http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?...846d9cf2&page=1
Canadians remember VE-Day
Brought joy and sorrow to families waiting for soliders' return
Michelle Macafee
Canadian Press
Sunday, April 24, 2005
<Eva Mackay smiles as in her living room, in Winnipeg, April 8, 2005, as she holds a photograph of her first husband, Gordon Ross Wright that was taken of him when he was 29 years old in 1940. (CP/Marianne Helm) >
In the early spring of 1945, with confidence mounting that victory in Europe would soon be at hand, Pte. Edgar Hallen's letters home were a lifeline to his fearful family back on the farm in Neepawa, Man.
The 21-year-old soldier with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was part of the Allies' push into Germany, but he still found time to dutifully treat his parents and each of his nine siblings to their own correspondence during almost a year on the front.
Sixty years later, on the eve of the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, his brother Dick Hallen still remembers the optimism of his last dispatch.
"He said the war was over and he was looking forward to getting back," Hallen, 77, said in an interview from his home in Neepawa.
"And of course we were looking forward to getting him back so we figured, 'Well, that's settled.' "
But as elated Canadians from coast to coast marked the Allied victory in Europe on May 7 with spontaneous parades, church services and raucous parties, what Hallen didn't yet know was that his beloved big brother had become one of the last casualties of a war that had dragged on for 5 1/2 years and claimed the lives of more than 42,000 Canadian forces.
The telegram notifying the family of Hallen's death on May 7 did not arrive until several days after the jubilant VE-Day celebrations. He died on the ground just a few weeks after taking part in the last major airborne operation of the war - the crossing of the Rhine, Germany's historic river barrier.
"It was so disheartening that it was the last day, even more painful in a way," said Hallen.
The Hallen family's anxiety, hopes and prayers on the homefront during the final few months of the bloodiest war in history were echoed in similar fashion in small towns and big cities across the country.
Eva Mackay of Winnipeg still remembers her already heavy heart sinking further with every newspaper update of the dead and missing.
"You felt it every time you saw the list and realized, 'Oh, there's a boy I went to school with,' " said Mackay, who worked as a nurse while her beau, flying officer Ross Wright, flew with the 422 Squadron in the North Atlantic.
For three weeks in early 1944, Wright was also on the list of presumed dead. "It was shocking," said Mackay. "It was always a fear he may not come home."
But then she got a letter from a British hospital telling her Wright was OK. He returned home in February 1945, proposed that night and the couple was married in April.
Like many women keeping the homefires burning, Mackay kept busy while Wright was away. She prepared care packages of cigarettes, pork chops preserved in lard and some of the many socks, scarves and tuques she "knit until they were coming out of my ears."
Rationing of butter and sugar often forced some culinary creativity, but seemed to affect rural areas more than the cities.
It was anxious times but it was wonderful to think the war might be over," said Mackay, now a twice-widowed 90-year-old still living in her own apartment.
On the Prairie, war developments were followed through scratchy radio reports, newspaper articles and personal letters often "censored like a venetian blind."
Others got a closer look, however, as German U-boats lurked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, blowing up Canadian vessels and killing hundreds.
Quebecers retrieved dead sailors who had washed ashore, while Maritimers routinely saw torpedoed ships glowing in the distance.
A possible invasion by Germany or Japan, or both, was never far from many people's minds.
Christine Graham, whose husband Alex of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders had been in a prison camp since the 1942 Dieppe raid, remembers being torn in the spring of 1945 between optimism and distrust that the news Canadians were getting on home front - that the Allies were advancing fast - was right.
"I never felt things were going to collapse," said Graham, 90, of Winnipeg.
"I was just frightened something would happen before he got home. I knew I wouldn't be able to relax until I saw him."
Their reunion, like countless others, took place at the train station, several weeks after VE-Day. Graham had been recovering in a British hospital from malnutrition after his three-month march out of the prison camp.
