courage despite being seriously outnumbered by the enemy. What follows is one soldier’s account of that chaotic situation. Master Corporal Matthew Parsons is a transplanted New Zealander who served in 9 Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. We were sitting at Forward [...]

Early morning, Nov. 25, 2008: One by one the large tour buses stop in the tight laneway running parallel to the Adriatic’s western shore. It is cold and windy with the threat of rain hanging in the air above the stone archway linking the church of San Donato to the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery. For a few precious seconds between arrivals there is nothing but silence, just the wind rustling southward through the olive trees and vine-covered pergolas. Five kilometres to the north—on a plateau overlooking the sea and a quiet river valley—is the ancient but rebuilt town of Ortona with [...]

The shooting this summer of a South Korean tourist cast an uncomfortable shadow over the Veterans Affairs Canada delegation that had come to Seoul to mark the 55th anniversary of the Korea Armistice Agreement signed on July 27, 1953. Park Wang Ja, a 53-year-old housewife from Seoul, was walking on a beach at a tourist area in North Korea when, according to North Korean officials, she strayed into a restricted military area and was shot twice. This was after failing to acknowledge shouts and a warning shot. The killing, coupled with North Korea’s refusal to allow South Korean authorities to examine the [...]