With each passing Remembrance Day there are fewer Second World War veterans around to share their memories of courage, sacrifice and survival. A recent Star movie review suggested that “filmmakers may finally be running out of screen-worthy stories to tell from the conflict.” Last year the Fox held a special showing of The Great Escape […]
Tag: WWII
Danforth Tech celebrates 90 years
For most of us, just one real letter in the mail is a red-letter day. But a trio of Danforth Tech alumni (the school became Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute in the 1980s) get to read dozens of letters and postcards every Wednesday afternoon. Most are thank-you’s for things like socks, cigarettes or copies of […]
Malvern grad returns to share Afghanistan experience
A piece of Kandahar, Afghanistan is now among the memorials at Malvern Collegiate honouring Canadian soldiers. It is a shard of rock that Major Rebecca Evans, a Malvern grad, kept from the base of a cenotaph that stood at Kandahar Airfield. “To you it may look like an insignificant rock,” she told Malvern students on […]
Malvern’s ‘Big Book’ remembers school’s vets
Malvern’s Second World War memorial isn’t a statue, it’s a pair of books. “Adams, D.” It’s the first name you encounter on opening the ‘Big Book’ and it’s just about the only thing you will learn about him, if you are lucky enough to see it in the archives of the Malvern Red & Black […]
Veterans’ stories mix tragedy, comedy and history
Going around the table in the Royal Canadian Legion on Dawes Road, five veterans of the Second World War and UN missions to the Middle East agree – children are the best talkers. “They can come up with some of the damndest questions you ever heard,” says Myer Goobie, 92, noting that five- to seven-year-olds […]
Malvern history celebrated as reunion nears
History has found one of the men of Malvern Collegiate again, just a couple months before the school celebrates its 110th anniversary. His name was Sgt. Morris Murray and he was killed on June 6, 1944, which is why his story was last told by this writer when a Malvern Grade 10 class travelled to […]
Vet shares history with local youth
“There aren’t too many of us around,” said 88-year-old Second World War veteran Joe Gagne when asked about his visits to local schools. “I used to go with other guys, but they’re gone.” Gagne is indeed one of the few Second World War veterans who are still active in their community and participates in Royal […]
