Backyard History
Whether you travel around the world or stay close to home, you can learn about the Second World War and the people who served in many different ways.
CANADA'S WAR STORIES
There’s no better place to learn about the Second World War than the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. This year the museum has special exhibitions marking 75 years since the war’s end, including ones about Michiko Ishii and Doug Sam, featured in this issue.
COURAGE AND JOY
This statue in Wolfville, N.S., celebrates the amazing life of Mona Parsons. She and her husband were living in the Netherlands, where they sheltered Allied air crews who had been shot down. The Nazis found out and arrested her. First they were going to put her to death, but she was sentenced to a brutal work camp instead. She escaped at the end of the war and, as luck would have it, the first soldiers she ran into were Canadians from her home town in Wolfville. The statue, which was unveiled in 2017, is called “The joy is almost too much to bear” — a line from a letter she wrote to her father after the Netherlands was freed.
CHINESE VETERANS
The Chinese Canadian Military Museum in Vancouver honours and celebrates the contributions of Chinese Canadians in both world wars. You can also read many of their stories on the museum’s website.
IN THE AIR
At the Bomber Command Museum of Canada near Nanton, Alta., south of Calgary, you can see the kinds of planes Canadians flew during the war — Halifax and Lancaster bombers — as well as Allied and Axis planes.
OVERSEAS HONOURS
Canadians’ bravery is remembered far from our shores, too. To this day, kids your age in the Netherlands lay flowers at the graves of Canada’s war dead to show their country’s gratitude. More than 2,300 Canadians are buried in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery near the city of Nijmegen, one of the many cemeteries devoted to Canadians around the Netherlands. At the site where our troops landed on D-Day, the Juno Beach
Centre honours those who fought and died in the war, particularly the 5,500 who lost their lives during the Battle of Normandy. The Price of Peace Memorial stands in Ortona, Italy, a reminder of the vicious fighting Canadians endured while helping win a crucial victory. And in Hong Kong, the Sai Wan Memorial pays tribute to those who died trying to prevent a Japanese invasion, or in the horrific conditions of the resulting prisoner of war camps. YOUR TOWN
Next time you walk by the war memorial in your village, town or city, or the one closest to you, take a moment to read the names of the people from your community who gave their lives for freedom.