Veteran’s heroics inspire student documentarians
Harold Hague sits comfortably on a couch in his south-end Regina apartment, but peering out the window, he’s transported back to the day when planes were as thick in the air as flocks of migrating geese, thousands of paratroopers filled the sky and the sea around Normandy was thick with blood.
Hague remembers the horrors of June 6, 1944, as if it were yesterday.
On D-Day, he was signalman on a convoy of seven staggered minesweepers, part of the 31st Canadian Minesweeping Flotilla.
Minesweepers were vital to the success of Allied landings in Normandy. By disabling the mines, ships could get closer to France and troops and equipment could land.
“Hitting a mine was death,” Hague said.
He was surrounded by death when the 31st was attached to Omaha Beach. There, Americans suffered huge casualties on D -Day.
Tears flow freely as Hague sees the sea around Omaha Beach thick with thousands of dead bodies.
“We had to go through them,” Hague said. “We couldn’t stop to pick them up — they were dead anyway.”
Many of the soldiers had drowned.
“When the landing craft came in and there was rough sea, they misjudged the depth of the water,” Hague said. “So they let the landing craft down and the fellas jumped out into 10 or 12 feet of water.”
On the hill of the beach, the German Tiger tanks fired on the Allied troops.
“When the shooting started, that’s when all hell broke out,” Hague said. “The shells from the ships on to the shore and on shore they were firing towards the ships.”
He and his fellow minesweepers weren’t immediately fired upon.
“They wanted to shoot the bigger ships to stop them, but the shells were flying over us,” Hague said. “The third time we went in, they got sick of us and they shot at us. They hit one of our ships and blew it up. Another hit a mine — we lost two.”
In the fury of battle, Hague believed the world was ending and “we were right in the middle of it.”
Fear was his constant companion as steel cutters on the minesweepers severed mines anchored on a steel cord or brought the line up.
“Once you get the mine frozen up, then we had anti-tank guns and we exploded them,” Hague said. “Once in a while, they didn’t come up the right way and they got pretty close. It was hair-raising — especially when you see one scraping your ship.”
Breaking from thoughts of the past, he said times continued to be tough, but after D-Day: “I was just happy to be alive.”
Hague was asked to share his war memories for a film project Age is More, an intergenerational partnership that paired youths with seniors from Marion Chateau, a local Revera retirement residence.
The youths planned and shot the films and the seniors were involved in the telling and editing.
High school students Jonathan McCann and Athena Brecht were paired with Hague, who signed up for service in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 at the tender age of 16.
He lied about being 18 so he could serve his country and the Allied effort.
“If you could walk and talk, you were in,” said the 96-year-old.
In the signal corps, he served on corvettes, mine sweepers and frigates and saw action in the Battle of the Atlantic for 3 1/2 years.
He showed McCann and Brecht his many medals, including one from France. Hague was named a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest national order from the Republic of France which was given to veterans for their D-Day service.
Over two days of filming and two days of editing, Brecht found Hague to be humble.
“He thought his service was just his duty,” the 18-year-old said. “What he did was such a big deal and something to be proud of, but he did not want to show that off whatsoever.
“It was very honourable of him because we actually had to ask him to show us his medals. He didn’t expect us to be interested.”
Hague also showed the youths a letter D-Day veterans received from the Supreme Allied Commander American General Dwight D. Eisenhower who was in charge of that day’s operations.
“We interviewed him about his wife and his family and he was talking about the war with us a lot,” Brecht said. “His story was just so amazing. I felt, with this project, I can capture his story and keep it for years to come.”
The Grade 12 student aspires to be a 3D animator for Disney one day. She enjoyed the film project and said meeting a veteran for the first time was eye opening.
The films featuring collaboration between local youths and seniors were to be shown Tuesday night at Marian Chateau.
Following the gala evening, the 10 documentaries can be viewed at Revera’s AgeIsMore.com.
“He really inspired me to do more for my country and be more Canadian,” Brecht said. “The war was a horrible time in Canadian history, but if we lose the stories, it might repeat itself. With Harold’s story, it was so important to capture those moments.”