It's Remembrance Day again. In some past years I've made posts about my father's service during WWII (2001, 2003 repost, 2005 repost, 2008) and at other times I've written about some of the horrors my mother and father survived during WWII. And one year I had a few things to say about why it's important to remember war. Let me reiterate and expand on those thoughts:
It's Remembrance Day again. In some past years I've made posts about my father's service during WWII (2001, 2003 repost, 2005 repost, 2008) and at other times I've written about some of the horrors my mother and father survived during WWII.
Most Vancouverites are aware of the two "bunkers" at Tower Beach and the "Siwash Bunker" in Stanley Park. The Siwash bunker is a WW I relic, originally housing a 4" gun, and as such can be properly referred to as a "bunker." The towers at Tower Beach, however, built for WW II, never were gun emplacements and were never manned, and as such are not really "bunkers" at all. More on that after the cut.
For most people I know my age and younger it is their grandparents or even great-grandparents that were involved in WWII. Unlike today it was very unusual around the time of my birth for people in their late 30's or early 40's to be having children but that's precisely what my parents did. For that reason I'm only one generation removed from what is still referred to at "the war." It's not the distant past for me. It's my parents. My father fought in North Africa in Italy. My mother lived in Belgium during the German occupation.
My mother sent me an e-mail of stories and pictures from a website detailing the V-bomb attacks on Antwerp late in World War II.
Imagine this: you are a fourteen year-old girl. It's a couple weeks before Christmas and all your friends want to go to town to see the new movie. They want you to come too. You say you can't afford it and want to save the money for Christmas. They plead with you and try to get you to come along and won't take "no" for an answer. You have a hard time convincing them (and yourself) that you don't want to come, but eventually they give up trying to drag you along and go without you.
The cinema gets hit by a bomb and all your friends die.
That's one of my mother's stories. This is the cinema:
For most people I know my age and younger it is their grandparents or even great-grandparents that were involved in WWII. Unlike today it was very unusual around the time of my birth for people in their late 30's or early 40's to be having children but that's precisely what my parents did. For that reason I'm only one generation removed from what is still referred to at "the war." It's not the distant past for me. It's my parents. My father fought in North Africa in Italy. My mother lived in Belgium during the German occupation.
My mother sent me an e-mail of stories and pictures from a website detailing the V-bomb attacks on Antwerp late in World War II.