Brockville – The Royal Canadian Legion Branch #96 in Brockville held an 80th Anniversary D-Day Commemoration last Thursday, June 6th at the Legion.
A large crowd came out including legion members, veterans, members of the public and dignitaries for the commemoration.
Video News Story Below:
The D-Day ceremony included the Last Post, a reading of In Flanders Fields, a Scripture reading, and the singing of O Canada and God Save the King.
It was 80 years ago on June 6, 1944, Allied Forces invaded Western Europe along an 80-kilometre front in Normandy, France, known as D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, the largest seaborne assault in history was conducted to liberate France and the rest of occupied Europe from the grips of Nazi Germany.
During Thursday’s ceremony two senior veterans of the Second World War, Charlie Stickney, 100 years old who served in the Royal Canadian Navy, and 100-year-old Edith MacFarlane, who was in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps were honoured. The two veterans laid a wreath in honour of those killed during the war.
Stickney and MacFarlane were joined by Korean War Vet, John Griffiths and Hubert McNamee, who served in the Canadian Army and Merchant Marine. They were all honoured with quilts from Marilyn Lockyer representing the Quilts of Valour Canada, which provides quilts to often injured Canadian Armed Forces members, past and present.
In the D-Day landings, 14,000 Canadians participated as part of the nearly 150,000 Allied troops who landed or parachuted into the invasion area along the Normandy coast.
They assaulted a beachfront code-named “Juno”, while Canadian paratroopers landed just east of the assault beaches. Although the Allies encountered German defences bristling with artillery, machine guns, mines, and booby traps, the invasion was a success.
Total Allied casualties on D-Day reached more than 10,000, including 1,096 Canadian casualties, of which 381 were killed in action (340 soldiers, 19 paratroopers, 22 airmen).
The full ceremony can be found here: https://hometowntv12.ca/2024/06/07/video-brockville-legions-80th-anniversary-d-day-commemoration-held-on-june-6th/
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