Sunbathers soak up the intense midday sun. Vacationers flock to the seaside resort town of Courseulles-sur-mer for a
welcome break from their hectic lives in Paris and Caen. A gentle breeze blows in from the English Channel, making tolerable an otherwise unbearably warm day.
June 6, 1944: waves crash on Juno Beach, Normandy. From their heavily fortified positions, the German occupation force stares in disbelief at the thousands of men streaming ashore. They are Canadians. Twenty-four hundred of them in the first wave alone. They have come from Sudbury and Saskatoon,Toronto and Truro, and all points in between to defeat Nazi Germany, liberate France, and bring freedom to the world.
This is D-Day: the beginning of the largest ever sea borne
invasion and the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. The silence of the pre-dawn hours is shattered by the rapid-fire pop of machine gun rounds, the roar of landing crafts, the thunder of aerial bombardments. The air is filled with a cacophony of sound: officers shout orders, soldiers cry out in agony,and innocent tongues speak their last words. The price of freedom is high; on this day alone, three hundred forty Canadians pay the ultimate price at Juno Beach, and another five hundred seventy-four are wounded.
The idyllic former scenario would have appeared far different had it not been for the heroic actions of the Canadian liberators described in the latter.
Today, generations of Canadians finally have the opportunity to learn first-hand about Canada’s significant contribution to the liberation of Europe and specifically, their role in the D-Day invasion, in the newly inaugurated Juno Beach Centre.
On the fifty-ninth anniversary of D-Day, I was privileged enough
to attend the Centre’s Official Opening Ceremony, along with over one thousand veterans and some four thousand other Canadians, including Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Premier Ernie Eves.
Hundreds of French nationals also attended, from residents of Normandy to French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
However, the day rightly belonged to the veterans, most of whom
were bedecked in crisp uniforms emblazoned with hard-earned medals of honour.
Not one lapel was devoid of the omnipresent symbol of remembrance: the poppy.
Most veterans were accompanied by their spouses, children, or grandchildren; all were ultimately alone with their memories.
My pilgrimage to the beaches of Normandy was driven both by my
passion for Canadian history and by my personal connection to the conflict.
Both of my grandfathers fought overseas in the Second World War.
My mother’s father, Lieutenant-Colonel Antonin Sterba served in Europe and the Middle East in the Royal Engineer Corps. In a division of the Czech army fighting for the Allies, my grandfather served with distinction as an aide-de-camp to General A. B. Hasal, and as a military attaché to Czech President-in-exile Eduard Benes.
On my father’s side, Seaman Edward Rouse served in the Canadian
Navy aboard H.M.C.S. Athabaskan, which was torpedoed and sunk several kilometres off the coast of Brittany, France.
One hundred twenty-eight of his shipmates perished, but my grandfather, along with many others, was rescued from the icy
waters by a German ship. He was held prisoner for almost a year in Marlag Milag, a P.O.W. camp in northwestern Germany. He returned to Canada only to learn that his younger brother, Harry, had been killed in action in Normandy.
On the morning of the D-Day anniversary, I stood before the grave
of my great uncle, Private Harry Esmond Rouse of Tillsonburg, Ontario, aged nineteen years. He took part in the landing at Juno Beach and was killed a month later.
I paid silent tribute to a man who I never had the privilege of
meeting, but to whom I — and indeed, all Canadians — owe an enormous debt of gratitude. He lies now in Beny-sur-mer Canadian War Cemetery, forever a young man, for the dead never age.
Tragically, Harry’s story is all too common of the Second World War.
Forty-three thousand Canadians gave their lives fighting tyranny; 2047 of them lie with Harry in immaculately kept graves marked with simple white tombstones at Beny-sur-mer.
Their memories live on not only in the hearts of family members
left behind, but also in the gratitude of everyday French citizens whose lives were forever changed by the arrival of their Canadian “liberateurs.”
A Bayeux man excitedly approached members of our group, having
noticed our Canadian flag lapel pins. He began speaking animatedly in French, his story simple and moving: the invading German army had taken his father prisoner and destroyed their home. Four years later, his father was freed upon
the arrival of the Canadians.
His father went on to have two children: he and
his sister, both of whom attend D-Day ceremonies each year to pay
homage to their Canadian heroes.
He thanked us all, saying emphatically, “Vive le Canada!
Vive la France!” Never before had the personal impact of Canada’s contribution to the liberation of Europe been so apparent to me.
It is for this reason, among many others, that the Juno Beach Centre
is such an important national institution.
In the words of Prime Minister Chrétien, “the world needed a memorial so that the memory and the story of Canada’s military and civilian contributions and efforts during the Second World War would never be forgotten.”
The interactive museum, conceived and sponsored in large part by
veterans’ groups, will teach people from around the world about pre-war Canada, the D-Day landing, and the war effort both at home and abroad. There is also an exhibit dedicated to contemporary life in Canada.
At the end of their visit to the Centre, people will be able to take
in a dramatic view of the invasion beach. It is here that history was forever altered; here, that hundreds of Canadians laid down their lives for freedom; here, that Canada indelibly put its stamp on the world. Lest we forget.
For more information about the Juno Beach Centre and Canada’s war effort, please visit www.junobeach.org.
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