Veteran to be honoured via Zoom
Lt.-gov. Mitchell, Calgary veteran say VE-DAY event offers lessons on heroism
EDMONTON On July 6, 1944 — one month after D-day on June 6 — Calgary Highlanders’ Pte. George Morasch, now 97, landed on a Normandy Beach during the Allies’ Second World War invasion of mainland Europe.
“We immediately dug trenches for cover,” says the former Bren light machine gun operator. “We were under fire from German planes obviously out to get us.”
Allied aircraft engaged the German fighters and during a break in the action, Morasch went for a walk and spotted “a beautiful purple glove” on the beach.
“I thought it would make a wonderful souvenir,” Morasch says from his Calgary home. “I picked the ‘glove’ up, turned it over and saw fingernails. It was a man’s hand just shaped like a glove.”
Later that day, he was shocked when he ventured into a damaged church and found uniformed German soldiers hanging dead from the rafters.
“We were told they were spies,” he says.
It wasn’t until Morasch revisited the sites of his wartime experiences with his wife Fern on their 25th wedding anniversary that he began to speak of his trials.
The former soldier is still as mentally sharp as a bayonet.
He will be a guest of Alberta Lt.-gov. Lois Mitchell Friday at a slightly belated event to recognize the 75th anniversary of VE-DAY, which marked the Allies’ victory in Europe on May 8, 1945.
COVID -19 necessitates that the event take place as a virtual gathering on Zoom.
Mitchell has made the history of Alberta’s armed forces a focus of her tenure. To be announced at the commemoration are the winners of an Alberta-wide high school and cadet video competition telling a “Spirit of Victory” story.
Morasch says his Highlanders were charged with taking Hill 67 near Caen, some 14 kilometres from the French coast and a vital road and rail junction if the Germans were to send reinforcements. The hill had changed hands several times.
“We were shelled as we marched through Caen and then we were told to charge Hill 67 and hold it at all cost,” says Morasch. “Under heavy fire, we struggled up the hill through a grain field. I felt very, very fortunate not to be hit.
“We dug in quickly at the top and again we were heavily shelled.
There seemed to be far fewer Calgary Highlanders. I thought some men must have been either killed or injured in the grain field.”
He sheltered in a trench that another Bren gunner had invited him to share. When they emerged, they found the spot Morasch had planned to occupy had become a crater.
Injured and with their ambulance “blown sky high” in the fighting, Morasch was taken down to a British field hospital by army jeep.
A count revealed one officer, a corporal and 11 men were the only survivors of his D Company.
Later, Morasch was detailed to office duties and moved with the Canadian Army up through France and Belgium, and into Holland.
“The Dutch begged me to come out to celebrate with them when they celebrated the end of the war May 7, 1945,” says Morasch. “I couldn’t go. My tears were flowing for my buddies I’d left back in Normandy.”
Taking part in the VE-DAY commemoration with Morasch will be Maj.-gen. Peter Dawe, Commander of Canadian Forces Special Operations Command, and Brig.- Gen. Stephen Lacroix, Commander of 3rd Canadian Division and Joint Task Forces (West).
Emceeing the event will be Global News Edmonton anchor Gord Steinke, Hon. Lt.-col. with 15 Field Ambulance since 2011.
The awards are part of Mitchell’s
History and Heroes Foundation, chaired by former University of Alberta chancellor Ralph Young.
The program is born of the lieutenant-governor’s realization that understanding Alberta’s past and its place in Canadian history receives relatively low interest among Alberta’s student population.
The Spirit of Victory contest asks Alberta students in Grades 10-12 and cadets to develop and deliver a five-minute speech by video that honours the importance of VE-DAY in our history.
“The goal of this contest is to build an awareness of, and appreciation for, the experience of the Second World War and what it means for Albertans today,” Mitchell says.
“The idea is to help teach students to understand the freedoms we are so fortunate to have in this country are owed to the brave Canadian heroes who fought for them.”
Speech suggestions included such topics as the sharing of a story of a hometown hero or an Alberta regiment that fought to liberate Europe.
Excerpts of entries include:
1.) From a Grade 11 student in Leduc: “I discuss an Alberta man named Charles Tomkins and a group called the Cree Code Talkers. Indigenous history is so frequently glossed over,” and,
2.) From a Grade 10 student in Edmonton: “I decided to tell the story of the Alaska Highway. I had never heard of it before.”
Said Morasch: “We must make sure our young people know how horrible war is. We can never forget the sacrifices of another generation for the freedoms we enjoy today.”