Remembrance

Tuesday’s issue of the Cowichan Valley Citizen marked the 25th year that I’ve written the Remembrance Day edition for this Duncan newspaper—a quarter-century-long labour of love.

For next week’s Chronicles, it’s a visit to the CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum, in photos. This amazing place, even though situated within Esquimalt naval base, is open to the public, seven days a week, 10:00 to 3: 30 except on statutory holidays, at the cost of a donation.

Canada’s naval contribution in World War Two, for anyone who has to be reminded, is that we went from a handful of secondhand destroyers to having the world’s third largest navy in just six years! Very few of those who served were career naval officers and ratings; rather, they were office workers, field hands, college students—former civilians who volunteered to serve King and Country at a time of national crisis, despite having little or no previous seagoing experience.

Think of it: from office, factory floor or wheat field to the deck or the engine room of a heaving corvette or destroyer in the middle of the stormy North Atlantic in a matter of a few months! And they served well, as the records show, although at great cost to ships and seamen.

The Esquimalt Museum also honours the Canadian Merchant Marine, those civilian heroes who sailed unarmed ships to deliver vital arms, food and fuel to a beleaguered Great Britain.

Make no mistake: remembering the 10s of 1000s of men and women who served during the World Wars, Korea and with United Nations peacekeeping missions doesn’t glorify war, it’s expressing a debt of gratitude.

That’s next week in the Chronicles. Lest we forget.

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PHOTO: One of the life-like displays that capture what it was really like on, in tise case, a small naval ship during the Second World War.