By Charles McGregor

Of all the many songs which were written and recorded for broadcast during World War Two, none was as popular -- or as poignant -- as the one sung by the "Sweetheart of the Forces," Vera Lynn -- "We'll Meet Again."  The haunting chorus was known to everyone and was sung by the troops as they waited to go into battle and by those of their loved ones back home, many huddled in bomb shelters as enemy planes droned overhead. "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day........."
       

 During the month of May many of the surviving veterans gathered in Holland to meet again with their comrades-in-arms, all in their 80s now, some confined to wheelchairs, but there to honour the memories of those who died and are buried in immaculately kept cemeteries throughout North West Europe. It is in Holland that the Canadians are most revered. It was the Canadians who liberated this low-land country and that feat of arms had been taught in Dutch schools ever since so that even the youngest pupil knows what Holland and the Dutch owe to Canada and the Canadians. They are grateful and are not slow to show their gratitude.
                                
        Fred Barnard is 84 now, retired and living quietly with his daughter near Toronto. His wife died a while ago, so life is taken, "just one day at a time."  But 60 years ago on the 8th of May, 1945, Victory in Europe Day -- or VE Day, as it's always been called since then --  "I got in my '34 Dodge that I bought in '41 before leaving to go overseas, and went to Toronto to celebrate with everyone else and got swamped with people climbing all over it the car. It was great."  Sixty-one years ago, on the 6th of June, 1944, Sergeant Fred Barnard, of Toronto's Queen's Own Rifles, was among the first soldiers on the beach as the invasion of Normandy began and the struggle to purge "Fortress Europe" of Germans got underway. As they raced for the seawall, Fred's brother Don was shot dead in front of him. "I knew he was dead, but I couldn't stop. They told us we couldn't stop, or we'd risk being killed too." The Queen's Own -- and other Toronto regiments, including those who had already fought their way from Sicily and up through Italy, were in fierce fighting all through Normandy, into Belgium, Holland and Germany. In August, in a battle at Quesnay Wood, in France's Calvados Region on the road to Falaise, Barnard was wounded. "Twice," he says, "in just 30 minutes. I was shot in the foot and the neck." It was a battle, the Regimental history notes, "that produced nothing but casualties" -- 22 killed and 68 wounded in Queen's Own ranks alone. By war's end the Queen's Own had lost 460 men killed and 873 wounded, some, like Barnard, two or three times. But now, Sgt. Barnard's war was over. His wounds were serious enough that he would not return to battle. Instead, he sailed for home.
        The Queen's Own's Battle Honours, awarded for outstanding performance in action against the enemy, and which stretch as far back as North West Canada 1885, and which are carried on the Regimental Drums, were augmented with ten more place names in 1945 -- beginning with "Normandy Landing" and ending with "The Rhine."  Each was costly in terms of the lives of young Canadians, volunteers all, who were fighting to free Europe from the Nazi menace.
        Many of these Honours are shared by other Toronto Regiments who were in the Canadian Order of Battle during those last months of the war. The Royal Regiment of Canada, held back in Britain after D-Day in case there was a counter-attack by enemy forces, landed in France in July, 1944. The Royals had already seen battle and were anxious to get back into the fight to wreak vengeance on their enemies who had done so much damage on the previous occasion.
        Of the many battle honours earned by the Toronto-based none is remembered more vividly -- and with more remorse -- than that of "Dieppe." It was here, on 19 August 1942, on the rocky beach fronting the charming French resort town, that members of the Canadian infantry first went into battle against the enemy on a large scale. It was to prove tragically costly for the Canadian troops who provided the main assault force in what was designed principally to gain experience and knowledge to aid in planning the eventual, inevitable assault on Fortress Europe. Roughly 5,000 of the 6,000 troops involved were Canadians, the remainder British Commandos and American Rangers. It was a military venture which proved disastrous for the Royals. Many of the young soldiers were cut down and died on the rocky beaches.

Others were captured, marched through the Dieppe streets, later manacled and imprisoned, often under cruel conditions, in German camps where they languished until liberated in 1945 by the invading Allied forces.
        In Northwest Europe in '44-'45, the Royals played a major role in the advance to Falaise, battling the tanks and anti-tank guns of the vaunted 1 SS Panzer Division and assuming responsibility for the capture of Rocanqcourt and Moulines, both vitally important objectives. The Royals also had the honour of marching back into Dieppe in 1945, led by the Regimental band, honouring their dead and wounded of 1942.
        The Toronto Scottish, who also were at Dieppe with two sections of medium machine guns, were more fortunate than the Royals, who were in the van and sustained the heaviest toll of dead and wounded. In Northwest Europe, the "TorScots" fought alongside Canadian and British units in such decisive and deadly battles as those at Falaise, the Scheldt, the Hochwald and the Rhineland. They were joined by their fellow Toronto Highland Regiment, the famous 48th, who have come to Northwest Europe straight from an arduous battle which began in 1943, in Sicily, to liberate that island and to beat the Gemans back in Italy. Battle Honours earned there included those from such hard fought engagements as Cassino II, Ortona, Liri Valley, Campobasso,the Hitler, Gothic and Rimini Lines and in NW Europe, Apeldoorn, where the biggest celebration of all was to be held on the 8th of May, 2005.
        The cavalry, in the shape of armoured regiments represented included the Toronto-based Governor General's Horse Guards, who had fought in Italy prior to embarking for North West Europe
        While these famous Toronto-based regiments were the 'face' of the battle, because of their high profiles, there were many other Torontonians involved in what was to become one of the greatest land  battles of all time. These included the men of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, who, with the British 6th Airborne, jumped into France several hours before the first soldiers hit the beaches on D-Day, to 'set the table' for the attack which was to come. -- and women -- of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. In March of 1945 1 Can Para jumped again, this time onto the east bank of the Rhine, in Germany, as the final stager of the war began to unfold.
        Other show served on the ground included the men -- and many women -- of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, the sappers of the Engineers, the gunners of the heavy and field Artillery, the cooks of the Catering Corps and all the other services without whose help and brave work under fire the battles would surely have been lost.
        On the water, in the English Channel, many men from Toronto served on the ships, including the famous HMCS Haida, who were there to carry the soldiers to the point where they would take to the water in landing craft, as well as to use their heavy guns to soften up the landing by destroying enemy gun emplacements on the French shore,.
        In the air, members of the RCAF -- including a fighter pilot who would eventually become General Richard Rohmer -- flew reconnaissance flights over the beach and remained ready to pounce upon any Luftwaffe aircraft who sought to attack the troops below.
        Canada has much to celebrate as the 60th Anniversary of the end of the war in Europe marks the last time that many of its veterans will ever see those battlegrounds and memorial sites again. The "Last Post" has sounded for many of them and we salute them for their bravery and devotion to duty -- every one of them a volunteer. They were there because they felt it was their duty and we are forever in their debt.