Photo of Interest



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Another Photo of Interest




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Vimy Project Completion

How much fun did you have in art class when you were a kid?



In the attachemt is a picture of Izaiah, a grade seven student at Claremont Middle School in Victoria, BC.

Izaiah is one of nineteen students involved in a Vimy Ridge art project for South Vancouver Island Zone.� The project was initiated by Zone Commander Allan Fleury, a grandson of a Vimy Veteran.

To personalize the project, two World War Two veterans from the Victoria Ex-Service Women's Br. 182 have attended each of the weekly classes since the middle of January to give perspective and guidance to the students.

During February, Zone Commander Fleury brought the class closer to World War One than they had ever thought possible.

Arriving with a large cardboard carton and a sense of humour, Fleury selected Izaiah and proceeded to outfit him in pieces of his grandfather's WWI uniform. The kilt is the Cameron HIghlanders of Winnipeg, renumbered the 16th Battalion (City of Winnipeg) when they went overseas in 1914. The sporran, Glengarry, puttees and bayonet are all part of Fleury's grandfather's belongings, passed down to him.� Earlier in the class, Isaiah had worn a WWI helmet while Fleury demonstrated its protective ability with the sheathed bayonet.

Fleury's grandfather was Kenneth MacKenzie-Hicks, a member of the 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg), 6th Brigade, 2nd Division, Canadian Corps at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

This is what we in the Legion call "involvement with Canada's youth"?.

Visiting the Past

Human beings are creatures of history. We live it, we remember it, we teach it, and then we turn it into a popular past time and lucrative financial resource. People spend huge amounts of time, energy and money annually to read about the past, visit museums and when possible, tour the sites of milestones in human history.

I fell in to the “tour” category on March 27th when I boarded my airliner for a sixteen-day battlefield tour in England, France and Belgium that would culminate in my attendance at the rededication of the Vimy Memorial. My first word of advice to you all is “don’t wait”! Time, weather, pollution and human expansion are erasing many of the sites you may wish to visit. Go now before it is too late.

A museum full of artifacts neatly catalogued behind glass is a sorry substitute for walking the same castle walls that William the Conqueror trod or standing at the bottom of a shell crater at Vimy Ridge.

My whirlwind tour took me to first to Heathrow Airport where I hooked up with my seventeen-year-old nephew Morgan. Into London and the next day, a typical tourist double decker bus ride of the big attractions, including the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, the National War Memorial and the Imperial War Museum which is a “must see” for anyone with a desire to immerse themselves in militaria.

There were of course a few stops in London pubs to raise a glass and watch some football as well as picture opportunities in Hyde Park at the Albert Memorial. It is spectacular by the way.

Day three saw us leave London and head south through to Portsmouth, but not before a stop at the first of many Commonwealth Graves Commission (CGC) cemeteries we would visit over the next two weeks. This was Brookwood where there are hundreds of young pilots and aircrew buried that were lost during the Battle of Britain and in Bomber Command. A lot of them Canadian.

Arrival at Portsmouth mid afternoon just in time to join the last tour aboard HMS Victory. Talk about history! Climbing through her decks was stepping back in time to the days of Nelson, Trafalgar, The Nile and Copenhagen. A tall man on board a triple deck ship of the line would be stooping every minute he was below decks. A submariner would feel right at home.

A chill went up my spine as I stood where Nelson had been fatally wounded and a few minutes later I gazed at the spot where he had uttered his final words and died. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for supper and then make the decision to go to bed or stay up until 0300 when our wake up call would be made. The ferry to Caen sailed at 0700, but we had to be at the docks to clear customs by 0500.

The Channel ferry is a large catamaran that can speed across calm seas. For our crossing, the Channel was rough. The ferry slowed down and it pitched a great deal. It was no worse for me than salmon fishing off the Victoria waterfront, but you should have seen the seasick bags appear for the landlubbers.

Our first historic stop in France was the Pegasus Bridge. A strategic water crossing on D Day, its' capture by glider borne commandos rates as the most successful glider operation of the war. The bridge was replaced many years ago, but due to its’ historic value, the original structure was saved and now stands on the bank of the canal in pristine condition next to a D Day museum.

In the next three days, we visited the D Day beaches at Juno and Omaha and the preserved fortifications at Point du Hoc. At Arromanches, we saw the remnants of the famed Mulberry Harbours. We immersed ourselves in history at the museums in Bayeux, Caen and the Juno Memorial. The first Commonwealth Graves Commission (CGC) cemetery was Beny sur Mer. The cemetery is a couple of kilometers inland from Juno Beach on a low ridge that has a commanding view of the area.

Voices hushed and with slow steps, we made our way through row after row of headstones. We had entered a place made sacred by the sacrifice of Canadian lives.

