(Ottawa) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will fly to France on Wednesday morning to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy where 5,500 Canadian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe.
“The sacrifice of the men who served on these missions is enormous,” insisted Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who leads the Canadian delegation, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Several of the former soldiers who accompanied him, many of them centenarians, were among the 14,000 Canadians who, on the morning of June 6, 1944, invaded the Normandy beach to which the code name “Juno” was given.
With the Americans and the British, a total of 156,000 soldiers stormed five beaches along 100 kilometers of coastline and behind enemy lines.
In the front row, Marcel Ouimet, war reporter for Radio-Canada, accurately recounts the landscape as soldiers from the Régiment de la Chaudière, based in Quebec, rushed to the beach at Bernières-sur-Mer (Juno Beach), this which will be the first locality liberated by the Canadians.
But by nightfall, 359 Canadian soldiers were dead, according to the most recent National Defense data. It was not in vain. Across the ocean, the Toronto Daily Star headlined: “A Crack in the Atlantic Wall,” recalls the Canadian Encyclopedia.
“It’s an amphibious landing that has never been seen in history and that we never saw again afterwards either,” summarizes Marie Eve Vaillancourt, a Quebecer who directs the exhibitions at the Juno Beach Center, a museum to pay tribute to the Canadian contribution during the Second World War.
The delegation led by Minister Petitpas Taylor will travel to the Canadian military cemetery in Bény-sur-Mer on Wednesday to take part in a ceremony during which veterans will be able to pay their respects near the 2049 graves of their fallen comrades.
A statue of the Royal Regina Rifles will also be unveiled at Juno Beach to pay tribute to those who were the first to storm this beach.
On Thursday, Canada will hold a major ceremony at Juno Beach in which Prime Minister Trudeau and numerous dignitaries will take part. This will be followed by the international ceremony at Omaha Beach at which American President Joe Biden announced his presence.
On the eve of the anniversary of D-Day, the villages formerly liberated by the Canadians are decorated with Canadian flags which hang from windows or which are installed in businesses, Ms. Vaillancourt testified on the spot.
Moreover, this liberation was also carried out in French. Throughout the battles, Norman civilians discovered that soldiers spoke their language. In fact, 20 percent of Canadian troops were French-speaking, she noted.
Not only was the Régiment de la Chaudière present from the landing, but other French-Canadian comrades arrived as reinforcements, including those from the Fusiliers Mont-Royal and the Régiment de Maisonneuve.
Ultimately, no less than 90,000 Canadians served voluntarily from the day of the landings until the end of this battle, around August 21.
In the country, a Léger-La Presse Canadienne survey reveals that nearly two-thirds of Canadian respondents (63%) are familiar with this major historical event. The proportion is even lower among Quebecers (49%). People aged 55 are most likely to be familiar with the event (76%).
The survey also found that few Canadians (33%) believe Veterans Affairs Canada is doing enough to honour and commemorate Second World War veterans. Again, the gap is wider in Quebec, where the rate increases to 40%.
As for the idea of joining the Canadian Armed Forces, barely 19% of Canadian respondents and 13% of those from Quebec say they could consider it.
The survey was conducted online from May 31 to June 2 among 1,529 randomly recruited respondents. Results were weighted based on sociodemographic characteristics. It does not indicate a margin of error since the sample is non-probabilistic.