Opinion polling from mid-1944 onward indicated most Canadians believed the tide had turned and Germany would soon be defeated.
By April 1945, it was clear from magazine ads that the country was already looking beyond victory. "You can get post-war mileage from the BF Goodrich Tires you buy today," promised one ad.
But there were also articles warning that "some homecoming difficulties" would need smoothing over on both a practical and emotional level.
Many Canadians feared a repeat of the post-First World War economic downturn that caught the country off guard, says University of Ottawa historian Jeffrey Keshen.
This time around, taxes were higher, there was rationing, more than half the country's gross national product went to war production and approximately half a million vets would soon need to find jobs and reconnect with wives and children.
"In the closing days of the war there was euphoria, no doubt, and anticipation," said Keshen, author of Saints, Sinners and Soldiers: Canada's Second World War.
"But there was also a real undercurrent of anxiety of what the future would bring at an economic and personal level."
Mackay agrees there was a period of social adjustment in post-war Canada, but doesn't remember it being on anyone's mind in those final months and weeks before VE-Day.
As newlyweds, Mackay and Wright found themselves caught up in the celebrations in downtown Winnipeg on May 7 and focused on their peacetime future.
"There were so many people on Portage Avenue you could hardly breathe," said Mackay.
"There were parades of every kind, everyone was cheering and the flags were waving.
"Everyone was just so happy it was all over."
-
Fully 10 per cent of Canada's population, which in 1939 was about 11 million, enlisted to serve in the Second World War. The price of victory was high:
Number of Canadians who served: 1.1 million.
Number killed: 42,042, of which approximately 23,000 were in the army, 17,000 in the air force, 2,000 in the navy. Another 1,600 in the merchant navy, then considered civilians, were killed, and over 700 Newfoundlanders also died. Many of these soldiers are buried in Canadian war cemeteries around the world.
Number wounded: 54,414. Thousands of others were physically impaired or psychologically scarred for life.
Prisoners of war: 9,036.
Canadian War Museum.
Canadians remember VE-Day
Brought joy and sorrow to families waiting for soliders' return
Michelle Macafee
Canadian Press
Sunday, April 24, 2005
<Eva Mackay smiles as in her living room, in Winnipeg, April 8, 2005, as she holds a photograph of her first husband, Gordon Ross Wright that was taken of him when he was 29 years old in 1940. (CP/Marianne Helm) >
In the early spring of 1945, with confidence mounting that victory in Europe would soon be at hand, Pte. Edgar Hallen's letters home were a lifeline to his fearful family back on the farm in Neepawa, Man.
The 21-year-old soldier with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was part of the Allies' push into Germany, but he still found time to dutifully treat his parents and each of his nine siblings to their own correspondence during almost a year on the front.
Sixty years later, on the eve of the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, his brother Dick Hallen still remembers the optimism of his last dispatch.
"He said the war was over and he was looking forward to getting back," Hallen, 77, said in an interview from his home in Neepawa.
"And of course we were looking forward to getting him back so we figured, 'Well, that's settled.' "
But as elated Canadians from coast to coast marked the Allied victory in Europe on May 7 with spontaneous parades, church services and raucous parties, what Hallen didn't yet know was that his beloved big brother had become one of the last casualties of a war that had dragged on for 5 1/2 years and claimed the lives of more than 42,000 Canadian forces.
The telegram notifying the family of Hallen's death on May 7 did not arrive until several days after the jubilant VE-Day celebrations. He died on the ground just a few weeks after taking part in the last major airborne operation of the war - the crossing of the Rhine, Germany's historic river barrier.
"It was so disheartening that it was the last day, even more painful in a way," said Hallen.
The Hallen family's anxiety, hopes and prayers on the homefront during the final few months of the bloodiest war in history were echoed in similar fashion in small towns and big cities across the country.
Eva Mackay of Winnipeg still remembers her already heavy heart sinking further with every newspaper update of the dead and missing.
