Our platoon of intrepid Canadian educators has now reached the halfway point of the 2015 Flemer battlefield tour to the Netherlands and the experiences and learning are continuing unabated... The sacred spaces of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission graveyards are undoubtedly some of the most memorable places that we are visiting during our tour... On Sunday, our three vans carrying 24 grateful Canadians pushed into Germany to spend some time with the more than 7,400 fallen heroes who are interred in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery. Over 700 of these brave men were members of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
We silently walked the seemingly endess rows of neat white headstones in the sprawling cemetery, often taking an extra moment to visit the RCAF lads. We participants soon gathered to hear a touching presentation by Saskatchewan teacher Larry Mikulcik about a young man from his area who had answered the call to serve during the Second World War. Pilot Officer Matthew Dorrell was a mid-upper gunner on a Lancaster bomber that went down over Germany in November 1944. While some of the crew were killed in the crash, some had managed to bail out but were soon captured - including the 21 year old Dorrell. Tragically, these airmen would be murdered by an angry mob while in German custody a few days later. You could have heard a pin drop as Larry spoke movingly of this young life cut short before sprinkling some soil from his Saskatchewan home around the base of Dorrell's grave and snapping a sharp salute as he stood tall in his Royal Canadian Legion uniform. Our day also included learning more about the challenging subject of the Allied bombing campaign during the Second World War. Our impressive cadre of tour leaders walked us through some of the extremely tough choices faced by the Allies in opening a "second front" in the skies over Germany and occupied Europe after the fall of much of Western Europe in the spring of 1940. The confluence of thoughts about military necessity, humanitarian considerations and the ethos of "total war" saw participants wrestling with what they would have been willing to do to help the Allies to victory in the Second World War if they had been our country's leaders... One truth that I think shone through for us all after visiting Reichswald Forest War Cemetery was the sheer courage and devotion of the airmen of Bomber Command who took to the skies night after night in the face of great danger to do the tough job that they had been given. More than 10,000 brave Canadians gave their lives in this effort to help defeat an enemy that had to be beaten and restore peace during the Second World War. As our little group reverently intoned in response to Larry's reading of the "Committment to Remember" at the end of his presentation about Matthew Dorrell... "We will remember them." Alan Banman Veterans Affairs Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
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AuthorsParticipating educators and high school students share reflections on their professional and personal experiences during and after the program. Some posts link to the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society's blog, Studeamus bellum causa pacis. Archives
August 2015
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