By Ryan O’Dowd: Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
November 11th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
A naval officer said “you will never understand what your attendance means to us,” in the first of Burlington’s two Remembrance Day ceremonies this morning. That lack of understanding seems mutual, as so many in the audience will never understand the magnitude of the service and sacrifice of those honored today, try though we may.
The Colour Guard at Veteran Square
Old and young naval veterans gathered by the Naval Monument at Spencer Smith Park many wore flawless blue dress and white berets. Waves crashed and sprayed across the promenade. Planes soared through the grey morning sky where the faded white ghost of the sun began to reveal itself, the sun rose lazily while soldiers stood in uniform and at attention by the monument.
In the afternoon an Avro Lancaster, World War Two’s biggest British Bomber plane, part of Hamilton’s Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s collection, was set to fly over the region. A crowd gathered in long winter coats on a cold morning in remembrance.
The member of the Teen Tour Band may have been the age of the veteran when he went to war. Today he plays the pipes at the City Hall ceremony earlier today.
“It’s like an old summer day on the Atlantic,” said the naval officer. The audience laughed but it was another thing they couldn’t truly understand.
Wreaths were laid by the foot of the Naval Monument behind which stands a tablet bearing the names of the fallen. The monument is dedicated to the 2024 naval personnel and the 31 warships of the Royal Canadian Navy and the 1466 merchant seamen and 75 ships of the Canadian Merchant Marine who were lost during World War Two. The numbers are almost too big to comprehend, the names of the fallen too many to fathom as individuals, they become abstract.
Burlington MP Karina Gould taking a tot of rum to remember the war experiences of veterans at the Naval Monument on the Naval Promenade.
After the ceremony, the naval veterans gathered for a shot of rum, where they toasted absent friends. They were joined in their drink by a game Minister Karina Gould and Mayor Marianne Meed-Ward.
In the discussions that followed among the navy men some teased and joked with each other, others spoke more somberly. An elderly navy man talked about his family as a military family, his father buried alive in the trenches in northern France, some hundred years ago during the war. The naval veterans plotted to head off to the Halton Naval Veterans Association. Amongst each other they oozed a familial kind of familiarity, maybe it comes from the shared secret, that shared harrowing experience they lived the rest of us can’t understand.
The 11 am ceremony took place at the Cenotaph by City Hall, in the recently unveiled Veteran’s Square. The event was advertised as a virtual one but the city was unable to keep the people away as Brant Street was thronged by crowds listening quietly.
The drone of the bagpipes sounded and the colour guard marched in. The colour guard bore the flags, wore monochromatic blue plaid kilts and dark coats, some adorned with service medals. The sun shone brightly by the late morning and the bronze soldier at attention atop the monument cast a long shadow across Veteran’s Square.
The veteran who led the ceremony became another to try and bridge the gap of understanding. Breaking down the word “remember” into “re” and “member” and asking us to consider it serving to reintroduce the fallen into our membership. Maybe that makes it easier to remember the fallen as an individual, he spoke then of the popularity of wartime poems to the same end, to understanding.
And so he read:
The picture was taken in France by Mayor Marianne Meed Ward when she was representing Burlington at an event.
“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.”
-John McCrae
The veteran leading the 11 am ceremonies came from a military family as well, his grandfather had to be sent home from World War One after lying about his age to join the military, he was 16. So few veterans remain from the World Wars to tell their stories.
Members of the Royal Canadian Navy standing before the Naval Memorial on the Waterfront
Many of us have relatives who served though it grows more distant generation by generation, fewer storytellers, faded memories, the sacrifices abstract and difficult to comprehend, the individuals become statistics or a name among many on a memorial tablet. And so we gather on November 11th, and in the moment of silence when everything else from our noisy lives full of self-importance and mixed up priorities shuts down, even for a moment, maybe we can get close to understanding.
Thank you to all veterans for your service and sacrifice.
I do remember my father and grandfather who served in the Royal Navy. My grandfather used to kid us when we were young by putting a magnet against his head which stuck and then he’d get us to try it–of course, it didn’t. Turned out he had a steel plate in his skull which had been ripped off by a piece of shrapnel at Jutland in World War I–missed his brain (his life saved by a few millimetres).
I also remember Vince Meinzinger who belonged to the naval vets association here in Burlington. He had served in the merchant marine. A true, soft-spoken gentleman he once said to me he was only an “ordinary seaman”. I knew what he meant but I replied, “there are no ordinary seaman in a theatre of war”.
And lastly I remember a meeting with Ted Briggs, only one of three men, to survive the sinking of HMS Hood. I do remember him crying when he recounted his survival due in part to his officer stepping aside and pushing him out–the officer did not survive.
i feel very fortunate to have lived in a time when these men who served in the Royal and Canadian navies were still alive and I could share in some small part their stories–truly, we must never forget their sacrifice.
Dave’s maternal grandfather was killed in the Battle of Jutland perhaps your grandfather and his crossed paths. Both would be pleased that they are never forgotten.
The Royal Navy took a pounding during the Battle of Jutland, losing 14 ships and over 6000 men. The Germans lost fewer men and ships but the Battle was a strategic victory for the British as the Germans never ventured out of port again and the British maintained control of the seas.
Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves was certainly true for World War I, despite the sacrificial toll of the Battle of Jutland. We will remember them!
Rarely do we miss this service. We have a long history of naval vets including a teenage uncle who lied about his age and died at sea. Honouring the sacrifices of millions is behind our ministry that upholds rule of law for all, no matter who or what you are in terms of race, position etc.etc. Every Remembrance Day we renew our vows in this regard. as we remember them.