The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - We Remember

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

A different year, a different method, but we still remember.

and good morning Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily it is the 11th of November and on this day as on every 11th of November, and on this day, as on every 11th of November, we remember those who have served for Canada, the men and women who have served in the Armed Forces, the men and women who have sacrificed everything for their country. And for those who have served, been wounded, been scarred in other ways by the events of conflict and war in different parts of the world, we remember them all.

And we remember their sacrifice and their service. On this day, if you were traveling along Highway 401 in southern Ontario, the main highway kind of threads through parts of Ontario and Quebec. There's a stretch between Trenton, Ontario and Toronto that's called the Highway of Heroes. And it's called the Highway of Heroes because when our servicemen and servicewomen returned from Afghanistan,

those who had sacrificed everything, their bodies were taken from Trenton along Highway 401 to Toronto. And then that's why it became known as the Highway of Heroes, and that's why many Canadians lined the Highway of Heroes, especially on the bridges, the overpasses over the highway. During that period when we brought so many, too many, Canadians home from Afghanistan in coffins. Now there are other stretches of the

highways in Canada that are called the Highway of Heroes for the same reason. In different provinces, in different parts of Ontario. There's one just south of Ottawa. Today, if you were traveling along the stretch on the 401 and looked up, you may have seen three Hercules aircraft from the Canadian forces

that were flying in formation along that stretch of highway. And they were doing it in tribute to all Canadians who served in all conflicts. Along that stretch of highway. And they were doing it in tribute. To all Canadians who served in all conflicts. And peacekeeping missions. Over the years. And the Hercules aircraft in many cases. Were the same aircraft that brought. many cases, not all cases, but in

many cases brought those bodies home. So we think of that image today because the normal images we have on this day don't exist. Because of COVID-19, many of the Remembrance Day ceremonies will not look at all like they've looked in the past. Few, if any, veterans taking part. Many are quite old now, and this is not the time for them to be out. Parades, not happening the way they normally do.

I live in rural Ontario, driving into Toronto today, so I've got some things I have to do there. But I'll pass through towns and villages along the way. Where 11 a.m. has been an important signature mark on their November 11th because they gather around the memorials of cenotaphs

that have been constructed over the decades to honor those who have fallen from their community in conflict around the world. And as we often point out, it's important to remember that those cenotaphs which have been updated with new conflicts, you know, most of them were built after the First World War,

and it was the Second World War was added to it, and then Korea, and then Bosnia, and Afghanistan, and Iraq, where we served in the last few years, in Mosul and in other places in northern Iraq. Now, the important thing to remember about those cenotaphs in villages and cities big and small across the country that were built after the First World War, the important thing to remember is they were built with the contributions of the public at large. This was not a government operation. This was the people.

This was us, the us of our time, of their time, that banded together, contributed money to build a monument in their town. And that's why we still gather around those monuments. On this day. You know, nearly a hundred years later. But today will be different. If you follow my Twitter feed, you'll see what I've done in terms of Remembrance Day this year. I helped my pal, the great Canadian tenor, John McDermott,

who's put out a special Remembrance Day broadcast online. I think you can track it down by going to the Shopify website. But there's a short promo for it on my Twitter feed, and that's how I contributed. John, who has been a dedicated Canadian in terms of helping various veterans groups across the country, wanted to put something together this year

as part of our attempt to remember in a different way this year than we have in past years. Now, I'm going to tell you a little story here. I mean, as you know, if you've followed my podcast for the last year, you know at different times I've told you things about Vimy Ridge and going in the tunnels there and being so incredibly moved by what I saw written on the wall 100 years ago by many different members of the Canadian troops who were over there.

They wrote their name and their service number and drew pictures from where they were from Canada. You know, a fellow drew a fish from Nova Scotia and a moose from Ontario, and a sculpture, quite a haunting sculpture, actually, from a chap from Vancouver Island. And how I felt so Canadian as a part of being in those tunnels. Here I was in northern France, the other side of the world,

and yet I don't think I've ever felt quite as Canadian as I did in those moments that I spent a couple of hours down in a tunnel that had not had cameras in it before. It was the first time. It had only been discovered fairly recently, and it was still in the same shape it had been when they closed it up a century ago. There were still guns and grenades on the ground. It kind of had to crawl carefully around. Anyway, you've heard me tell that story. I'm not sure if I told you my Dieppe story.

