Editorial - August 25, 2010

Remembering brings thanks

by Andy Comber

I felt very fortunate to be able to attend the unveiling and dedication ceremony of the new Dieppe monument on Thursday.

The monument is identical to the one that was dedicated in Dieppe, France in 2006. Both honour the sacrifices of the ill-fated Dieppe raid on Aug. 19, 1942.

Local men of the Essex Scottish Regiment were among the 4,963 Canadians who took part in the raid, code named Operation Jubilee. Only 2,200 Canadians returned to England and 907 paid the ultimate price for freedom. Many of those wounded and captured were of the Essex Scottish. One hundred and twenty-one members of that local regiment gave their lives.

Following the ceremony, I extended my hand to Dieppe veteran Maurice Snook, the first in a line of surviving Dieppe veterans assembled for the occasion. I had met Snook and another local Dieppe vet, Howard Large, earlier this year. Both men are in their 90s, but they were young men when they were captured, spending three years as prisoners of war.

Smiling broadly, Snook extended his own hand to mine, and before a single word of gratitude could leave my lips, he said, "Thank you."

Of course, I told Snook it was my place to thank him. But almost immediately after our hands clasped, I understood the reason for his thank you. He was thanking me, not so much for being there, but for remembering.

I was born more than 11 years after the Dieppe raid. And on these occasions of remembrance, I wonder what kind of world I would have been born into had so many Allied men and women not made the sacrifices they did on the home front and in the battlefield.

Today, the state of the world troubles me. I cannot begin to imagine how troubled people were in the dark days of World War Two, or to be in the midst of any conflict.

Researching the archives of the Essex Free Press for my story on the Dieppe monument, I was astonished at the small amount of official news that reached the soldiers' families back home.

As a parent of young adults, I tried but could not begin to understand the anguish these families faced waiting, praying and hoping for good news. Many experienced the worst pain, their hands trembling as they opened a cablegram finding disturbing news that their loved one had been wounded, captured, or worse, killed.

Even though an ocean separated these places, Essex and Dieppe, I am sure terrible rumours, some all too true, had preceded the telegrams and letters. Bad news does not come in any acceptable form.

Today, we enjoy so many freedoms.

It is important that we remember the sacrifices of so many people. Some gave up their youth, their health, to defend freedom. Some gave it their all life.