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HomeMy WebLinkAboutGoderich Signal Star, 2017-04-12, Page 7Wednesday, April 12, 2017 • Signal Star 7 �c�nm�ty t The Vimy Memorial Di The Goderich branch of the Royal Canadian Legion held its first Vimy Memo- rial banquet on April 9, 1958. It was the battle's 41st anniversary and legion president, W. A. Skinner, already feared that the battle's momentous sig- nificance to Canadian history was fast fading from the nation's consciousness. Skinner told his audi- ence of 200 veterans, including 24 who had served in the battle, that "Canada fought its way to nationhood" at Vimy Ridge. Mayor Ernie Fisher raised a toast to the Vimy vets, the youngest of whom were approaching their sen- ior years in 1958. The guest speaker, Blyth's Rev. Bren de Vries, received "a tre- mendous standing ova- tion" for recounting his experiences in the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation of Holland in the Second World War. Vimy veteran, C. F. Chapman, thanked the legion "on behalf of a bunch of old blokes and old soaks:' President Skinner hoped the memorial dinner would become an annual event. From that first dinner, a local legion tradition Huron History David Yates emerged which hon- oured the great and terri- ble days of the Great War. Throughout the years, at each passing dinner, the ranks of the Great War veterans began to thin out. At the 1958 banquet, two Vimy vet- erans had already passed. In the early years, a typical dinner program consisted of the usual toasts to the Queen, fallen comrades and music hall songs of the Great War (usually accompanied by Ed Stiles on the piano) and the usual recounting of the battle. Perhaps the most vivid description of the battle was given by Jack McLaren of Benmiller, the famed artist, Dumbell comedy troupe member and Vimy vet, at the 1966 banquet. McLaren, serv- ing with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, recalled Vimy as "Hell on Earth." McLaren described the Canadian artillery barrage leading up to the assault as "a spectacular display" of firepower. However, by the 1960's, attitudes towards the military had changed. As the Baby Boomers came of age, they were one world war and a police action removed from the Great War. Living under the threat of nuclear annihilation and watching the Viet Nam war on television, many of the '60's genera- tion looked on the Great War's notions of patriot- ism, courage and duty as outdated, if not dangerous. At the 1961 dinner, Rev. Finley Stewart, now felt the need to answer the often asked question "Sacrifice for what?" Stewart called the Baby Boomers "a conviction- . less generation." Yet, the Vimy dinners also reflected changing times. At other 1960's memorial dinners, speakers spoke of armed forces unification, the fate of the Clinton radar station and the need for increased veteran care as the Great War genera- tion aged. The new flag in 1965 further widened the Gen- eration Gap between Great War veterans and their grandchildren. In 1967, Canada's cen- tennial year, at the Vimy dinner still 29 local veter- ans of the Vimy 'blood bath' answered the roll call. Despite the era's n ner,1958 anti -militarism, at the town's July centennial celebrations, the Great War veterans were accorded a hallowed place at the Drumhead service on the Square. By the 1970's, the number of Great War veterans dwindled with each passing year. In 1973, only 12 aged Vimy vets were able to attend the banquet. The next year, the number was reduced by two. In 1978, when Gov- ernor-General Award winning author, John Mellor, spoke on his experience in the 1942 Dieppe Raid, only three Vimy vets were in attendance, although the `Signal -Star' listed another five surviving Vimy vets who could not be present. By that time, the Vimy dinner had become a way to honour all veterans of the Great War. Amazingly, in 1986, six ancient Great War veterans, three of whom were Vimy vets, per- sisted in attending the Vimy memorial.dinner to keep the memory of their passed comrades alive. Yet, time did what bat- tle could not in taking its inevitable toll on the Great War generation. In 1988, Clarence MacDon- ald was the only Vimy veteran present at the 1992 Courtesy of the Vimy Foundation Canada's most impressive WWI tribute, The Vimy Monument, in Northern France. dinner. Another ten were una- ble "to be present due to declining health." The next year, three Great War veterans attended but six of their number had passed since the previous dinner. At the 1991 dinner, for the first time, no Great War veteran was in attendance. In Remem- brance of a passing gen- eration, Legion president, Neil Shaw, dedicated a plaque to "the men of the Vimy Ridge battle from the Goderich area" to be placed in the legion's foyer. The last Vimy Memorial dinner was held on the battle's 75th anniversary in 1992. The Goderich legion's last known Great War veteran, Bert Mun- day, died in 1995 at the age of 97. In unwitting defiance of the Prime Minister's vision of Canada as "the world's first post -national state" lacking "a core identity," nearly 25,000 Canadians, most of them teenagers, embarked on a `pilgrimmage' to Vimy Ridge this April to com- memorate the 100th anniversary of Canada's' nationhood. It was a national pil- grimmage to remember the sacrifices made a century ago and honour a debt to that earlier generation of Canadi- ans that cannot be repaid. The Canadian youth at Vimy this spring caught what John McCrae in "In Flanders Fields" called the `torch' thrown from `failing hands.' The legion's Vimy Memorial dinner kept the flame of remembrance burning bright locally so that the courage of the Great War generation would not be forgotten. 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