Dutch ambassador distributes tulips at the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital
The event was to commemorate the 1943 birth of Dutch Princess Margriet who was born at the Civic Hospital during the Second World War.
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Ottawa Citizen
16 hours ago
- Ottawa Citizen
Deachman: These Second World War veterans deserve honour and thanks
Roland 'Roly' Lalonde enlisted in the army in 1942 as a 19-year-old clerk typist, signing up out of a sense of duty to Canada. He had noticed a recruitment poster near the Connaught building on Mackenzie Avenue where he worked. One day, he heeded the poster's message and joined. Article content These days, he doesn't go into great detail about his wartime experiences, especially when the conversation veers towards the last months of the Second World War. 'It wasn't a walk in the park,' he told me. Article content Article content Article content By then, the Ottawa born-and-bred Lalonde had traded in his typewriter for a .303 rifle in the 'C' Company of the Royal 22e Régiment — the famous Van Doos — to fight in Italy and Germany. He was among the Canadian soldiers who helped liberate the Netherlands. Article content Article content 'It was hell,' he said. 'It's an experience that I couldn't explain to you. Article content 'I do not like to talk about it. No one likes to talk about it. I took everything as it came and obeyed orders as given, and that's it. Article content 'You had to be there. It's as simple as that.' Article content So we changed the subject, to the medals that decorated his chest, his decade in the Governor General's Foot Guards, his family. Lalonde, who'll turn 102 next month, was among the 20 centenarians honoured at Perley Health on Wednesday, marking the eighth year that the centre has celebrated its Century Club residents. Half of the honorees were veterans of the Second World War, the European portion of which ended 80 years ago last month. Friday, June 6, meanwhile, marks the 81st anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, or D-Day. Article content Article content A day will arrive before long when the cohort of Second World War veterans at the Perley and elsewhere has disappeared, when there are no more living, first-hand testimonies to the sacrifices made by Canadians. We must listen to the lessons they teach us now, while we can. Article content
Toronto Sun
20 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
War vets rock stars in France as they hand over duty of remembering D-Day
Published Jun 05, 2025 • 4 minute read Veteran Wilbur "Jack" Myers, a 101-year-old who fought in the U.S. Army's 692nd Tank Destroyer Battalion, greets schoolchildren during a visit on Monday, June 2, 2025 in Colleville-sur-Mer. Photo by John Leicester / AP Photo OMAHA BEACH, France — The D-Day generation, smaller in number than ever, is back on the beaches of France where so much blood was spilled 81 years ago. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Second World War veterans, now mostly centenarians, have returned with the same message they fought for then: Freedom is worth defending. In what they acknowledge may be one of their last hurrahs, a group of nearly two dozen veterans who served in Europe and the Pacific is commemorating the fallen and getting rock-star treatment this week in Normandy — the first patch of mainland France that Allied forces liberated with the June 6, 1944, invasion and the greatest assembly of ships and planes the world had known. On what became known as 'Bloody Omaha' and other gun-swept beaches where soldiers waded ashore and were cut down, their sacrifices forged bonds among Europe, the United States and Canada that endure, outlasting geopolitical shifts and the rise and fall of political leaders who blow hot and cold about the ties between nations. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In Normandy, families hand down D-Day stories like heirlooms from one generation to the next. They clamor for handshakes, selfies, kisses and autographs from veterans, and reward them with cries of 'Merci!' — thank you. Both the young and the very old thrive off the interactions. French schoolchildren oohed and aahed when 101-year-old Arlester Brown told them his age. The U.S. military was still segregated by race when the 18-year-old was drafted in 1942. Like most Black soldiers, Brown wasn't assigned a combat role and served in a laundry unit that accompanied the Allied advances through France and the Low Countries and into Nazi Germany. Jack Stowe, who lied about being 15 to join the Navy after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, said he gets 'the sweetest letters' from kids he met on previous trips. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The French people here, they're so good to us,' the 98-year-old said, on a walk to the water's edge on Omaha. 