Social media is a
powerful thing. It provides an alternative way for us to connect with one
another, communicate and share ideas. In my media class we discuss how social
media can change lives, for better or worse. We may not always agree on its
impact and importance, but it does change lives.
Social media changed
my life.
On the first day
of this year’s March Break, I was sitting on my couch, scrolling through my
social media feed and a post caught my eye. “Amazing opportunity for Canadian
history teachers.” I clicked on the link and that’s where this journey technically
started, but in reality, it started much longer ago than that…
71 years ago, 14
000 Canadian volunteers landed on a beach in Normandy amid a hail of German
machine gun fire to begin the liberation of France and the end of a nearly five
year conflict That day was June 6th,
1944, D-Day.
One of the brave
Canadians who landed that day was Burlington Ontario native Garth Webb and that
beach is what Canadians call Juno Beach. Fifty nine years later, after years of
fundraising, the Juno Beach Center opened its doors as the premier Canadian
World War II museum in France; on the same shores stormed by Lt. Webb and
countless Canadians all those years ago. Today the Juno Beach center is a place
of education, providing a better understanding of the contributions of Canadians
during the Second World War.
It was the Juno
Beach Centre who posted about the “amazing opportunity for Canadian history
teachers” and it was with the JBC and 24 other incredible Canadian history
teachers that I traveled to France to walk in the footsteps of history this
summer. What followers here are my reflections and thoughts about this
experience.
Vimy Ridge
When the bus of
teachers pulled into the Vimy Memorial park in July, it was impossible not to
feel a tremendous sense of Canadian pride. There was a distinct feeling of
excitement among the teachers as we disembarked from the bus and began the long
walk towards the memorial. As we neared the foot of the memorial, the excited
chatter died down as we were met with the full breadth of the monument. As I
came upon the first statue it was noted that the all the heads were either
bowed towards the ground in silent reflection or turned towards the sky in
remembrance and contemplation. While other war monuments have swords raised to
the sky in victory, the Canadian monuments all have them pointed down in a
gesture of peace. This is what marks this monument as distinctly Canadian;
while homage is paid to the victory, the focus is on remembrance and preserving
the Canadian legacy of those who fought and those who died.
As you wander the
grounds surrounding the monument at Vimy something become evident. It’s the
craters left by the artillery shells in the war. Nearly 100 year later and the
earth still hasn’t recovered; the grass has grown over-top the once muddy
craters, but the land will remain forever marked by the war.
I was warned before I
left that it would be a powerful and transformative experience overseas, but
I’m not really sure I understood what they meant until I was standing on the
stairs of the Vimy Monument. Staring at the wall with all the names of the
fallen was the moment it hit me. I
suddenly realized that this was the reality of the numbers we teach. Textbooks
tell us that nearly 3600 Canadians died while capturing the ridge, but there
are many more names on the wall. Each one of those names represented a person;
somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody's father. There are 11 285 names
inscribed on the wall, the same number of trees on the grounds. Each is the
name of a man who is missing and presumed dead, yet their names live forever on
the wall at Vimy. Standing below the monument makes you feel incredibly small.
It’s a humbling experience, and one that does fill you with Canadian pride, but
more importantly, it fills you with gratitude for the sacrifices that 11 285
men made on our behalf.
Cabert Rouge Cemetery
The full impact of
the First World War hit me full force during my visit to the Cabert Rouge
Cemetery. Hundreds of Canadians who were killed at the Battle of Vimy Ridge
were laid to rest in this cemetery alongside their British and Commonwealth allies. Many of the remains buried here are
unidentified and their graves are simply marked with the words “A solider of
the Great War”. It is here that in May 2000 the remains of an unknown soldier
were disinterred and then re-interned at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
After paying our respects at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, we took some
time to wander among the rows and rows of markers. I walked down an entire row
of graves and was shocked to notice that every single marked grave in that
particularly line was for a soldier who was 17, 18, or 19 years old when he
fell. I had tears in my eyes. I felt overwhelmed.
Just a few short
weeks before this trip, I gathered with my school community to celebrate the
successes of our grade 12 graduates. We sent them off into the wide world of
adulthood to embrace the new challenges of college, university and the work
force. We congratulated them on a job well down and applauded their bright
futures. Just a few short generations ago, we would have been standing at a
train station waving good bye to a generation of young men as they set off to
fight a war in a foreign land, assuring ourselves “They’d be home by
Christmas”. They didn’t come home by Christmas. In fact, more than 116 000
Canadian men didn’t come home at all. They died in a muddy field somewhere in
France. They died so that my students, the children I love and care about might
never have to go to war. They died for us.
As the reality of
the First World War sank in, we prepared to embark on our journey of living
history as we moved across France towards the coast of Normandy.
The Dieppe Raid
Our journey
towards D-Day began on the shores a very different beach. In the coastal town
of Dieppe….
Standing on the
beach of Dieppe, looking out across the ocean and up at the vast cliffs
towering over us it was hard to imagine what our Canadian soldiers were
thinking as they approached from the water. It seemed like an unfair objective,
an impenetrable fortress.