You began to read the headstones one after another. This nineteen year old was in the Regina Rifles. Beside him a thirty-two year old from the RCN. A few markers later, there is a Calgary Highlander, too young to vote, but old enough to fight and die for freedom, thousands of miles from his home.

We went to the Ardenne Abbey where Canadian soldiers had been murdered by their captors. A memorial stands against the wall where they were shot and garden grows over their resting place. More ground sacred to Canada.

Then something different. There are more sights in France than battlefields, bunkers and museums. There are castles. In Falaise, Morgan and I explored the castle where William, Duke of Normandy was born. In Caen, we explored the huge castle called the Chateau du Caen. From this castle, William set out on his campaign in Britain. When he was finished there, he had a new title. He was William the Conqueror. This was an exceptional opportunity that we would not miss.

We went to St Lambert in the Falaise Gap, where Major Currie earned the Victoria Cross and looked at the very houses that are in the photographs of that memorable day. Houses made of well mortared stone tend to stay up a very long time. They also preserve the ravages of war and many walls are pitted by bullet strikes or have repaired areas that hint at larger projectiles and explosions.

We leave Caen and there is a long drive ahead as we move through Honfleur, where Samuel de Champlain set out for the New World and cross one of the biggest Bridges in Europe to skirt Le Harve,

Then, Dieppe. To walk the beaches where so many Canadians died. German bunkers dot the cliffs and as you stand on a steep gravel beach, you could almost hear the rattle of machine guns and the crump of mortars. Morgan and I went at low tide to the waters’ edge, almost twenty feet below the high water mark. There is flat sand at the low tide mark, then the beach changes to a steeply climbing slope of small round gravel. We tried running up it as the men coming off the landing craft would have, but you slow down immediately as your feet slip and slid on the rolling gravel underfoot.

Once again, you imagine the rattle of machine gun fire. The sea wall looms over our heads as we reach the top of the beach and a renewed sense of pride wells up as we contemplated the almost impossible task that our troops had taken on. It was on this beach that the Reverend John W. Foote, Canadian Chaplain Corps won the Victoria Cross.

There were three beaches involved in the Dieppe assault. We saw them all. We visited the memorials to the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the Royal Regiment of Canada. We walked across the bridge at Pourville that stands where Lt. Col Cecil Merritt won the Victoria Cross. We went to the cemetery at Puys (RRC) and in full uniform with Colours unfurled, honoured the fallen as the Last Post and Reveille sounded. There weren’t many dry eyes that morning.

Morgan and I had the opportunity to crawl through a bunker high on the cliff looking down on the beach at Dieppe. The view was sobering. The guns had an unobstructed field of fire of at least120 degrees, including the landing beaches. Their gunfire would have been devastating on the troops landing on the beaches below.

Now they are a shelter for teenage revelries as could be proven by the many broken beer and wine bottles strewn throughout the rooms.

Another long days’ driving as we head north along the coast to Boulogne where we visit the grave of Lt. Col John McCrae. He rests with many of his former patients in a veteran’s section of a local cemetery. There is time to reflect on what his poem, “In Flanders Fields” has meant to so many. Then we are on the move again, stopping only to explore old fortifications of the Atlantic Wall. Concrete bunkers and massive gun emplacements, some of them stand almost three stories tall.

We skirt Dunkirk and are in Belgium to begin our journey into World War One.

First stop, Ieper (Belgian spelling, we have written it as Ypres for decades) and the Menin Gate. I left Morgan at the hotel to collect our luggage so I could visit the Gate privately. It was only a few minutes from our hotel and I couldn’t wait.

If I had thought for even a moment that I would feel little or no emotions at the Gate, I was wrong. I walked under the entrance arch and the sounds of the traffic echoed about me, light streamed from the three circular openings in the vaulted roof above me and reverence overcame me. Some call it a roll of honour when the names of the dead are written. At the Menin Gate, the term “roll of honour” cannot do justice. The names of fifty-four thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six soldiers whose remains were never found are carved in the walls of this memorial.

Battalion after battalion, regiment after regiment, British, New Zealander, Australian, Indian and Canadian, the lost youth of a generation. I was on working my way through the names on the “right side” stairway when I came across the 27th Btn Canadian Scottish. My grandfather’s battalion. I didn’t know a single name there, but I traced them with my hand and tears welled in my eyes.

Three nights we were in Ieper. Three times, we attended the Last Post ceremony. On the second night, we were in uniform with Colours and were honoured to take an official part in the ceremony.

Ieper is a city that almost seems to have been born in World War One. That may be because the entire town was reduced to rubble by bombardment and had to be rebuilt after the war. Like the surrounding countryside, WWI is around every corner. The streets are names out of history; the shops cater to war memorabilia and there are memorials everywhere.

