| When you flip through the two photo sections of Ted Barris’s new book about Canadians at D-Day, the most striking aspect of these men in uniform is their age.
They’re so incredibly young, like high school students in costume for a theatrical production about the military.
There’s Tony Burns, an operating room assistant who tended to severe head wounds. Don Barnard, a rifleman killed on D-Day alongside his brother Fred, who survived. And signals master Bob Cameron, grinning boyishly at the camera, who survived an assault of German mortars by jumping into a slit trench with a Toronto war correspondent.
If any of those faces turned up in a Calgary bar these days, they’d have to show ID, no question.
"I talk to a lot of young people," says Barris, in Calgary to publicize the book Juno: Canadians at D-Day, June 6, 1944, published by Thomas Allen. "Like any generation, anything that happened before they were born is ancient history. Also, we’re still teaching young people about Canadian history using facts and figures and dates and blah blah blah, and it’s faceless. It’s heartless."
In a typical school visit, Barris projects those images onto a screen – images of soldiers, sailors and airmen 17 or 18 years old, maybe 21 or 22. Though many were older, they were still young adults by any definition. "And then they realize that the people who made those life-and-death decisions are not old, wizened, grey, stooped men and women – they were young people, the same as they are," says Barris. "When they realize that, it’s like a truck hitting them."
Barris has certainly done far more than rehash dates and figures. His collected stories are deftly combined to present a cohesive, riveting picture of the Normandy invasion that ultimately, combined with the Soviet advance from the east, led to victory.
D-Day, of course, was the Allies’ most crucial operation of the entire Second World War. The Germans under Adolf Hitler had occupied most of Europe since 1940. American, British and Canadian troops had been training in Britain for years in preparation for a mass invasion of France, and the plan in the spring of 1944 called for a June 5 landing. Then bad weather forced a postponement until June 6.
The Normandy coast was strategically divided into beaches given code names. The Canadians’ target was Juno Beach. At dawn on D-Day, the first of nearly 15,000 Canadians splashed onto the rocks and sand and came under fire from the defending Germans. Others parachuted into enemy territory.
Anti-tank gunner Frank Godon, 17, a Métis from Manitoba, jumped from his landing craft. In chin-deep water he waded onto the French shore, then zigzagged to dodge the enemy bullets.
"The Germans had been waiting for us for years," Godon said.
In time for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Barris helps us live those events through the participants’ eyes. In many cases, the survivors have told the author or other journalists more than they ever told their wives and children.
"The vets have had this fear of breaking down in front of their families, should they be asked to tell the story," says Barris. "That’s one of the pivotal points of being able to tell this kind of history, the vets getting over that fear."
Capt. Don James never did. During the invasion, he took a bullet in the neck, which probably saved his life. He was pushed onto a cart with German wounded, while about 20 other prisoners from the Royal Winnipeg Rifles were coldly executed by SS troops. James’s daughters didn’t learn about their father’s Normandy experiences until they discovered a newspaper interview he gave in 1994.
"It was only because the daughters came across the transcript of the interview that they realized how close their father had come to death," says Barris. "He never told them what had happened."
Such stories have a personal connection for the author, whose father – renowned writer-broadcaster Alex Barris – was a medic in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. The senior Barris won a medal for heroism after saving a number of GIs from likely death, but Ted didn’t know that until after his father was felled by a fatal stroke in 2003. The book’s dedication is to Alex Barris, "who’s written a million words in recognition of others, but who never spoke a word about his service . . . when his ‘unselfish devotion to duty’ earned him the Bronze Star."
In its 311 pages, Juno recounts acts of heroism, instances of good and bad luck, and spells of nerve-wracking boredom. Through it all, it becomes clear that these Canadians had little time or inclination to reflect on being part of history. They simply had a job to do, and they intended to get on with it.
"A number of people have told me they really enjoyed the way the book was structured because it reads like a good novel," Barris says. "I’ve never written fiction in my life, so I haven’t any idea what that would be like, but I think it’s a nice compliment." |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.