Enduring sacrifices at Juno Beach
BY ROBERT D. ONLEY, SPECIAL TO THE WINDSOR STAR
JUNE 5, 2010
Half-buried in the sand on the Courseulles-sur-mer shore in northern France, a rusting Nazi observation bunker crookedly overlooks the waters that Canadian soldiers braved on D-Day exactly 66 years ago tomorrow.
The history books tell us that the greatest military operation in human history saw some 155,000 Allied soldiers cross the English Channel to land at Normandy, including more than 14,000 young Canadians who would storm ashore on Juno Beach.
I have read many histories of June 6, watched the graphic scenes of the landings in Saving Private Ryan and played first-person shooter video games which simulate D-Day. Together these provided what I thought was a complete picture of the battles that day.
But it is not until I am actually standing here, on Juno Beach, that the true experiences of that day become conceivable. As clear ocean water retreats with the tide around my shoes, my thoughts immediately flash to the Canadian soldiers (most of them younger than me at 23), who took their first -- and in some cases, last -- fateful steps onto this very sand.
Standing here, looking up from the edge of the ocean on Juno Beach, I can see three weather-worn Nazi bunkers within deadly firing range of my position. Hunkered aboard the landing craft as they approached this exact location, Canadian soldiers most certainly saw these same bunkers and knew what horror was soon coming, or what was already on its way. To have exited the landing craft nonetheless, rushing ashore directly into enemy fire, speaks to the sheer bravery of those men.
The deadly obstacles and mines placed by the Nazis are long gone, but relics of the Nazi occupation remain. Enormous concrete bunkers strategically positioned along eight kilometres of the Juno sector are imposing reminders of what our soldiers faced that day. The seventy-five millimetre cannons that once sat atop some of the bunkers have been removed, but their bases persist as immovable emblems of the Nazi era in France.
Walking up the beach from the water, wet sand and seaweed stuck to my shoes, I first notice multiple bullet pockmarks on the Nazi observation bunker in front of me. Canadians fought back here. Canadian men unleashed their weaponry to survive on this very piece of earth. A large chunk of the concrete bunker is blown out below what was the slot for a German MG42 machine gun -- Canadian soldiers undoubtedly had a part in causing that destruction. Whatever exactly happened here at this bunker was incredibly violent and deadly. Time has not, and never can erase the evidence.
The farthest military advance of any the Allied forces on D-Day was achieved by the Canadians, fighting nearly 10 kilometres deep into Nazi-occupied territory. Yet prior to 2003, no museum in France existed to commemorate the Canadian soldiers' contributions. This changed with the opening of the Juno Beach Centre in the French commune of Courseulles-sur-mer, which Canadian and British troops liberated on June 6, 1944.
The Juno Beach Centre is the only Canadian Second World War museum in Normandy, and was developed in the late 1990s by a group of Canadian war veterans who felt that the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the liberation of Europe were not adequately represented in the Normandy region.
Paid for entirely with private donations, the Centre stands a mere 100 metres from one of the Nazi bunkers which once attempted to repel the Canadian liberators.
Some 369 Canadians lost their lives on this beach and in the countryside on D-Day, many not even making it to shore, ensnared by lethal German shoreline traps. June 6 alone saw over 1000 Canadian casualties. The Juno Beach Centre helps maintain the memory of that sacrifice.
While the national hostilities that made the D-Day invasion necessary have since disappeared under the unifying forces of the European Union, the unparalleled sacrifice of a generation of Canadian soldiers at Juno Beach can never be allowed to recede from the Canadian public conscience.
Both of my grandfathers flew in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, both flew on D-Day, and both survived the war. Such a strong familial connection to the war and to D-Day is rare in 2010 and will only grow rarer, necessitating the education of those Canadians who know nothing of the sacrifice wrought during the Second World War.
Three times as many Canadian soldiers lost their lives on that single day in 1944, as have died fighting in Afghanistan over the past nine years. Mere minutes spent on Juno Beach illustrates what Canadians are prepared to sacrifice, whether it is liberating Europe, maintaining peacekeeping missions or helping secure a stable, peaceful Afghanistan. We are not a nation that quits when the battle gets bloody. Canadians soldiers, men and women, rise to the occasion, and win.
Therefore the challenge for Canadians in 2010 must be to ensure that the tremendous courage of that generation is an example engrained in the minds of today's youth and young adults. This includes those students of my generation whose perceptions of war have been distorted by the "unjust" war in Iraq and the ongoing debates over Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
This year saw the passing of Canada's last remaining veteran of the First World War. Thus as the remaining generational linkages to the Second World War start their decline in the coming decades, it is increasingly important that the lessons and history of the world's most violent conflict are taught to generations with no personal attachment to that war.
The selfless sacrifices of the men who fought at Juno Beach on D-Day and throughout the Second World War are a fundamental piece of Canada's identity, and must be preserved, understood and revered by all Canadians for generations to come.
Robert D. Onley is a law student at the University of Windsor and can be followed on his website at robertonley.com
I love history and especially when it is about military operations. I like to see myself in the soldiers´ shoes and imagine what I would do. Last year I was in Argentina, I had this great buenos aires apartment and I was told about the war they had with England for the Falkland Islands. It is amazing and interesting, what would I have done in their place? Something to reflect on...
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