France honours Niagara-born veterans
Albert Cunningham is a “proud Canadian” at heart.
“I am a bloody Canadian,” the 93-year-old said when his slight British accent was noted.
“I could never forget Canada. Everybody says, ‘Oh there’s that bloody Canadian again.’ Everybody knows I’m a Canadian.”
But Cunningham, who lives at Eastbury Manor Care Home in Guildford, Surrey, hasn’t been back to Canada much since October 1942, when the then 18-yearold graduate of Welland High School enlisted to fight in the Second World War.
He met an English girl named Averil during his time serving with Royal Canadian Engineers and the 2nd Canadian Road Construction Company, and following the war they built their lives together in England, raising three children there.
Cunningham never forgot his roots in Welland, where he learned to skate on the Welland River and swim in the canal. And he never forgot the devastating war that brought him to Europe in the first place, so long ago.
He served as national president of the Canadian Veterans Association, U.K., until dwindling membership led the remaining members to disband the group.
“There’s just not enough of us left,” Cunningham said, referring to the aging Canadian veterans. “But we still meet and have a meal together. We’re still in touch with each other.”
Through his affiliation with the organization that brought ex-patriot Canadian servicemen together on a regular basis, Cunningham met many other former soldiers who opted to remain in England after the war — including former St. Catharines resident Bill Smith.
“Because of our close association with our hometowns, we became good friends,” Cunningham said, referring to Smith who served with the Lincoln and Welland Regiment from 1940 to 1945. On Thursday Cunningham and Smith joined fellow Canadian veteran Donald Dunlop, originally from Nova Scotia, for a ceremony honouring the three veterans for the role they played in liberating France as the Second World War drew to a close.
Rear-Admiral Patrick Chevallereau, defence attaché from the French Embassy in the U.K., presented the trio with the Légion d’honneur. The award, established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802, is the highest distinction France can bestow for military and civil service to the country. It’s an honour that has been bestowed on more than 1,000 Canadian veterans since the 70th anniversary of D-Day in June 2014, when French President François Hollande announced the medal would be given to all living allied veterans who fought for the liberation of France between 1944 and 1945.
Cunningham said the medals they received at Canada House in London are “extra special.”
“This one is quite elaborate and I’m proud to wear it,” he said.
For Cunningham, much of that pride is based on the tremendous contributions he made to the war effort, building infrastructure needed to help the Allied forces defeat the Nazis.
Cunningham was one of the Canadian engineers who secretly constructed the Dunsfold airfield in 1942. He said the emergency runway that served the Allied forces until 1945 took the Canadians about four months to complete, despite estimates that the work would take a year and a half.
Following the D-Day invasion of France, the engineers travelled across the English Channel to build roads to move troops and equipment into the war-raved country.
“The big problem was Monty (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery) thought we could take Caen in one day,” Cunningham said, referring to the city in northwest France.
“He soon found out the Germans were better prepared than that, and it took nearly a month. Everybody was itching to get through there.”
After a month of bombardment, there wasn’t much left of Caen, “and they couldn’t get any supplies up because all the roads were blocked with rubble and everything.”
Cunningham said the 2nd Canadian Road Construction Company’s first task in France was to build a bypass around the ruins of the city — a feat that warranted a medal for the company’s top brass.
“Our major got a medal for that,” he said. “Nobody else did.”
Cunningham and his colleagues went on to build another airfield near Caen, and “gradually made our way up through the country as we were needed — roads, bridges, that kind of stuff, to keep things moving.”
Cunningham said he’s been back to Canada a few times in the years since the war.
At one time, he and Averil returned to Welland and bought a home with plans to stay. But Canadian winters proved to much for his wife, and they returned to England.
“If you’ve lived in England, you don’t get anything like that in the winter,” he said. “Averil wasn’t happy, I wouldn’t have her unhappy so we came back to live in England.”
But since Averil died last fall, Cunningham doubts he’ll return to Canada again.
“My wife’s gone now, and I wouldn’t travel without her,” he said.
Cunningham said he’s certain his wife would have been proud to see him receive the award, but he’s pretty sure their children are “quite proud” of him, too.
“They don’t like to admit it,” he quipped.
His son Ken joined him during the ceremony.
“They’re from a generation that doesn’t really know what war is. And I thought they should see what sort of people were there,” he said.
“I thought it was a good thing that they should know some of the stuff that went on. They were surprised, I think, of what we had done in the war.”