D-Day anniversary: Londoners, French students unite in remembrance

CTV News

3 days ago

Joe Murray, a retired LCol with the regiment, was joined by French students Inès Girard and Clement Hulley on May 30, 2025, ahead of the 81st anniversary of D-Day, which will be honoured this weekend. (Sean Irvine/CTV News London)
The 81st anniversary of the D-Day invasion will be marked this weekend by a London regiment with ties to the battle.
The 1st Hussars Regiment Association will hold a public memorial at 10:30 a.m. next to the Holy Roller tank in Victoria Park.
Two students from France, who've studied the sacrifices of local Canadian soldiers and the significance of the Holy Roller, will join them.
'This tank liberated Normandy, France, and the Netherlands, and it came home,' Joe Murray, a retired LCol with the regiment, told the students.
Both Inès Girard and Clement Hulley reside near Juno Beach, where Canadian soldiers and the Holy Roller tank came ashore on June 6,1944.
For the pair, traveling to the Forest City is a pilgrimage.
'I think you need to investigate the duty of remembrance,' pledged Girard.
The 1st Hussars Regiment Association sponsored the student's trip to Canada and the visit of two of their own overseas.
'We send two young soldiers, usually in their early 20s, over to France to celebrate and commemorate D-Day,' explained Murray.
As area veterans of the invasion have passed, Murray contends it is vital for students and young soldiers on both sides of the Atlantic to learn of their sacrifice.
'Well, I think we always must talk about it, because if we don't talk about it and we don't say the names of the people who sacrificed for us, we will forget. If we speak the names, like we will on Sunday, they will be remembered forever,' said Murray.
The students agreed, with Girard adding, 'If you remember what the soldiers in the past did, we can be vigilant for the future.'
Albeit an increasingly uncertain future.
Which is why Murray stated it remains important to focus on what the Holy Roller represents.
'I always think of the Holy Rollers as the last veteran, and that it symbolizes freedom. People don't realize when they speak their mind that the Holy Roller has their backs. And symbolically, the veterans who won that freedom, well, they're looking down upon them,' said Murray.