Editor's note: Today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the day Allied Forces began their inland efforts to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany. There is a ceremony to mark the occasion at 1 p.m. at the cenotaph at Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital.
Two towers pierce the skies over Lincoln, a city in the northeast of England.
One is the centuries-old cathedral, whose spire proclaims the promise of a heavenly salvation, the other, situated on a hill opposite, is a more recent addition.
It is a spear of stark red metal dedicated to the heroes of RAF Bomber Command whose fight brought the Allies a temporal redemption in the Second World War from the scourge of fascism.
Dotted throughout the Lincolnshire countryside, now long abandoned, was the largest number of military airfields manned by British and commonwealth airmen responsible for bringing freedom back to a continent ravaged by a six-year-long war.
Inscribed on the walls of the memorial are the names of over 55,000 who gave their lives in that struggle. Numbered among them are 10,000 Canadians.
A full one-half of those who served in Bomber Command did not live to return to their homes and families.
Among those similarly honoured are the veterans who survived their service, and one was my late father-in-law Allan Godfrey Maxwell.
A Toronto native whose family had relocated from New Brunswick after immigrating to Canada from Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands that was the only territory of the British Isles occupied by the Nazis during the war.
At 23 years of age, young Allan served in the RCAF as an air gunner on a Lancaster long-range bomber stationed at RAF Kelstern.
On this 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings let me recall his story.
Accustomed as his aircrew was to 10 to 12 hour, round-trip missions over occupied Europe and the German heartland, this day’s briefing on June 5 for the following night June 6 was highly unusual.
They were assigned to bomb an area of crossroads, armour hubs and supply depots a mere 30 miles inland from the French coast in Normandy.
His mission that fateful day is described in the opening passages of Cornelius Ryan’s epic novel The Longest Day.
Little did Allan Maxwell realize at the time that the events of that day would culminate on May 8 of the following year with the end of the European war following the unconditional surrender of Nazis forces.
Describing his wartime experience, Allan told me, “We fought to liberate Europe, and we saved Canada.”
No leaflets were dropped nor warnings given to non-combatants.
Sadly in Sainte-Mère-Église, only one of hundreds of small villages targeted, 18 French civilians were killed by Allied operations that day along with hundreds of Nazi soldiers. A few thousand on our side lost their lives.
Many more civilians would die as the Allies ground and air offensive drove the Germans out of France after five years of their brutal oppression.
It would be 67 years before Bomber Command’s contribution to the war effort would be recognized. The unveiling of the Green Park memorial in London in 2012 was shamefully long overdue.
A nation, now at peace, showed callous ambivalence to the sacrifice and service of our finest.
Due to the large number of civilian deaths, among them women and children, it was easier to forget that the Nazis had embedded legitimate military targets in cities and towns.
The necessary targeting of military production factories was often accompanied with significant losses in life to some of the millions of slave and forced labourers coerced by the Nazi enemy.
Allied POWs were also tragically killed by some air raids.
As Germany was now a post-war ally, it was uncomfortable to acknowledge that these very civilians had either actually abetted or vehemently supported the Nazi terror regime in its subjugation of European nations and Russia and its war crimes against humanity.
Eighty years on, some continue to distort their legacy and, furthermore, the current lack of moral clarity now equates the acts of similar perpetrators to those of their defenceless victims in contemporary conflicts.
Today, the motto of the 625 squadron rings as true as ever: “We avenge.”
They brought justice to the Nazis for the terror inflicted by them on the innocents in England and throughout Europe.
The fallen of that longest day June 6 1944 lie in vast cemeteries not far from the beaches of Normandy where they fell.
“We did our duty, proudly and with honour,” Allan would later say.
Yes, and for that we, all Canadians, are eternally grateful.
Arlen Reinstein is a resident of Victoria Harbour having moved to the area from Toronto. The Maxwell family are lifelong supporters of the Royal Canadian Legion. "We are fiercely proud of this country’s illustrious military history and honour our veterans."