'They want to talk to us, they want to sit down and they want their kids around us.' 'People are not going to let it be forgotten, you know, Omaha, these beaches,' he said. 'These stories will go on and on and on.' The dead honoured with sand At the Normandy American Cemetery that overlooks Omaha, the resting place for nearly 9,400 American war dead, workers and visitors rub sand from the beach onto the white gravestones so the engraved names stand out. Wally King, a sprightly 101-year-old, wiped off excess sand with a weathered hand, resting the other atop the white cross, before saying a few words at the grave of Henry Shurlds Jr. Shurlds flew P-47 Thunderbolt fighters like King and was shot down and killed on Aug. 19, 1944. In the woods where they found his body, the townspeople of Verneuil-sur-Seine, northwest of Paris, erected a stele of Mississippi tulip tree wood in his memory. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Although Shurlds flew in the same 513th Fighter Squadron, King said he never met him. King himself was shot down over Germany and badly burned on his 75th and last mission in mid-April 1945, weeks before the Nazi surrender. He said pilots tended not to become fast friends, to avoid the pain of loss when they were killed, which was often. When 'most veterans from World War II came home, they didn't want to talk about the war. So they didn't pass those experiences on to their children and grandchildren,' King said. 'In a way, that's good because there's enough unpleasantness, bloodshed, agony in war, and perhaps we don't need to emphasize it,' he added. 'But the sacrifice needs to be emphasized and celebrated.' When they're gone This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. With the march of time, the veterans' groups are only getting smaller. The Best Defense Foundation, a non-profit that has been organizing their trips to Normandy since 2004, last year brought 50 veterans for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. This year, the number is 23. Betty Huffman-Rosevear, who served as an army nurse, is the only woman. She turned 104 this week. The group also includes a renowned romantic: 101-year-old Harold Terens and his sweetheart, Jeanne Swerlin, were feted by France's president after they tied the knot in a symbolic wedding inland of the D-Day beaches last year. D-Day veteran Jake Larson, now 102, has made multiple return trips and has become a star as 'Papa Jake' on TikTok, with 1.2 million followers. He survived machine-gun fire when he landed on Omaha, making it unhurt to the bluffs that overlook the beach and which in 1944 were studded with German gun emplacements that mowed down American soldiers. 'We are the lucky ones,' Larson said amid the cemetery's immaculate rows of graves. 'They had no family. We are their family. We have the responsibility to honor these guys who gave us a chance to be alive.' As WWII's survivors disappear, the responsibility is falling on the next generations that owe them the debt of freedom. 'This will probably be the last Normandy return, when you see the condition of some of us old guys,' King said. 'I hope I'm wrong.' Sunshine Girls Columnists Sunshine Girls NHL Celebrity
Toronto Sun
a day ago
- Toronto Sun
3 World War II bombs defused in Cologne, Germany after evacuation
Published Jun 04, 2025 • 1 minute read Two of the three unexploded Second World War bombs are defused and prepared to be loaded onto vehicles for removal, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Cologne, Germany. Photo by Christoph Reichwein/dpa via AP / AP COLOGNE, Germany — Three unexploded U.S. bombs from the Second World War were defused on Wednesday in Cologne after the German city's biggest evacuation since the end of the war. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account More than 20,000 residents were evacuated from the city centre earlier Wednesday after the bombs were unearthed on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. Experts defused the bombs within about an hour, city authorities said in a statement. Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany. Sometimes, large-scale precautionary evacuations are needed. The location this time was unusually prominent — just across the Rhine River from Cologne's historic centre. Significantly bigger evacuations have occurred in other German cities. The evacuations included homes, 58 hotels, nine schools, a hospital and two nursing homes, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station. It also included three bridges across the Rhine, including the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne's central station. Shipping on the Rhine also was suspended. Clearance to go ahead with defusing the bombs was delayed somewhat because one person refused in the historic centre initially refused to leave their home, city authorities said. Celebrity Toronto & GTA Canada Toronto Blue Jays Toronto & GTA
