The 90th anniversary of Canada's victory at Vimy Ridge in World War I was celebrated last week. Attending the commemeration were Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Queen Elizabeth II of of Britain, along with thousands of young, flag-waving Canadian teens whose nation is locked in a bitter struggle in Afghanistan. The mood, therefore, was bittersweet at the site of one of Canada's most famous military victories when the news became known that six Canadian soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in the Taliban controlled country. They were:
- Pte. Kevin Vincent Kennedy, 20
- Sgt. Donald Lucas, 31
- Cpl. Brent Poland, 37
- Cpl. Christopher Paul Stannix, 24
- Cpl. Aaron E. Williams, 23
- Pte. David Greenslade, 20
Their bodies were returned home this week , and were hailed as heroes just as their First World War predecessors had been on a French battlefield almost a century ago. When the Canadian Corps captured Vimy in April, 1917 after three days of intense combat it was regarded as a stunning tactical breakthrough. Previous attempts by the British and the French to take the ridge were unsuccessful, but careful planning and a force of thousands had finally toppled the German resistance. Word of the victory had sent shockwaves of pride throughout the population back in Canada.
The price was dear. More than 3,000 soldiers were killed and thousands more wounded. Canadian high school students who visited the 90 year old battlefield this week were given the identities of the 3,598 soldiers who died, and every one of these students had written a tribute such as a poem or a letter to his/her soldier. During the Great War Canadians had distinguished themselves in several campaigns throughout Belgium and France, notably Passchendaele, Lens and Ypres. But it was the battle at Vimy that gave Canadian soldiers a reputation for being formidable warriors and cemented Canada's status as an independent nation. The role of Canada's armed forces in both world wars with radio/audio clips can be found in detail at www.archives.cbc.ca.
A memorial was built to honour the sacrifices of the Canadian Corps at Vimy and was formally unveiled on July 26, 1936. Thousands of Canadian and French veterans had attended the event. Charles Reaper, the last surviving Canadian infantryman who saw action at Vimy died in 2003, and the very last veteran to see combat in the First World War, Clarence Laking from Campbellville, Ontario, passed away in 2005 at the age of 106.
There are only two remaining Canadian veterans from the Great War left, and neither of them were sent to the front lines. They are:
- Dwight Wilson, born on February 26, 1901.**
- John Babcock, born on July 23, 1900 and who now lives in Spokane, Washington.
Once these brave men are gone, there will be nobody left to tell stories about what it was really like in the trenches of Europe from 1914-1918. The numbers of French, American and British veterans of the Great War are also very small. There are 11,285 names inscribed on the Vimy memorial, and unlike their deceased comrades in Afghanistan their bodies have never been recovered. On November 11, 1918 a ceasefire was declared which silenced the gunfire of the First World War. And so, each year on the eleventh day of November, soldiers from the past and the present will be remembered by all Canadians.
**Dwight Wilson died on May 9, 2007, at his residence in the veteran's wing of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He was 106.
