We made the decision to close our office today. Both of my full time staff were going to come in and work and I told them to take at least the morning off, and encouraged them to commerate the day. Their choice, but I hope they do.
Reports of record crowds in Ottawa today - great news.
That memorial they put up in London England with the ceramic poppies of all British soldiers that died in WWI is beautiful, just amazingly stunning!
I was watching this short video taken with a drone. It's quite something to see.
My nephew just won a history award and was in Ottawa last weekend to receive his award at the War Museum there. They toured the museum after the award ceremony, and were able to view my grandfather's enlistment papers from WW1, and a couple of other things that were donated to the museum years ago. One day I'd like to get down there and see them myself.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Minnie For This Useful Post:
You can actually buy one of those poppies in London. After the display is over (they are trying to get it to stay up for awhile longer...) they will clean them up and mail them to you. I was lucky enough to see this last month when we were visiting and I was almost in tears. My husband bought me one when got back to Canada.
My cousin posted this today, as she does every year. My grandfather kept a little notebook in his shirt pocket, always. I don't ever recall a time where he didn't have one tucked in there - he 'scribbled' as he called it, a little something in those books every day. When he passed away, we placed an empty one in his shirt pocket, in the casket.
Anyway, a lot of his little books/mini-diaries, even from the war, are amongst the "souveneers" in the War Museum. This is an excerpt from one.
Quote:
n Sept & Oct 1918 in France.
With 54th Can Infantry, Kootenay Battalion
I came off leave to Blighty, after they had been through Bourlon Wood and Cambray.Enemy were devastating everything as they retreated. Bridges blown. Crossroads & every rail on railroads and canals where it would make hindrance. Our supply lines hindered in bringing ammunition for guns and other supplies for us and engineers.
I think it was at Sensey Canal the bridge was blown. & we had word they were evacuating beyond. & we wanted to be close behind so not to let them get a line solid. We sent a group to move along our side of the canal exposing themselves while machine guns sprayed across to alert enemy, if any, in place. They responded. One of my men of those exposed slightly hit in arm but no serious blood to show. Slightly inebriated officers ridiculed the man an old English man. Said a switch no doubt had struck him. So Eliot & Hunter tried to make it across broken bridge. First made it. Hunter was hit and tried – did get back to our side, and died. Eliot got hid and stayed all day alone. Had a little Testament to read for company. Came back to us just as we were making plans to go for him. He thought it the best time. Germans would be after him too.
Company got across by a road away miles up, water almost to road edge. Scouts ahead checking for booby traps. Village we came to had all road signs cleared away. A well had to be guarded by an officer. We were thirsty, desperate some. I persuaded some and myself to take cabbage from a garden and eat raw — 90 % water.
No delays when one objective made & line contacted immediately another set & away we went again. No stand-down, only brief halt. Some sections would over-march retreating squads of Hun. Villages were civilians were still habited would raise flags trying to – what?
Germans rifled & made such a mess of homes and some gate posts were dressed in old women clothes. Fire was set to one town ahead of us. A killed horse lying on street had its hams cut out. No saying whether civilians or the enemy wanted meat. In the open, I saw scattered soldiers rallying & expected a defended spot or line – somehow we evaded.
Come late PM a shed vacant we halted but no order to settle. Could have had an hour but -- ! Our officer came & we hoped for a break – He told of officers in charge making plans & making objectives on their maps in coloured crayons. A break & a snort of liquor. Then some new suggestions & a change of objective or tactics till maps were scarcely readable! Then Mr Hislip came in a fury, reprimanding our co-officer . I was ordered to come & the two officers supposed to set a post for our gun. My observation – there was no open place for such. But Mr Hislip had an idea of his own. I was to sort of referee a duel. He was going to eliminate our officer. I was in a spot. Told him we needed every man with our uniform. And if we had more uniforms we should dress some posts so to make out we had more men – to his idea this man was to be eliminated. To get it over with I in no way would see them shoot it out. Warned them I would get the survivor. So we went back and followed Huns – several days of such. No rest.
So we made it through fields, avoiding any possible position. A farmer household came out & stood watching us trail through keeping distance from any spot not clear.
Now came to vicinity of Prouvey against a railway in curve& between between woods each side. Railway ballast about 10 feet high of marble sized gravel. No 1 on Lewis our gun I set it up on track wished for a clod or some tloth gor legs – none. I did send a few shots at unseen guns thought to be hindering advance of our men to the right. We had the foremost left of our forces. Scouting found about three or more hundred yds to our left beyond the screening wood there was a crater blown on a road crossing RR with machine guns waiting. We didn’t show.
After an hour or more looking over the big paddock in front with woods beyond the woods beyond – a German on a horse came from area of their post. We let him come ˝ way between woods either way. Then commanded Halt. Instantly he did & swung to look our way. I thought he would understand & called Advance – & with my chest heaved to call. He swung. Beautiful horse behaviour. My gun was on him as I went to shout, and my finger pulled on the trigger. The legs of the gun gave in the gravel. I let go and the shot hit the rail across the track. Our men expected the MG to do it’s work. Ni one fired till I remonstrated – some fired in general direction. He was gone, a redcap officer. German men trying to go back to town were fired on by rear.
