It happened on a night in May of 1944. Fred Davies remembered the cannon shell from an enemy fighter aircraft flying past his face. It ripped into the engine of his bomber. “The engine and wing… blew up,” he remembered, “(creating) an immediate ball of constant flame about 20 feet or higher.”
As the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Onley is annually presented with the first poppy of the Ontario Poppy Campaign. Bruce Julian, vice president of the Ontario provincial command of the Royal Canadian Legion, presented Onley with the poppy on Oct. 23 at Queen’s Park.
Margaret Haliburton is proud of the contribution of Canadian women during the Second World War. However, joining the navy, she admits, was not her idea. “My mother told me to,” she said.
Isabella Meltz recently started lighting a yarhzeit candle every year for her uncle. In the Jewish tradition, the candle signifies remembrance on the anniversary of someone’s death. An unexpected encounter with a curious journalist provided Meltz the opportunity to revisit her uncle’s memory and preserve the few details of his death as a Canadian soldier during the Second World War.
Darleen Aguiar recalled an incident a few years ago. Her boss came into her office carrying a small container of shoe polish. He couldn’t open it and asked for help. Aguiar managed to get it open, but she cried the whole time. The smell, she said, reminded her or her father who kept his boots and shoes shining at all times.
Nearly 66 years after he was liberated at the end of the Second World War, Albert Wallace can still remember the night of the Great Escape. “I didn’t sleep that night, waiting to see what was going to happen,” he said.
In April 2007, eight Canadian soldiers, shouldering a wooden casket, marched across Kandahar Airfield. Five more caskets followed. As the plane, carrying the bodies of their fallen comrades, departed Afghanistan, pallbearer Mike Lassaline, 27, noted a single tear streaking down a friend’s cheek.
Jack Fortnum never forgets to honour Canadian veterans at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month each year. He commemorates Remembrance Day and knows about the sacrifices that Canadians made for…
The coming of Remembrance Day sparked some controversy in Toronto’s Chinese community this year. For the fifth year, the Jubilee Centre for Christian Social Action (JCCSA) held the “Salute Canada” ceremony to observe Nov. 11…
Whenever sisters Malale Maiwand and Bashera Mohammed gaze at the stars, they remember their beloved sister, Sitara Achakzai. Sitara is the Pashto word for star. “We are immensely proud of our youngest sister,” Maiwand said…