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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
REMEMBRANCE DAY SHOULD BE MUCH MORE THAN A DAY
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
As the month of November once again comes with its cold winds, rainy skies and dark nights we are once again called to the often painful but absolutely necessary task, of remembering those who served in all of our military forces.As Remembrance Day programs distantly sounded the mournful trumpet sounds of Last Post we dipped into Peter Stanojevic’s bitter sweet look at the students who fought and died in World War II from the Chatham’s Vocational School. We continue on this trek this week.
Raymond Wood Hughes was born ( December 9th, 1918) on a farm in Kent Bridge and was one of eight children. Of those eight children, three sons joined the RCAF while two daughters served in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. He attended Knox Presbyterian Church in Kent Bridge and a one room school house ( U.S.S. # 8) serving Chatham and Camden Townships. After completing his farm chores, Raymond played a little hockey on the nearby Thames River and a few games of baseball when enough of the local boys could get together. After studying electricity and mathematics at CVS ( 1936-37) he trained with the Kent Regiment for a month ( October 1940) and then reported to the RCAF recruiting office in London on June 25th, 1941. He enrolled at the basic gunner school at Fingal, Ontario and with a mark of 82% graduated as a Air Gunner. It was a position that was long on action but, due to its vulnerable position, often short on duration. On September 10th, 1942 after a number of successful missions, fate reached out its hand and the Lancaster bomber that he was tail gunner on was hit by a deadly burst of heavy flak and the plane blew up in the air and was tossed to the winds in a thousand pieces. Sgt. Hughes was buried by the Germans on the 14th of September in Flushing ( in the province of Zeeland on the south coast of Walcheren Island in the Schelde estuary). He was 24 years of age.
Ray Belanger was born on August 31st, 1926 and was a lad full of adventure, excess energy and a desire to “get involved”. When the winds of war drifted over North America, Ray and many others like him couldn’t wait to get involved. Living at 136 Queen Street he attended Queen Mary Public School just down the road. Always pursuing things that would take him out of doors, Ray excelled at swimming, baseball and rugby. At 17 years of age Ray presented himself to the Navy ( March 21st, 1944) for a medical examination. Eight days later he was sworn into the Royal Canadian Navy and assigned to Nova Scotia as a stoker, second class.
Returning from leave in Digby to his ship the HMCS Cornwallis, Ray fell overboard in the Annapolis Basin at 11:58 P.M. The next day although his body was never found his parents were notified that their 28 year old son was “missing and presumed drowned”. Not all casualties were at the hand of the enemy; however, the degree of loss was not in any way diminished.
John and Mildred Towart lived at 361 St. Clair Street and had two sons. One was named Jack while the other was George. Both attended nearby McKeough Public School and Jack attended CVS for one year. When George enlisted in Chatham he said that his age was 18 however later information would suggest that he was rather a lad of only fifteen anxious to escape his youth and see the world. George trained with the Kents until January of 1943 when he and six others who had volunteered for overseas service were posted with the Royal Canadian Regiment in Britain. Here he received rigorous Commando training which seemed to suit his youthful, rambunctious nature. In June 1943 George was part of the invasion of Sicily and from what we know now was only eighteen years old. He was probably the youngest Canadian soldier to see action in that battle. Somewhere and somehow during the Canadian advance up through the center of Sicily, George was killed in action. After the fighting subsided, 490 Canadian soldiers, including George Towart were placed in what was to later become known as the Agira Canadian War Cemetery. Although only eighteen when he was killed, George had already spent three years as a soldier.
To me the real attraction of Peter Stanojevik’s book or to the oral accounts given by someone like local war veteran sleuth Jerry Hind is the personal picture they paint of these lost veterans. They are not cardboard cut out figures fighting in far away lands in a uniform that makes them the same as all nameless, faceless cannon fodder.
Stanojevic, Hind and other war historians of the same ilk allow me to get to know these lost warriors, care for them and, for a few precious moments, share in their way too short tragic lives. I can see them in my mind’s eye, I can, if I listen closely enough, hear their youthful exuberance, share their passion and sense of “doing the right thing”. They become more than a name or a blurred face. I feel their loss as much as I do when I hear of a local young man or woman being killed in to-day’s conflicts.
IT is so important to remember and not only in November each year that there were so many men and women in so many different conflicts that freely offered their lives for the defense of Canada and what they believed in. They are not nameless names and faces but real human beings like you or I and deserve to paid due respect on not only one day or one month but every day.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