Dieppe, of course, August 1942, disastrous raid by Canadian troops who tried to land and take, even if just for a little while, the French harbor town of Dieppe. We lost a lot of men that day. And we lost a lot of men that day. And we lost a lot of others who ended up in German prisoner of war camps for the rest of the war.

But in the early 80s, and I lived in an apartment in downtown Toronto, the people above me, we actually, there's three of us, three separate apartments in one house. And the people on the second floor were a husband and wife, and the husband had served in the forces in the Second World War and had been in Dieppe. And it had been a bloodbath. He survived but was captured and spent the rest of the war, as I said, in a prisoner of war camp.

But I always smiled when I thought of one particular story that he told me. He landed at the beach, I think it was at Puy, P-U-Y-S, which was just at the beach, I think it was at Puy, P-U-Y-S, which was just at the edge of Dieppe. And he was a young officer, so he led his troops out of the assault boats and all he could hear was gunfire around him. When he turned around, there were very few people still behind him. And when he climbed the kind of short, low cliff at the edge of the beach, it wasn't long before they were captured. Now, he went back

I think it was the 40th anniversary he went back to Puy and he went to the very same spot on the beach where he'd come out of the landing craft and ran up the beach. So it was 1982 and he got to the edge of the water and he walked up the beach and it was a

very different site because there in front of him where he'd been walking in 1942 here it was 1982 and there was a young French woman, topless, sunbathing. And he looked at her and he said, man, it sure wasn't like this the last time I came here. I'll always remember that story. And the difficult stories he told me, but also that one. All right, I'm going to, in memory of today, I'm going to read you one story.

I'm going to tell you one story. It's about a Canadian soldier by the name of George Lawrence Price, born in Falmouth, Nova Scotia. In 1892. So in November of 1918, the 2nd Division 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade was selected to make an attack in Belgium. From the 6th Brigade, the 28th Northwest Battalion and the 31st Battalion of the Alberta Regiment were chosen to lead the attack. The 28th Battalion had orders for November 11th to advance from Framiere, south of Mons, and continue to the village of Arves, securing all the bridges

on the Canal du Centre. The battalion advanced rapidly at 4 a.m., pushing back light German resistance, and they reached their position along the canal facing Ville-sur-Ain by 9 a.m., where the battalion received a message that all hostilities would cease at 11 a.m., the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Price and his fellow soldier, Art Goodmurphy, were worried that the battalion's position on the open canal bank was exposed to German positions on the opposite side of the canal where they could see bricks had been knocked out from house dormers to create firing positions.

According to Goodmurphy, they decided on their own initiative to take a patrol of five men across the bridge to search the houses. Reaching the houses and checking them one by one, they discovered German soldiers mounting machine guns along a brick wall overlooking the canal. The Germans opened fire on the patrol with heavy machine gun fire,

but the Canadians were protected by the brick walls of one of the houses. Aware that they had been discovered and outflanked, the Germans began to retreat. A Belgian family in one of the houses warned the Canadians to be careful as they followed the retreating Germans. George Price was fatally shot in the left breast by a German sniper as he stepped out of the house onto the street. He was pulled into one of the houses and treated by a young Belgian nurse who ran across the street to help. But George Price died a minute later, at 10.58 a.m., November 11, 1918. His death was just two minutes, two minutes,

120 seconds before the armistice came into effect at 11 a.m. And with that, George Lawrence Price, born December 15, 1892, in Falmouth, Nova Scotia, at 25 years of age, became the last Canadian to be killed in the First World War. So, we remember George Price, and we remember the tens of thousands of other Canadians who've given everything in sacrifice for their country in the more than 100 years since. And when those Hercules aircraft were flying overhead Highway 401 today, along the Highway of Heroes, they too were marking the sacrifices by all Canadians who have served in all conflicts, in all wars, in all years since that day and those days in the First World War. All right, a short Bridge Daily today,

but one where I encourage you to remember in any fashion you can. This is a different year. We're not remembering the same way we normally do, but we will remember because we should remember, because we can remember. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been the Bridge Daily. Thanks for listening.

We'll talk again in 24 hours. Thank you.