Columnist Brian Jones is right in one comment he made in his Nov. 10 column, “The dead deserve more than platitudes.”
The First World War was a colossal mistake, or rather a huge series of colossal mistakes. None of the perpetrators of that war achieved any of their objectives. The boys from the farms and seaports learned that their romantic images were wrong. So did the politicians and generals.
Otherwise, Brian Jones is very wrong. Canada had to fight the Second World War. Canada, and Newfoundland, were in the war on Sept. 3, 1939, when the Athenia was sunk off the coast of Ireland. Two young girls known to me lost their parents that day. For Atlantic Canada and Newfoundland, the Second World War could be said to have ended on April 16, 1945, when HMCS Esquimalt was torpedoed outside Halifax by U190. The submarine surrendered to the Royal Canadian Navy on May 12 and was escorted to Bay Bulls.
Newfoundland celebrates Beaumont Hamel and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, but there is nothing to mark and commemorate the fact that the Canadian Navy fought the Second World War within sight of Cabot Tower.
I grew up during the Second World War, too young to serve. I did, however, join the Navy at age 18, and have had nearly 30 years of service in the Canadian Forces. My father was a veteran of the First World War, a Canadian who was transferred to the British Army and was in Palestine when Jerusalem was surrendered by the Turks.
I have no regrets for my military service, but I have been blessed; I have never seen a gun fired in anger. A classmate of mine is buried in Korea. I would comment that he was one of those who made the “supreme sacrifice.”
The dead deserve more than platitudes. They also deserve respect from Brian Jones.
Ian S. Wishart
St. John’s
