Rememberance

From Saturday, September 14 to Monday, September 16 we travelled along the Belgium and French coastal countryside, in search of Canadian war memorials. We found most of what we were looking for, but for me this was a very emotional, heart wrenching journey. I was sickened by the loss of life of soldiers and civilians, imaging the horror, pain, starvation, pain and death that had taken place in what is now such a traquail piece of the world. Somehow, visiting the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge helped settle me, from what was truely two very mentally painful days.

Dunkurke is all but a forgotten place, as we quickly learned that any place of defeat had little recognition of the sacrifices made by soldiers and civilians. We did visit a small but enlightening museum tucked away under a road.

Dieppe is a beautiful place with it's steep rocky shore line. Many Canadian soldies were slaughtered here. 

Caen - Juno Beach. Thousands of Canadians died here in the D-Day invasion. In addition to the 30,000 citizens who had remained in Caen, 17,000 were killed or wounded during this invasion.

Vimy has Canada's most majestic war memorial. We went there in the early morning. The air was cool and crisp, the surroundings peaceful.

Graves along the way.

Passchendale