I REMEMBER

[mercman]

Douglas Robert White Master Warrant Office

191st RCEME Workshop, Korea, Feb 1952-April 1953

 

Ralph C. Laughran Cpl. WWII Somewhere in France

 

Lest we should ever forget.

[mike rousseau]

Lloyd Rousseau WWII navy

[vance]

Earle Wilfred Marin Master Warrant Officer R.C.E.M.E.

 

September 5 1939 to June 5 1969

[lew]

My grandfather who fought in the trenches of France in WW1 with the British Army, was wounded by shrapnel in one battle and was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in another battle.

 

My Dad who spent 5 years in the Navy in WW2 keeping the convoys safe from the German U-boats while crossing the Atlantic.

 

Dads brother who spent 5 years in the Army during WW2

 

My Moms brother who was a bomber pilot in WW2 and was killed when his plane went down along with his entire crew.

 

Another uncle in the British Army in WW2 who was captured by the Japanese in Burma and for the next 2 years was starved, beaten with chains and gun butts and tortured on a regular basis.

 

He weighed 220 lbs when captured and 100 pounds at wars end.

 

Plus 1/2 a dozen other uncles who fought in the Canadian Army.

 

Their all gone now, but I'm very proud of what the men of my family have done to help make Canada the free and safe country that it is.

 

I'll be at the Memorial Service in Peterboro this morning saying thanks to all those that did their part.

 

Edited November 11, 2011 by lew

[BITEME]

Thomas Godfrey Fairweather

Regimental Sargent Major

Royal Yorkshire Regiment

WW1 WW2

[bigugli]

My Uncle Bob, An old sweat in the Great war.

A bombardier with a horse artillery battery, thrown into the gap left by the zouaves during the first gas attack at Wipers. He got a gong for his efforts, but rarely talked of it.

My Uncle Matti, killed at the age of 16 during the Talvisota against the Russians.

My father in law, Alf Conley, a surgeon with the RCMC, attached to the GGFG through the liberation of Europe.

Uncle Harry, a CPO, lifer with the RCN. Carrier service from beginning to end.

The cadets at Valcartier, 1974. I knew some of the survivors, and they were never the same again.

My cousin Eric, a lifer PO recently retired from the RCN. Spent 3 years bouncing around the Serbian countryside setting up Canadian outposts

 

I cannot name the thousands I have known, and respect, who have served their country unselfishly through both World Wars, Korea, peacekeeping and in peace. Time and space will not allow. All too many with a scar that never truly heals. Each one a hero in his own right.

Edited November 11, 2011 by bigugli

[fishing n autograph]

Pvt Harry Strome

Royal Canadian Field Ambulance

Grandpa served in the entire Italy Campaign, was shot through the calf and had his appendix rupture at the same time.

 

Ralph Wettlauffer

Royal Canadian air force - dispatcher.

He served 5 years with the rcaf in India. He was 100km from the Japanese and didn't see any action.

 

I have also looked into my family tree. I had 10 cousins who served in WW1. On was killed in France by artillery fire.

[mercman]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields!

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields

 

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915

during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

 

On May 2, 1915, John McCrae’s close friend and former student Alexis Helmer was killed by a German shell. That evening, in the absence of a Chaplain, John McCrae recited from memory a few passages from the Church of England’s “Order of the Burial of the Dead”. For security reasons Helmer’s burial in Essex Farm Cemetery was performed in complete darkness.

The next day, May 3, 1915, Sergeant-Major Cyril Allinson was delivering mail. McCrae was sitting at the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the YserCanal, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, Belgium.

 

 

As John McCrae was writing his In Flanders Fields poem, Allinson silently watched and later recalled, “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

 

Within moments, John McCrae had completed the “In Flanders Fields” poem and when he was done, without a word, McCrae took his mail and handed the poem to Allinson.

 

Allinson was deeply moved:

 

“The (Flanders Fields) poem was an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

 

 

[fishing n autograph]

Mcrae was a local boy. He was born and raised in Guelph