HOW SHOULD WE REMEMBER?
A century after Vimy Ridge
Ribbon-festooned bridge was touching Every day I make an uninspiring and uneventful commute across the Rideau River between Riverside South and Barrhaven. This week, the walkway rails of the Armstrong/Strandherd Road bridge blossomed with thousands of hand-tied yellow ribbons.
Initially, I figured this was someone’s idea of April Fools’ mischief with a few rolls of dime store CAUTION tape. Then I noticed these were uniform yellow and that they covered all of the railings along both sides of the bridge. Puzzled, I came up with the 1970s’ hit song Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree, and also recalled the bureaucratic and municipal fuss about the official naming of a then-brand new bridge.
I have to admit Vimy Bridge sounded rather hokey to me until now. My compliments to whoever had the inspiration and gumption to carry this out in honour of gallant soldiers that put their lives on the line and gave it their all on behalf of Canada. Bert van Ingen, Nepean
Our understanding of battle improving
Reading the daily Vimy Ridge highlight section in the Ottawa Citizen and seeing the large advertisements and photographs submitted by The Vimy Foundation reminds me just how far we have come in the past 30 years.
In 1987, my father and I visited Vimy Ridge for the 70th anniversary. Dad was a retired NATO and UN veteran and I had only been in the military a few years. There was little interest in the battle back then, no throngs of schoolchildren, hordes of tourists or pampered groups of dignitaries. The small military contingents from Canada and France, along with the official French flag parties, well outnumbered the mostly British tourists who had stopped to pay their respects.
The small Veterans Affairs Canada contingent was led by Second World War veteran and government minister George Hees, always a gentleman: he met with us, shook our hands and invited us to dine with his party in Ypres that evening. There were First World War veterans at the ceremony and both my father and I were fortunate to hear their stories.
Now, three decades later, the First World War veterans have died and Canadians are slightly more aware of the Vimy battle. The outbursts of patriotism and interest are encouraging to see but with this enthusiasm about Vimy being a “Canadian” battle, it appears that some of the basic facts have been lost.
Let us not forget that in April 1917, Field Marshal Julian Hedworth George Byng, a Briton (and future governor general) commanded the Canadian Corps. Of the four division commanders, three were Canadian as the 2nd Canadian Division was still commanded by a British general.
Also not to be forgotten is the fact that for Vimy, the British 5th Infantry Division and supplementary artillery, engineer and labour units reinforced the four Canadian divisions, helping them achieve the success we now recognize. Ed Storey, CD, Nepean
U.K. grave hunters deserve recognition Re: Grave hunters & mystery solvers, April 5.
Thanks to Joe O’Connor for shining a bright light on the selfless efforts of Adrian Watkinson and Diana Beaupré as they endeavour to uncover the location of all 3,897 Canadian servicemen and women who never came home from Great Britain after fighting in the Great War.
They have never asked for any funding to help underwrite their most honourable “hobby,” which must take a considerable amount of time and resources.
Surely the Canadian government can find some way to recognize their work. I suggest that the governor general ask the Queen to write a letter of appreciation to these amazing British citizens.
For our part, how about an Order of Canada?
Finally, to direct some public funds to this most sacred project as opposed to supporting Bombardier’s rapacious need for neverending subsidies, I propose that 0.00001 of the $3.7 billion Bombardier has received be hived off from any further funds given to them and sent to these fine British folks.
That’s $37,000 or $9.50 for each Canadian soldier’s grave found as result of their work on project Far From Home. R. Paul Harrison, Burritts Rapids
Why mark mistake that war really is?
Re: Am I proud or am I pained? April 1. I find it hard to justify celebrating Vimy Ridge. That battle, and wars generally, are colossal, misguided mistakes, typically foisted upon us by a small handful of people who probably care more about their place in history than about those who fight and die.
I note the tragic irony uncovered in your article. How can we celebrate an event that included the execution, by Canadians, of some of their own fellow soldiers whose only “crime” was being too afraid to fight?
Yes, there certainly is a good case for appreciating the courage and bravery of those who did fight such battles. However, we must stop and ask: At what cost and for what real purpose did they fight? Jake Cole, Kanata
Peace, not war defines Canada
Re: ‘I think about all the people we are missing from this family,’ April 4. The tragedy of the McDiarmid family should remind us of the peril of defining our nation by war. Canada did not “come of age” at Vimy Ridge. The senseless sacrifice our young men had nothing to do with Canada, save for our feckless colonial attachment to Great Britain.
The very facts that Canada was automatically at war when Great Britain so declared, and that we posed no serious objection, shows how much we were not a nation.
The battle for Vimy Ridge was a bloodbath that probably made no difference to the outcome of the Great War. If Canada considered that it came of age at Vimy, then what of the repeated sacrifice at Hong Kong in 1941? Once again, young Canadians were slaughtered to fruitlessly try to preserve Britain’s colonial glory.
Nations that have come of age do not march to the diktats of others. Canada has “come of age,” but it has nothing to do with our selfimposed servitude to Britain. The glory of Canada is not war, it is peace, inclusiveness and prosperity.
We certainly should honour our veterans, but we can best honour their sacrifice by doing all we can to avoid adding to their number. David C. Polk, Ottawa
Celebrate courage, don’t glorify war
There have been many celebrations of the battle of Vimy in Canada, and rightly so. We should celebrate the courage of our soldiers but at the same time we should not glorify war.
The reality is that the First World War was a useless war caused by a system of rigid alliances, the stupidity of autocratic rulers in Austria, Germany and Russia and the incompetence of democratic leaders in England and France. The major result was the death of more than 15 million individuals.
Many forces at present and in many countries are trying for different reasons to resume the Cold War.
The sacrifice of our soldiers in Vimy will not be in vain if we resist this trend and realize that nowadays wars seldom resolve problems and when they do, it is with horrible costs. François P. Jeanjean, Ottawa
Nations that have come of age do not march to the diktats of others. Canada has ‘come of age,’ but it has nothing to do with our self-imposed servitude to Britain. The glory of Canada is not war, it is peace, inclusiveness and prosperity. David C. Polk