CP24.com readers were asked to share their Remembrance Day stories with us, whether they participated in the war or grew up with a loved one in service. These are their memories and the photos that have defined their experience.
Memories
At the Soldiers' Tower
Remembrance Day, November 11th, a day to honour those who lost their lives in Canada's wars, has always been my favorite holiday - if one can use that term to describe a day with such a sombre purpose.
It's probably because I have always loved history - the study of history - and surely this is a day soaked in that. I believe strongly in people acknowledging their past. Maybe in today's world it sounds maudlin or naïve, but I feel it's important to honour those who gave their lives in this way. The fact that November 11th here is often grey, raw cold and even raining always seems appropriate.
When I started working at a downtown teaching hospital located on the edge of the University of Toronto campus I realized that I could easily attend the Remembrance Day service at the Soldiers' Tower located on campus- a short walk from my office.
The service there has particularly significance for me because the name of my uncle, an uncle I never knew, my father's only brother, along with many other students who died in the war, is inscribed in the stone wall at the base of the Tower.
My uncle, Ken, joined the RCAF before doing the last year of his Commerce degree. He was the pilot of a bomber that was downed over Germany in 1943. His gravestone is in the Allied cemetery near Hanover.
A few years ago, just before the 11th, I was speaking with my mother on the phone and mentioned that I would be attending the memorial service at the Tower. This prompted my mother to talk about my uncle.
He was of course stationed overseas in England. My father, his brother, was an RCAF flight instructor stationed, with his recent bride, my mother, at a number of airbases near Toronto. My parents were caught up in the early days of their marriage and the energy and drama of wartime life.
It seems that my uncle wrote often from England. In one letter he mentioned that he had not had much mail from my parents and he assumed that their silence was due to the frequent sinking of the merchant marine ships that carried the mail across the Atlantic. As it turned out, that was the last letter he ever sent.
My mother told me how very badly she had always felt about that because the truth was that their letters had not been lost at sea, but that, busy with their own lives, she and my father had simply not written as often as they might or should have done.
So my mother asked me, when I went to the service a few days later, to say a short prayer on her behalf for my uncle, to say how sorry she was and, I believe, in a sense, to ask his forgiveness. And so I attended that year for both of us.
I had that conversation with my mother in early November, 2003- sixty years after my uncle's death.
Remembrance Day – a fine name for a holiday.
Bob McArthur
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