As we struggled to
walk along the beach, we kept turning to look at the cliffs. To fully
understand the challenges of the Dieppe raid, you first have to understand
what’s under your feet as you walk along the shore line; it’s rocks. Not just
little pebbles or stones, but large, round smooth rocks; about the size of golf
balls. It’s called chert. And the problem with walking on chert is that it
moves underneath your feet. It makes getting down to the water’s edge
difficult, and getting up from the water’s edge very difficult. Never mind the
fact that when we visited the beach, we were not wearing an 80 backpack full of
gear, we were not clad in a soaking wet wool uniform, and we were not running
up the beach amidst German machine gun bullets. These are the conditions our
Canadian soldier’s faced on the day of the Dieppe raid. To make matters worse,
when a bullet hits rock, it explodes. It sends rock fragments flying into the
air. Every rock on that beach had the potential to become flying shrapnel at
any given moment. Getting off that beach in 1942 would have been nearly
impossible.
I didn’t realize
the full magnitude of Dieppe until I was standing in a little inlet of a town
called “Pyus”. The beach here is about 150 meters wide and the cliffs tower
over you on either side, rising several hundred feet in the air. We stood on
the beach, listening to the waves crash on the shore, and it was quiet. As the
gravity of the situation washed over us, no one spoke.
The raid on Dieppe
lasted nine hours. 907 Canadian soldiers were killed, 2460 were wounded and
1946 Canadians were taken prisoner.
The Canadian
sacrifice is well marked all over Dieppe. There is a commemorative park near
the beach at one end of the town. Throughout the board walk all along the beach
there are monuments standing in remembrance to the regiments of Canadians who
lost their lives during the raid.
Historians often point to Dieppe as the point in the war where
preparations for D-Day started. Standing on the shores of Dieppe is where our
walk with living history truly began.
Walking Juno Beach
The first time I
set foot on Juno Beach is a moment I’ll never forget. I walked slowly. Tried to
take in every moment. Tried to imagine what it must have been like for those
brave young men decades ago. After a few kilometers of hiking on the beach, we
came face to face with a famous Canadian and war time landmark.
Canada
House/Maison Des Canadien or Queens Own Rifle’s house is located on the shores
of Juno Beach in the town of Bernières-sur-Mer. The summer vacation home is
owned by the Hoffer family, the same family who owned it in 1942 when the Nazis
took it over. The house was used as a navigational landmark during the Normandy
invasion and was the first home liberated on D-Day by the Canadians. Today it
stands as a living monument to those boys from Canada and the Hoffer family
selflessly shares the story with Canadian and international tourists alike.
Living History
One of the most
notable example of living history and gratitude towards Canadians for their
role in the liberation of France came in the tiny village of Le Mesnil Patry.
In 1944 there were about 125 people living in the village. On June 11th,
1944 members of the Queen’s Own Rifles, the same regiment which liberated
Canada House a few days earlier, liberated the village Le Mesnil Patry’s
liberation was not without great cost however; in the middle of the village
stands a small monument. Engraved on its face are the names of 125 Canadian
soldiers who died in the fight for the village. Among the names are two that
stand out: Thomas and Albert Westlake. These brothers were found dead in a
wheat field. They died holding hands.
The final resting
place of the West Lake brothers is in Benny Sur Mere Cemetery along with 2046
other Canadians. They are buried as they died, next to one another. A third
grave next to Thomas and Albert’s bears the same last name; Westlake. George
Westlake. The oldest Westlake brother was killed in the fight for the village
of Authie on June 6th after surviving the assault on the beaches.
Three brothers went to war, none of them came home.
These aspects of
living history are so important to Canada’s war time legacy. These poignant
stories aren’t commonly printed in history textbooks and aren’t widely known
among Canadians. But by walking in the footsteps of history and talking to those
who were there, we can find out much more about our past and our country’s
contributions to the war effort. We can understand and preserve the legacy of peace
created by our Canadian troops.
Juno Beach/centre and sands
When the Juno
Beach Centre opened its doors in 2003 its aim was to educate the public about
Canadian contributions in the Second World War and what life was like in Canada
today. It wanted to provide a place where returning veterans could come and
show their families, where students could learn about the war and where the
legacy of remembrance could be preserved.
When we first
pulled up to the center, we were excited. We’d been in France for several days
and even though it was my first time seeing and visiting the center, it felt as
though we were coming home. Juno Park features many replicas of artillery and
military vehicles used in the Normandy campaign as well as a preserved German
bunker which visitors can tour. While inside the bunker we learned that they
were built by French citizens forced to work for the Germans under extreme
conditions. Many of these workers were secret French resistance fighters. One
way to pushed back against the Nazi regime was to offer their German
supervisors a strong Normand liquor called Calvados. Once intoxicated, the
German officers paid less attention to what the French workers were doing. This
gave the resistance an opportunity to sabotage the construction of these
bunkers. Instead of placing the concrete slabs in the correct way and filling
them with cement as they were instructed to do, they placed them sideways and
neglected to fill them with cement. This compromised the structural integrity
of the bunker, so that when the allied artillery started on the morning of June
6th, many of the bunkers collapse. These French resistance fighters
risked their lives and very likely the safety of their families in an effort to
assure an allied victory during the Normandy invasion.
