I was a very delicate child …. It was only later on, when I got in the army, that I toughened up. And here I am at 100.
Robert Spencer remains active in military education, remembrance
ROBERT SPENCER, a Second World War veteran who celebrates a milestone birthday today.
A COVID-style tribute will take place this morning as friends and colleagues of Robert Spencer drive or walk by his Sandy Hill home while he looks on and waves.
The distanced celebration will mark Spencer's 100th birthday, but with five years to go yet before his passport expires, the increased isolation he's had to endure over the past eight months has not sat well.
“I'm bored stiff,” he says. “This is keeping me from doing a lot of the things I would normally be doing. I haven't seen my son in England for a long time.”
Still, he adds, it feels “unbelievable” to reach this milestone, given the care he required after his 1920 birth.
“I was a very delicate child, and, when we went out in the old car, I always sat in the front seat so my parents could look after me. It was only later on, when I got in the army, that I toughened up.
“And here I am at 100.”
But if it's a hardship to have to honour such a red-letter day in so removed a fashion — no hail-fellow-well-met slaps on the back, handshakes or hugs — it pales when compared to the sacrifices that Spencer made decades ago, when providence and luck allowed him to reach 25 when so many around him didn't.
He was often an open target as he crossed the barren fields of France, Germany, Belgium and Holland with a 25-pounder field gun. On one occasion, his tank driver, standing right beside him, had his heart ripped open by shrapnel, killing him instantly.
On another, a piece of shrapnel very nearly stripped Spencer clean, tearing along his chest from his right shoulder to his left elbow, cutting through his leather jacket, uniform and undershirt, slicing his binoculars in two, severing the strap of his water canteen and nicking a small piece from the New Testament he was carrying in his left breast pocket.
He notes that casualties among his comrades in the 15th Canadian Field Regiment saw him promoted one afternoon from junior to senior lieutenant, in charge of five officers, with his commanding officer telling him, “I think you have the wit to do this.” Spencer was determined to prove him right.
Valorous? Absolutely. But Spencer admits he was also always scared.
“We were in danger all the time and well aware of it. Was I frightened? Of course I was frightened, but I just carried on. We knew it had to be done.”
He was 21 when he signed up, 22 when he sailed overseas and 23 when he landed at Normandy, just weeks after D-Day, bringing to a halt his burgeoning “career” as an elementary school teacher after only four months.
After the war, he was asked to stay in London to help put together a history of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in Europe since the Normandy landings, an assignment during which he met librarian Ruth Margaret Church, who married him in 1948.
He earned his doctorate at Oxford, then spent 36 years at the University of Toronto, teaching German history, while he and Ruth raised three children. He moved to Ottawa 20 years ago, following Ruth's death.
Age and COVID-19 have conspired to slow Spencer somewhat. He's no longer able to march in the Remembrance Day veterans' parade at the National War Memorial, a moot point this year given that the pandemic forced its cancellation. Likewise, his twice-weekly visits to the Global Affairs Canada library in the Lester B. Pearson Building have been scuttled by the coronavirus.
The pandemic notwithstanding, though, Spencer has remained active in Canada's military education and remembrance.
He was a member of Canada's delegations to the 75th anniversary of the Dieppe raid in August 2017 and the D-Day and Normandy campaigns in June 2019.
A planned trip to the Netherlands this past May, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, however, was scuttled by the pandemic, as was Spencer's lecture at the Royal Canadian Artillery regiment's annual leadership course in Shilo, Man., at which, for the past five years, he's shared his wartime experiences to illustrate lessons learned in leadership, training and the pressures of war.
“I'm thankful I survived, and am glad to tell my story,” he says.
“This is a part of our history, and everyone should know what people went through and how they survived, and the benefits for today.”
Although COVID has shuttered much of the world, Spencer is taking part in Veterans Affairs Canada's Pass the Torch event.
The candlelight commemoration, typically hosted each year at the Canadian War Museum, is this year being held virtually. Spencer will start the passing of the torch, after reciting the Act of Remembrance, as fitting an honour as one can imagine for this new centenarian.
To watch, visit VAC's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ events/758134431582236
We were in danger all the time and well aware of it. Was I frightened? Of course I was frightened, but I just carried on.