We Remember -&- Bud Talkinghorn: WWII & Canadian Heroes

For millions of Canadians the poppy has long been the flower of Remembrance. It originally was a reminder of the blood-red flower which grew in the fields where many Canadians died in a place called Flanders. It remains the flower of Remembrance.

FLOWER OF REMEMBRANCE: SYMBOL OF UNITY

On November 11th Canadians all across the country will stop and pay tribute to the men and women killed in Canada's wars and military operations. Some will remember friends and relatives long dead. Others - like yourselves perhaps - will pause in tribute (but will really have nothing to remember).

There is more: "Vimy Ridge in 1917" and "Dieppe" -- how these cemented the soldiers' unity -- "for the difficult thing they had done together" at Vimy and "knowing that they had shared something difficult" at Dieppe.

Remembrance Day Links: poems, art, history, personal remembrances and more



Bud Talkinghorn: Canadian Heroes

We remember those who fought in World War II

War is sheer horror; yet, Canada has produced magnificent, heroic military men and women. Here, Bud details the exploits of two Canadian heroes as part of his "Interesting bits and pieces about the end of WW11".

The returning Algerian veterans, who had fought for France, began demonstrating for independence. The riots led to a hundred Europeans being killed. On May 8, 1945, the French retaliated with air and ground attacks that massacred between 18,000 and 20,000 Algerians. Ironically their massacre began on VE Day.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops taken as prisoners by the Nazis, were handed over to the occupying Russian army by the Allies. Some were shot outright and the rest were sent to Siberian concentration camps. Earlier, when Stalin was told by the underground that his son had surrendered and was being kept in Dachau, he said, "I have no son." On hearing his father's retort, the son committed suicide.

Even after it was announced that Hitler was dead, Canadian troops had to keep on fighting the Nazis in Holland. This series of battles created two of the most astonishing tales of Canadian valour. While the word "hero" has been terribly debased, it isn't when talking about these two soldiers. One was an English-Canadian named Aubrey Cosens of the Queens Own Rifles. He single-handledly stormed a German fortress in Mooshof, Holland. Before he was killed by a sniper's bullet, he killed or captured dozens of German soldiers. For this gallant action he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross--the military's highest honour.

Of equal merit were the magnificent exploits of Leo Major, a French-Canadian. Leo lost an eye during the Normany invasion, but refused to be evacuated back to England. In the Battle of the Scheldt, he captured 93 Germans, but he refused on principle to accept the decoration offered. Montgomery, the British Field-Marshal, was going to personally present it to him. However, Major thought Montgomery was militarily incompetent, so refused it. Incredible as that sounds, his story does not end there. With a friend, Willy Arsenault, he scouted out the German positions in the town of Zwolle. When Arsenault was cut down by machine gun fire, an infuriated Major rushed the gunners, killing two and putting to flight the rest. When he reached Zwolle, he attacked German patrols and ran through the street tossing grenades into empty buildings to give the impression of a large attack. When he stumbled into the SS headquarters by mistake, he killed four of them, while the rest ran away. By four in the morning, Mr. Major realized the Germans had fled the town. He had liberated it. This time he did accept The Distinguished Conduct medal--second only to the Victoria Cross in merit, and one of only three awarded to British Commonwealth troops during the entire war. He went on to collect a second DCM, when he led his company in capturing an enemy hill in Korea. Quite a guy! A true hero.

The orgy of rape, looting and general violence that the Russians indulged in during their occupation of East Germany is well documented. Stalin considered it all to be fair recompense for the suffering of the Russian people at the hands of the Nazis. However there were comedic episodes also. This story was related to me by my good friend Joszi, who was living in Budapest when the Russians "liberated" Hungary. His family was forced to billet Russian soldiers in their house. One day, Joszi heard the rat-a-tat of a machine gun upstairs. He discovered a Russian who had been washing his wooden false teeth in the toilet (he had never seen one before, so thought it was a wash basin). Unfortunately, the soldier had hit the flush button and his precious teeth went down. In his fury he blasted the toilet to pieces with his gun. The soldier claimed that a demon had snatched his teeth, so he killed it. Joszi everafter referred to these soldiers as "far beyond the mountains of civilization".

General De Gaulle, the commander of the Free French, was allowed to enter the freed city of Paris as a 'liberator'; even though he had done practically nothing to win France's freedom. In fact, he was universally cursed by the real heroes of the resistence for allowing their comrades to be slaughtered in the south-eastern mountain region. De Gaulle had promised them an airlift of ammunition and food if they held down a German force. He reneged and the defenders were wiped out. De Gaulle falls into that category that saw every French whore who infected a German and every shopkeeper who cheated them as resistance fighters.

As often as I criticize the Arabs for mindlessly firing their guns in the air, it must be noted that the same thing happened in Okinawa on VJ Day. The Americans fired endless rounds into the air, which caused over 200 American casualties--and who knows how many Japanese ones.

© Bud Talkinghorn

This was originally posted for the sixtieth anniversary of the end of war in Europe but, because it concerns Canadian war heroes, I thought it was apropriate for Remembrance Day. We remember. NJC -- Frost Hits the Rhubarb: "WW2 Anniversary", May 8-14, 05 -- or the specific post here: Interesting bits and pieces about the end of WW11 posted May 11, 05

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