After visiting the
excavated German bunker and exploring the exhibits of the museum, we had the
afternoon to wander the shores of Juno Beach. In small groups, the teachers
waded out with the tide and stood on the ocean floor. At one point I was
standing about 150 meters off shore and I turned to look back at the centre.
The tide goes out slowly, but comes in quickly on this beach. The Canadians
landed during low tide in an effort to avoid submerged landmines, but this also
meant that they had only about 30 minutes to get off the beach or the tide
would take them off and, if they survived the tide, they’d be struggling ashore
in neck deep water.
The bravery it
must have taken for those men to leap out of a landing craft into a landscape
of uncertainty is nearly incomprehensible…
My Final Reflection
On one of our last
day in Normandy, we were invited to be the guests of honour at a ceremony of
Remembrance in the Bretteville cemetery where Canadian casualties from the
Second World War are buried. Dignitaries from the surrounding villages came as
did countless military personnel, war veterans and current military servicemen
and women who made up the honour guard. As we walked into the cemetery, the
flags of each Canadian province waved proudly.
After the ceremony of
remembrance we stood as they prepared to sing the French national anthem, but
to our surprise they began with the Canadian national anthem. Every single
French citizen, dignitary, veteran and civilian alike knew they words to our
national anthem. I have never felt more proud to be Canadian nor has O Canada
meant so much to me as it did standing on foreign soil singing in that moment
with our French friends. "True North strong and free" says our
national anthem; surrounded by hundreds of men who paid the ultimate sacrifice
for our freedom, those words ring true.
While talking to French citizens who were alive during the war or who have a personal connection with the Canadian troops, we were often called “Nos libérateurs” and told we were important because "You teach the next generation about what happened here- it's up to you and your students to
remember and keep the legacy alive."
“It's up to you to
remember and keep the legacy alive....”
That's the point really-
that's why we flew all this way, why we spent days learning from each other and
talking to locals, why we spent countless reflective moments in quiet places,
why we shed tears together and alone.
Memory and legacy...
After nearly two
emotionally exhausting weeks, we spent one final afternoon on the shores of
Juno beach. As I walked
out of the gates at Juno Park and onto the sand for the last time, I noticed a
young girl about three or four years old playing on the beach.
After all Juno beach is
a vacation town for French and European holidays alike. It was before the war
and years later it has become one again.
As I watched her
carefully building her sand castle, it donned on me- this is what it was all
about. This is what those 14000 Canadians fought for, there isn't anything more
innocent or free than a child playing openly on a beach, the same beach that
once saw so much carnage and destruction.
An hour or so later our
class was gathering outside the Juno Beach Centre to take one last class photo,
and as we snapped the picture I noticed the same little girl looking curiously
at us. Some of us waved at her so she wandered over. I had a few Canadian flag
stickers and I offered her one. She took it happily. As I tried to explain in
broken French what the sticker was and how it represented my country, the
little girl looked at me strangely. Her mother said “Thank you” in English and
then prompted her daughter to say “Thank you” as well. The little girl smiled
and complied with her mother’s request. It wasn’t until I heard the mother
speak to her child and heard the little girl’s reply did I realize that they
were not French, but German.
Things had come full
circle. For years the allies and Germans were at odds on this very land But 71
years later, a German child and a Canadian teacher made a connection together;
both of us enjoying lives of freedom and the peace of the Juno beach center,
both of us from generations who have grown up in peace.
As we leave the
Juno Beach Centre, we are reminded that 14 000 Canadian volunteers landed on
the very same sand outside the doors 71 years ago. We are told that, “They walk
with you” in legacy and remembrance. This same sentiment echoed through our
minds as we again set foot on the shores of Juno beach, as we stood with our
feet in the water and looked out into the vastness of the English Channel. It
played in our minds as we wandered the shores, as we walked through the rows of
graves in the D-Day cemetery and as we boarded the plane to fly home.
“They walk with
you”.
How will we walk
with them?
How will we keep
the legacy of remembrance, freedom and peace alive for your generation and
those that come after us?
How will we remember them?
Notes:
I owe the Juno
Beach Centre and their amazing staff and friends (Jenna, Marie Eve, Chris, Neil
and all my JBC Summer Institute colleagues) a great big thank you for inspiring
me throughout the battle field tour and for motivating me to embrace new
opportunities and challenges in my life. It is because of these amazing
individuals I met on tour this summer that I have a renewed my passion for
teaching and am inspired to approach every day in and out of my classroom with
a fresh perspective. Much of this text was used in reflection pieces I wrote for
Remembrance Day ceremonies in my community and at school so it may be familiar
to some who have heard me speak in these venues.
To learn more
about the Juno Beach Center and make a donation, please visit them online here.
