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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1994-06-01, Page 7From the June 8, 1944 Times -Advocate The long-awaited "D" day when the Allies invaded Europe was heralded in Exeter early Tuesday morning with the ringing of the town bell and the Trivitt church chimes. It was the topic of conversation throughout the day and radio messages were followed closely. In the evening a public service for prayer was held in the Trivitt Memorial Church and the auditorium was filled. The service was conducted by Rev. Mr. Hunt, Rev. Mr. Mair led in prayer of confession. Rev. Mr. Irwin read the scripture lesson, Rev. Mr. Woods led in prayer. Prayer of intercession followed by a season of quiet prayer. Favourite old hymns interspersed the prayers. The concluding prayer was offered by Mr.. Hunt. It was a solemn and impressive service. • By Adrian Harte - T -A Editor The sixth of June, 1944 will always he known as D -Day. Although historians can point to various victories in the allies World War 11 cam- paigns as being "turning points" in the war - specific bombing raids, the destruction of the Luftwaffe, control of shipping lanes, or others - for most people weary of five years of shortages, rationing, hardship. loss of loved ones, D -Day was a sign that the end was near. Indeed, the establishment of a foothold on the Normandy coast sig- nalled the beginning of a land hattle with one main objective in sight - the eventual capture of Berlin. It would take another 11 months before the last of Hitler's forces surrendered on May 8, 1945, hut D -Day was the beginning of that end. a sign that life could once again return to normal The fiftieth anniversary of D -Day will be celebrated this coming Monday. Those who can remember might recollect the excitement of hearing radio reports about the allied invasion. Others will be re- membering something quite different. There were 15,000 Canadians involved in the attempt to take hack Europe, and they will be recalling their part in the hattle. and remembering those who aren't around 50 years later. Still other veterans who were serving on other fronts, in other strug- gles. will be remembering D -Day as that moment when they felt less alone in the war. day. Part of invasion force Lee Jory of Exeter arrived on the beach at Normandy on D -Day plus six. A trooper with the First Hussars. Jory said the coastline didn't look as had as he expected after six days of hattle. "Most of the buildings were still standing. some had shell holes in them," said Jory, adding that even though the allies had a firm hold on the beach.hy then, troops still had to he wary of German snipers lurk- ing in high buildings. Jory, as a mechanic for the regiment, was responsible for keeping the armour, vehicles and tanks rolling. Part of his secret training for the D- Day invasion included working with top-secret "dual drive" tanks. "Those tanks were the best kept secret of the war," said Jory. "In fact there's a lot today who don't know much about them." Those tanks were surrounded by rubberized canvas "skirts", which when pressurized enabled the tank to float. Dropped off some two miles from shore, they looked like rubber boats to the German de- fenses. Even if they were a hard target to hit, the four -foot waves of the English Channel swamped their share of the tanks. "A lot of them went down," said Jory. Jory had spent months training in England, the last six weeks in ut- most secrecy. Even he didn't know where he was - local road signs had been painted over. Had the Germans learned the loca- tion of the invasion forces, they might have realized Nor- mandy was the target. In- vasion was inevitable, and Jory knew he would be going to France. "We didn't know when, not until the day before," he said. The news of the D -Day in- vasion was met with anxious excitement by the First Hus- sars, said Jory. "It made you feel you want- ed to be there, with the rest of them," he said. His training meant he had been living out of tents and backs of trucks for months, and it wasn't until Christmas The HMCS Algonquin, one of the many ships that took part in A front -row view 1 John Gunness of Huron Park had a front -row view of D -Day. A sig- nalman on the bridge of the destroyer HMCS Algonquin he said he could see the sky black with aircraft, and the channel so full of boats you could just about walk from England to France "without getting wet". "It was the largest amphibious invasion...ever," said Gunness, who said he spent the days before D -Day on patrols in the channel. At dusk on June 5, the Algonquin met up with the rest of the invasion force south of Portsmouth to escort the Canadian army to Normandy. When the morning mist cleared, Gunness said the Germans must have been shocked to see the huge force heading their way on the high tide. The Algonquin used its 4.7 -inch guns to bombard emplacements on the coast mainly for the Royal 22nd regiment from Montreal, who were credited with pressing the furthest inland on the first day of the invasion. "It was quite a sight...towards evening. we had to pull some bodies out of the sea." he said. As the Algonquin was the closest ship to shore with a doctor on board it also tended to a landing