In Prouvey we occupied a big shed that had been a gathering place for wounded before evacuating.
We did stop a day here & had a bath at a civilian special bath place a mile or so (some distance) constructed of cement & with lecicd figures in cement. French – I had been set as focus for regathering & our lads had a chance to look around. One lad brought some and gave me one double size rifle cartridge. I found where an attendant had spilled potato pealings. And had lost a ring amoung them. I still have it. And someone had taken a bunch of German cards & correspondence & deposited them on the framing of the shed behind the door. Years later I sent them to an address in Germany. The addressee said her husband had been killed. So. I think I have one pretty picture card of them still. But most of all my souveneer stuff is at Ottawa Museum of War.
We headed for Valincenes, Marley de Valencienes my last action in battle.
All my dad's side of the family is in the US (my mom is Canadian) - lots of my uncles and cousins have served in the US military and so I thank them for their service every year as well.
Last edited by Minnie; 11-11-2014 at 10:38 AM.
Reason: addendum
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Minnie For This Useful Post:
This was the first year that I didn't go to a remembrance day ceremony. Not because it was too cold for me, but because of tradition. My dad is now 80, my mom is a couple of years younger, and I've always taken my dad to a ceremony. For all the warts of my younger relationship with him, we both enjoy going.
And while my dad is a pretty robust 80, I didn't feel right about taking him out into the cold, so I went over this morning and watched the awesome ceremonial coverage from Ottawa today, and my heart filled with a lot of emotions, pride at the thoughtfulness of teh ceremony, gratitude at the thousands who showed up to salute our aging veterans, and a slight sense of remorse at what could have been.
But it was nice sitting with my dad who keeps telling me that he probably doesn't have long left (Which is a really depressing thought to me because of the years that I've thrown away), had coffee with strong Irish Whiskey and told stories about a lot of things.
We talked about my time in service, I told him funny stories about my life in green. About what it was like for me, and what I think are the adventures that I had. My memory might be slipping but I talked about the guys that I served with, the trouble that we got into, that late night patrol where one of them fell into a latrine hole. About the ambush gone wrong. I talked about the places that I had gone to, and we share a lot of laughs.
He talked about his time in, about how he signed up when he was underaged and tried to follow his older brother over to Korea and was busted in a lie at the boat and given a ticket home. He talked about his life during WW2 when he was just a kid and growing up and saving a dime so that he could go to the threatres to watch the serials with the news reels at the start.
He talked about his father who flew on bombing missions over Germany, and didn't come home in the end, not because he died, but because he found a new life in the UK, and my dad talked about how much he admired his father and hated him at the same time.
He talked about his older brother who served with distinction in Korea and on the last night of the his time there got drunk and struck an officer and came home in typical family fashion in handcuffs.
He talked about his friends that went to Korea and never came home, or came home completely different.
It was nice and as I drove home, I muttered that I hoped that he would be there next year to continue this new tradition, as I'm sure fathers reached out to sons today and grandfathers reached out to grandchildren to talk about the friends gained and lost over seas.
Lest we forget, wars are fought by the young who become the old we hope, and unlike movies, we get a sense of the horror and terror that these men felt, and the loss and the friends and comrades that they still hold close in their hearts.
for all of the veterans out there, all I say and I say it everytime I see one is thank you, thank you for what you did.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to CaptainCrunch For This Useful Post:
Your post really got to me Captain. I was sitting here this morning looking at a photo of my own dad from when he served in the PPCLI. He passed away when I was 16 and this day always reminds me of the good times I had with him. I wish I could still go to the Museum with him. I wish I could still have those conversations with him about his time in the military.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to cDnStealth For This Useful Post:
We’ve been issued gloves, a red T-shirt with “Volunteer” on the back, a commemorative button and safety glasses. We’ve just watched a video in which a jolly Beefeater – or Yeoman Warder, as they’re called, all of whom are war veterans with at least 22 years of service – has carefully instructed us on how to assemble a poppy, a matter of pushing rubber washers and a stopper on a metal stick, then placing a ceramic blossom on top and securing it with a small cap. With a small mallet, each of us in the group of approximately 200 volunteers will then hammer another life into the ground, commemorating the nearly 900,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen, who died in the Great War. That number includes the nearly 66,000 Canadians lost in the one of history’s bloodiest conflicts.
“We didn’t think we’d get enough volunteers, either,” adds Kirsty Baxter, the project manager and a retired British army major. By the time the last poppy is planted in the moat Nov. 11, nearly 20,000 volunteers will have participated, installing the flowers at a rate of nearly 70,000 a week.
Due to popular demand – and the intervention of Prime Minister David Cameron, mayor Boris Johnson and many others – a portion of the poppy installation is staying on past its scheduled end on Nov. 12. The poppies will be plucked from the ground to be washed, packaged and sent to those who bought them. What took four months to install will take two weeks to remove. They were here. And then they’ll be gone. Fleeting. Fragile. Like life itself.
And I realize suddenly that the genius of the commemoration is in the human participation, the work of hands and hearts. In the end, that’s all any of us can do.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to chemgear For This Useful Post:
Captain, I was trying to find out what the role of a gunner was in WWII for the Canadian army, as this was what my grandfather was. Do you know what this role would entail in combat?
Remembrance Day articles and thoughts
