BEACHES & BUNKERS
European tour remembers war veterans with smiles, glasses of Calvados and three-irons
SAINT-ANDRE-SUR-ORNE, FRANCE I started to tell the story of the battle that happened here in July 1944 for which my father received the Military Cross, then emotion took over and the tears started. It was like dad was there with me. In my imagination I could feel the horror he felt. I stumbled through his story.
Every one of the 36 Canadians on board touched my hand as I made my way back to my seat on the bus. We were winding our way through the colourful French countryside, and past the village. All of us had a reason to be there.
There were so many stories we wanted to know about our greatgrandfathers, grandfathers, dads and uncles.
This isn’t a tour bus story. Our trip’s goal was to learn and honour Canadian war history and then play a game that, if my father had his way, would have ended the carnage with a single golf shot.
But this all started years earlier; 25 years ago, my wife and I were having dinner in Versailles, France. Beside us were two couples speaking Dutch. “We’re from Amsterdam” said the woman. “And we often visit your country, saving London till last.”
“Oh no,” we replied. “We’re from Canada. We’re Canadians.”
Conversation stopped and their eyes filled. “You’re very, very lucky. We will remember Canadians till we die. You saved our lives.”
These Dutch tourists then told us of the conditions their families lived in under Nazi occupation. On the brink of starvation with no food, water nor hope until in marched those Canadian soldiers. Food fell from the sky, medical supplies arrived, life began again.
We told of our experience walking the beaches of Normandy and how I was thinking of bringing my father back to repeat the tour he did 50 years earlier as a gunner with the 2nd Canadian Division. “Your father was a Canadian soldier? Tell him he’s a hero,” they said. “Tell him and all his comrades they are heroes.”
We wiped our tears away and picked at our food. They got up to leave. We rose to shake hands, but they insisted on hugs. “Tell him he’s a hero,” she whispered in my ear.
For eight years before that I had talked to my father about his war experience. I learned much, especially the story of Saint-Andre-sur-Orne. His best friend was killed beside him, shrapnel to the head. When dad spoke, I could feel the heat coming off him 50 years after the experience. He sobbed quietly. He ordered an “uncle target” so all 72 guns of the 2nd Division would rain their devastating power onto the co-ordinates where he stood. The enemy was 100 yards away. Dad wanted them to move. They moved. Six months later field marshal Bernard Montgomery pinned the Military Cross on my father for his role in that battle.
We then went back to Normandy, arriving on Juno Beach 50 years to the day after he landed on July 6, 1944, a month after D -Day. For three weeks we travelled the route he took in 1944-45. We were welcomed by shopkeepers, mayors, police chiefs and liberation committees. It was a stunning trip for father and son.
Driving by a golf course one day, he told me he used a three-iron as a walking stick through the war. He was a scratch golfer.
“Too bad we couldn’t have had a closest to the pin for all the marbles,” he said with a smile.
Dad wasn’t a storyteller. But a few years later we structured 24 stories from his war experience, then turned them into a book Ubique: A Gunner’s Story. We launched it at the Military Museums in Calgary. Dad had parts of his book read to him every day till he died in 2010. It’s a proud family legacy. Now, this golf thing.
One day my golf foursome sat down for an adult beverage. Three of them knew very little of their fathers’ and grandfathers’ experiences in the great wars. I thought a trip that combined learning and golf could have them finally experience the beaches, fields and tunnels our forefathers fought on and in. Honour and play? Our tour would become “Beaches and Bunkers.”
Our first group met in Paris in September. I had a strong belief that if we filled a bus with golfers interested in what Canadian solders did in both wars, it would be a lively group. They did not disappoint. The conversations were immediate, animated and boisterous. The laughter was joyful. We were an even male-female mix of lawyers, accountants, teachers, historians, salesman and (very) active retired.
After loading our luggage and 34 sets of golf clubs, we were off. Two people didn’t golf. “Not golfing was not a deterrent,” said Shirley. “We had time to explore on our own. We loved the downtime. And we had our guide Stefan to ourselves!”
We travelled north to south from Ypres, Arras, Amiens, Dieppe, Caen to Paris. The days alternated. Honour, golf, then repeat.
“The combination of golf and history was great” said Cam.
“It let the experience of those young Canadian soldiers, our history, seep in” said Charlotte. What seeped in?
The First World War was siege/ counter-siege warfare. It was an infantry war. Our 1,000 guys charge the enemy bunkers a couple of hundred yards away. Two hundred come back. Their 1,000 guys charge us and we kill 800 with our rifles and bayonets. We move forward 20 yards. Repeat over and over.
From 1914 to 1918 Flanders Fields was a major battle theatre. On Nov. 6, 1917, we took Passchendaele. You’ve seen the pictures — a quagmire battle. It became a symbol of the senseless slaughter of war. We had 15,600 casualties, a pretty steep price as we gave it back to the enemy a few months later.
“It’s moving and emotional, even 100 years later” said our historian, golfer and guide Tom Leppard, the executive director of Field of Crosses in Calgary. “I can’t tell you how awful it would be … and somehow manage to persevere.”
Tyne Cot cemetery holds 12,500 graves. The bus got quieter as we approached these resting grounds. Talkative inside. Silence and tears among the headstones.
The “brooding soldier” at Vancouver Corner reminds us of the 2,000 killed with the first attacks of chlorine gas on the western front. But, somehow, we stopped the enemy from moving south.
We visited Essex Farm, where Canadian John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields. I’ll be singing it Sunday at the cenotaph with my choir.
One evening three of our golf and honour troupe were part of the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres, dedicated to our soldiers killed but with graves unknown. With about 1,000 people, you could hear a pin drop on grass.
And, of course, Vimy. Hill 145. For the first time in the First World War, all four Canadian divisions fought on the same battlefield. More than 4,000 Canadians were killed and another 12,000 wounded. Vimy’s capture by the Canadians was essential to the advance by the British Third Army to the south, and important to halting German attacks in the area. Written on the memorial are the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were “missing, presumed dead” in France. We wandered the site and sat in the sun, quietly looking up.
At Beaumont-Hamel, 730 of the 800 in the Newfoundland Regiment didn’t make it home: 57,000 casualties.
We rolled south to Dieppe and stood on the beach where 904 were killed on Aug. 19, 1942, with 2,000 taken prisoner. We saw one of the silent gliders that flew over the Germans June 6, crash landing and allowing Canadian airborne infantrymen to help take Pegasus Bridge. We stood on Juno Beach, then visited its Canadian museum. Arromanches and the mulberry harbour. The Falaise Road. The Caen Memorial Museum. And yes, there was more.
And golf ? We played five courses in 12 days. We’d first get our clubs ready, then enjoy a typical French lunch of baguettes, meat, cheese, pickles and sweets. We would then gather around our clubs for a special sign of respect. A Calvados bottle would be opened (apple brandy for you uninitiated) and we would toast all the Canadian soldiers that came before us and those that serve today. We’d all have a shot then, beaming, and head to our shotgun holes in the French sun.
The courses? Some highly manicured, some not. We agreed the rough on a couple of courses was probably managed by an angry U.S. Open greenskeeper. If a ball bounced into the 18-inch grass, it was best to just move on. Many of the courses were right on the battlefields of those two wars. A bad slice could easily rest among the gravestones.
We honoured and we played. We don’t know all their stories, but we hope they felt our appreciation. Their sacrifice allows us to play the game my dad and our group love.
“My uncle was there and I had the book he wrote in the trenches” said Charlotte. “It was very special for us, very emotional.”
Robb Lucy is the author of How Will You Be Remembered?: The Definitive Guide to Creating and Sharing Your Life Stories.