Leave the town and you can hardly drive a kilometer without seeing a military cemetery or a memorial. Paschendale is nearby and the Tyne Cot cemetery. Eleven thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two graves stand mute testimony to the horror of war. The Memorial Walls at the head of the cemetery is inscribed with the names of almost thirty-five thousand more soldiers whose bodies were never recovered.

The St. Julien monument stands a solitary vigil over the fields where Canadians held the line under the first German gas attack. Not far away is the first aid station where John McCrae worked and where he wrote “In Flanders Fields”. Beside it stands another monument to the bravery of Commonwealth soldiers and of course, a cemetery. As always, immaculately maintained by the CGC.

Day fourteen and it’s the day we have all waited for. It is April 9, 2007. The ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. We are on the road at 0800. We have been advised that there will be massive security precautions and resulting delays in getting to the Memorial grounds. We were advised correctly. Roads were cordoned off, four miles from the monument. On the crest of a slight rise was an active surface to air missile unit surrounded by barbed wire and armed soldiers. The Queen, the Prime Ministers of Canada and France, numerous government dignitaries and thousands of people will be at Vimy. No chances are being taken with security.

Luckily, buses were allowed to discharge their occupants within 500 meters of the monument. It was only a minute’s walk once we had exited the bus and we were there.

No amount of research, no viewing of videos and pictures could prepare us for the breathtaking sight of the Vimy Memorial. The sculptures are beautiful; their size alone awes you. Then I gazed up at the pylons. My throat clenched with pride. Vimy!

We were there!

As fresh and clean as the day it was dedicated in 1936, the stones are brilliantly reflective. You almost needed sunglasses to look at the names inscribed on the walls. I would turn away for a moment to look at the incredible view and my vision was obscured by green squares as if I had been blinded by a flashbulb. It would take hours to properly view the entire monument, but we were surrounded my hundreds of people at every turn and could not go down the stairs to the front of the monument due to security cordons.

We took pictures and were interviewed by the both French and Canadian correspondents, then off to the restored tunnels and trenches. That was fun. The restored section of the Grange tunnel that is open to visitors is short and much drier than it would have been in 1917, but it gives you a feeling of what the conditions underground would have been like.

The restored Canadian trenches look across a shell crater that must be fifty feet wide and on the lip of the opposite side are the German trenches look back. At this part of the battlefield, the war must have been very personal. Soldiers would play games with their counterparts across “No Mans Land” and listening posts on both sides could accurately hear conversations from the men in the tunnels and dugouts.

By 1400, we were moving down to the ceremony site at the front of the memorial. Morgan remained with other members of our tour group in the seating area. I formed up with the Colour Party that had come from the Legion Branch in Amsterdam and together we stood for the next four hours. I have the distinction of being the only Legion Colour Bearer from Canada to attend the dedication.

I got a good sunburn as we were facing the sun all afternoon, my feet were killing me and I would have sold my soul for a cold drink, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

We stood, front rank, in front of the right side of the Memorial. No one was between the Memorial and us or to our left, the stage where the ceremony was conducted. When the Royal Party and government officials left, we were the last salute they received.

It was close to 20:00 before we got back to our buses and headed for our new hotel in Amiens. What a day!

Day fifteen. Another big one for walking in history’s footsteps. We visited the Thiepval Memorial in the middle of the Somme battlefields. It is huge, a magnificent monument, but it has none of the beauty of Vimy.

A short drive through curving country roads and we are at Beaumont Hamel. All Canadians know of the sacrifice of the Newfoundland Regiment on this battlefield. The battlefield is unrestored. The trenches and hellholes are grassed now, but nothing false detracts from the landscape. The German trenches can be seen easily from the British lines. The open hillside offers no concealment and the opportunity for slaughter was obvious. Nonetheless, the Newfoundlanders advanced and made their mark in history.

Day sixteen and we are traveling home. I have taken over eight hundred pictures. I do not know how many Morgan took. We have made new friends. Most important, we have traced some our history before it was lost. Every memorial, every cemetery where a Canadian is buried is now and forever Canada. The loss of their lives may have diminished our population, but it increased our Nation.

We Will Remember Them

Allan C. Fleury
grandson of
Kenneth McKenzie Hicks
27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg)
6th Brigade
2nd Division
Canadian Corps

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Dear friends, cross Canada!

In the Netherlands we started the Poppy Campaign, in the Cities Apeldoorn, Lochem and Zandvoort. The RCL Liberation of the Netherlands Branch 005 starts traditional the Campaign with visits at two Primary schools who also are to paticipating in the Remembrance Day Ceremony at Sunday 12 Nov. 11.00 hrs. at the National Canadian Liberation Monument in Apeldoorn.