Sacrifices on 80th anniversary of D-Day remembered

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A wreath-laying ceremony in Owen Sound Sunday marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day. 

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Pouring rain caused organizers to cancel a parade and 1st Avenue West was to have been closed for a few hours. Instead, a smaller group formed up and marched to lay a wreath to recognize the day which was the beginning of the end of the Second World War. 

They stood in a line facing the cenotaph and a flag-bearer and sang O Canada. After words of remembrance and a minute’s silence, Ed Yates, president of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 6, laid the wreath. They sang God Save the King to conclude the ceremony. 

Yates spoke at the cenotaph about D-Day, which was dubbed Operation Neptune, the largest seaborne invasion in history on June 6, 1944. It began the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe and laid the foundations for Allied victory on the Western Front. 

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Yates said nearly 150,000 Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast or parachuted into the invasion area, including 14,000 Canadians at Juno Beach. The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 124 vessels and 10,000 sailors. The Royal Canadian Air Force contributed 39 squadrons to the operation. 

Allied casualties on D-Day totaled more than 10,000, including 1,096 Canadians, of whom 381 were killed in action. “Today we honour their memory and sacrifice. Lest we forget.” 

Afterwards, Yates said he knows of two Branch 6 members who participated in D-Day who have passed away. “But there definitely were people from Grey- Bruce that were in the regiments that went onto Juno Beach.” 

He said it’s important today to commemorate D-Day “because the world we live in right now was moulded by those events. If the world had not been able to stop them (Germany), then the world we live in today wouldn’t even be recognizable. 

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“Literally all of our rights and freedoms would be completely different. And unfortunately, we’re so far removed from that now that we have to make sure that we never forget that. Because unfortunately those who don’t learn from history are doomed to relive it.” 

Warrant Officer Cameron Bruce, of the Grey & Simcoe Foresters, an infantry regiment of the Canadian Army, was one of eight men who participated in the ceremony. He said D-Day “is something we need to not forget. 

“As it’s 80 years since D-Day, the memory starts to fade for some in the public. It’s important to continue to mark the sacrifices young Canadians had to take at a challenging time to preserve the rights we have in Canada.” 

There are about 200 members of the regiment, about 50 in Owen Sound and the rest in Barrie.

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