"You felt it every time you saw the list and realized, 'Oh, there's a boy I went to school with,' " said Mackay, who worked as a nurse while her beau, flying officer Ross Wright, flew with the 422 Squadron in the North Atlantic.
For three weeks in early 1944, Wright was also on the list of presumed dead. "It was shocking," said Mackay. "It was always a fear he may not come home."
But then she got a letter from a British hospital telling her Wright was OK. He returned home in February 1945, proposed that night and the couple was married in April.
Like many women keeping the homefires burning, Mackay kept busy while Wright was away. She prepared care packages of cigarettes, pork chops preserved in lard and some of the many socks, scarves and tuques she "knit until they were coming out of my ears."
Rationing of butter and sugar often forced some culinary creativity, but seemed to affect rural areas more than the cities.
It was anxious times but it was wonderful to think the war might be over," said Mackay, now a twice-widowed 90-year-old still living in her own apartment.
On the Prairie, war developments were followed through scratchy radio reports, newspaper articles and personal letters often "censored like a venetian blind."
Others got a closer look, however, as German U-boats lurked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, blowing up Canadian vessels and killing hundreds.
Quebecers retrieved dead sailors who had washed ashore, while Maritimers routinely saw torpedoed ships glowing in the distance.
A possible invasion by Germany or Japan, or both, was never far from many people's minds.
Christine Graham, whose husband Alex of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders had been in a prison camp since the 1942 Dieppe raid, remembers being torn in the spring of 1945 between optimism and distrust that the news Canadians were getting on home front - that the Allies were advancing fast - was right.
"I never felt things were going to collapse," said Graham, 90, of Winnipeg.
"I was just frightened something would happen before he got home. I knew I wouldn't be able to relax until I saw him."
Their reunion, like countless others, took place at the train station, several weeks after VE-Day. Graham had been recovering in a British hospital from malnutrition after his three-month march out of the prison camp.
Opinion polling from mid-1944 onward indicated most Canadians believed the tide had turned and Germany would soon be defeated.
By April 1945, it was clear from magazine ads that the country was already looking beyond victory. "You can get post-war mileage from the BF Goodrich Tires you buy today," promised one ad.
But there were also articles warning that "some homecoming difficulties" would need smoothing over on both a practical and emotional level.
Many Canadians feared a repeat of the post-First World War economic downturn that caught the country off guard, says University of Ottawa historian Jeffrey Keshen.
This time around, taxes were higher, there was rationing, more than half the country's gross national product went to war production and approximately half a million vets would soon need to find jobs and reconnect with wives and children.
"In the closing days of the war there was euphoria, no doubt, and anticipation," said Keshen, author of Saints, Sinners and Soldiers: Canada's Second World War.
"But there was also a real undercurrent of anxiety of what the future would bring at an economic and personal level."
Mackay agrees there was a period of social adjustment in post-war Canada, but doesn't remember it being on anyone's mind in those final months and weeks before VE-Day.
As newlyweds, Mackay and Wright found themselves caught up in the celebrations in downtown Winnipeg on May 7 and focused on their peacetime future.
"There were so many people on Portage Avenue you could hardly breathe," said Mackay.
"There were parades of every kind, everyone was cheering and the flags were waving.
"Everyone was just so happy it was all over."
-
Fully 10 per cent of Canada's population, which in 1939 was about 11 million, enlisted to serve in the Second World War. The price of victory was high:
Number of Canadians who served: 1.1 million.
Number killed: 42,042, of which approximately 23,000 were in the army, 17,000 in the air force, 2,000 in the navy. Another 1,600 in the merchant navy, then considered civilians, were killed, and over 700 Newfoundlanders also died. Many of these soldiers are buried in Canadian war cemeteries around the world.
Number wounded: 54,414. Thousands of others were physically impaired or psychologically scarred for life.
Prisoners of war: 9,036.
Canadian War Museum.
