Docu-drama of fated regiment ‘needed to be told,’ says director

Black Watch Snipers Friday, History

They suffered more casualties than any other Canadian regiment on the Allied western front during the Second World War.

Now, their stories are being told in the docu-drama Black Watch Snipers, premiering this Remembrance Day on History.

The film profiles Canada’s Black Watch regiment through the true stories of five snipers who worked side by side to help defeat the Nazis in the 10 months following D-Day on June 6, 1944.

Four of them, all in their 90s, were alive during the making of the film and appear on camera to describe their harrowing experiences. “It’s a long and storied regiment,” says Robin Bicknell, the film’s director-producer.

“They had three or four Victoria Crosses in (the First) World War ... and so I think it was, in and of itself, a story that needed to be told.

“For example, their first battle at Verrieres Ridge, the first big battle, 97 per cent of the kids who went up that hill didn’t come back.”

The snipers who recount their tales in the doc are Jimmy Bennett, Jim (Hook) Wilkinson, Russell (Sandy) Sanderson and Mike Brunner.

“Some of them have told their stories, even to their families or whatever, but certainly Jim Bennett ... it was like I had turned a faucet on and it all just came pouring out, and he said, ‘I’ve never told anyone this. Not my family, not my wife — no one,’ ” says Bicknell.

The film is narrated through the story of Ontario-born Dale Sharpe, who died in battle and was said to be the hero of the group’s platoon.

Bicknell says she tracked down the Sharpe family and interviewed them for the film after hearing the other veterans talk about him.

The film has been “life-altering” for the family.