craft filled with Royal Marines that took a direct hit from a mortar bomb. A couple of ❑uorliugs after D -Day, the Algonquin was on patrol with the HMCS Swift when it was destroyed and sunk only yards away. "She had mine blow up underneath her." said Gunness, adding that the Algonquin considered itself lucky to have avoided disaster, even when a German plane tried to dive-bomb the destroyer. "When things settled down and the beachhead was really secure, we went hack to England and picked up General Curar, his staff and took them over," said Gunness. Curar was the commander of the Canadian invasion force. "1 was 20 years old," he added, pc inling out that while growing up Strathroy "It was a journey to go into London". The world got a lot bigger when he signed up for the Navy. "Then you're in London, Eng- land, Glasgow, Edin- burgh....Montrcal. Halifax," he added. And even though he was within sight of the French coast, Gun- ness never set foot there, and has never visited France in later . years. "We never went ashore," he said. "That wasn't our job." Gunness and his four brothers all returned safely from the war. He got his discharge in 1946 after having escorted Russian convoys and keeping the German battle- ship Tirpitz bottled up in a Nor wegian fjord after D -Day. - That morning at Normandy, however, will always he for him the focal point of the war. "I myself would say it was the turning point. Without it. the war would have gone on a lot longer," said Gunness. The allied invasion of France opened up a new front for the Ger- mans, forcing them to divert resources from their Russian front, and from Africa and Italy - and began to result in defeats. Gunness attended a reunion in 1993 and met four crewmates. He will attend another in Niagara this year, and has been invited to To- ronto by MPP Paul Klopp for D -Day anniversary celebrations on Mon - in Lee Jory the 0 -Day invasion. . Eve, 1994 that he finally slept indoors, in a house in Holland. "I never slept in a house for 13 months," said Jory, whose campaign took him through France and Belgium to Holland, usually about three miles behind the front line fighting. "A lot of the sordid details 1 don't know much about," he said. "No- body knew who was going to win. They were tough, I'II tell you." Along the way were the abandoned vehicles and armour of the re- treating German forces. Jory said those tanks would have been for- midable weapons. if only they had fuel. "if Germany had had the fuel, they'd have beat us," he insists. Still, he saw evidence that the German forces were just as weary of war as they. "Once you got away from the SS troops. the rest of them weren't fighters, they were farmers, labourers. They just wanted to get home to their families," said Jory, adding that he once witnessed 1,000 Ger- man prisoners being led by a single tank. Jory's war was over quickly after the fighting. He was home in Exet- er by June 29, 1945. He was given a promotion to lance corporal as he got into thc truck heading for home "to help with the pension", he was told. On the Italian front D -Day for Bill MacLean of Exeter was quite a bit different. He and the hrst Special Service Force parachute battalion had just invaded Rome on Europe's other front. "We landed in Rome on the night of June the fourth," said MacLean. "We were the first troops into Rome. the first." Two days later, jubilant Italian citizens were waving newspapers which confirmed the invasion of Normandy. "They thought the war was just about over," said MacLean. "Geez, it was just about a year later." Beating the Axis forces out of Rome was only the finale to a long campaign in southern Italy. MacLean and the joint U.S./Canadian Special Forces landed on the Anzio beachhead on January 27, 1944, and spent thc next 99 days hiding in foxholes. "We were shelled night and day," said MacLean. By May 24 the forces broke out and continued north, pushing the German forces hack. all the way to the Tiber River bridge. "That was my experience of D - Day, that we'd had a D -Night," he said, but added the news of the Normandy invasion meant he and his compatriots were no longer alone in Europe. "11 was quite a thing for us to know we had help," he said. After Rome, MacLean took part in the capture of the Isle of Levant and several cities on the French Riviera, the first troops into south- ern France. Although hit by shrapnel in Ita- ly, MacLean avoided serious in- jury until he was hack in England for training. He broke his arm while playing sports and was sent back to Canada just before the war ended. MacLean has a box of memorabilia from his war days. now 50 years old. Back from being on display in the Goderich Museum are his • 1943 -issue parachute jump boots. He jokes that some American col- lectors are prepared to pay up to $500 for a good pair. He says he might even sell them. After all, he has his own memories. Page 7 Times -Advocate, June 1, 1994 e Sacrifices made by Canadians have changed the history of the world Bill MacLean Fifty years ago, Canadian Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the long drive to free Europe. Thanks to those brave Canadians who fought to preserve Canada and the freedom of her people. 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