Remembrance Day – Every Day!

Menin Gate, Ypres (Ieper) Belgium
Photo copyright Melanie Wills

We take a few minutes every November 11 to be mindful of and thank those who endured and sacrificed so much during the wars.  But every evening the people of Ypres (Ieper) commemorate those who died in the liberation of Belgium during the Great War of 1914-1918. In a city lovingly rebuilt from rubble to resemble its former medieval splendour, a ceremony is held at the Menin Gate, where 55,000 names of those Allied troops who have no known grave are inscribed. Nearly 7000 of them are Canadians. Aside from a few years during WW2, this moving homage has been taking place every day since 1928! It includes the playing of The Last Post, which you can see in this YouTube video. If you have 8 minutes, watch this lovely short film as well. For more information about the Menin Gate ceremony and its history, visit this website. And if you have a chance, do go there and experience it yourself. My family and I will never forget our trip to Ypres!

You might also be interested in my WW1 website – Odd, Intriguing, Surprising Facts about WW1 - which is being used by educators and researchers worldwide.

How do you forget?

CWGC cemetery in Etaples, France, Copyright Melanie Wills

Although the war is over when Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels begins, it lingers for many of my characters. It’s perhaps hard for us to imagine trying to rebuild lives shattered in trenches or aerial combat, and to carry on without friends, husbands, and sweethearts when life is just supposed to be beginning. Little wonder that became known as the “lost generation”.

War veterans were reluctant to talk about their horrific experiences, especially to those who weren’t there and so couldn’t really understand. Many couldn’t readjust to civilian life or were haunted by unforgettable experiences, including their own participation in the brutality. How does a young man, brought up to believe in the sanctity of life, reconcile that with his requirement to kill? The survivors often felt guilty that they didn’t lie alongside their comrades.

A few eventually wrote memoirs or thinly-disguised fiction, possibly to help exorcise the demons, leaving us with valuable insight. There’s a somewhat shocking line in Cecil Lewis’s memoir, Sagittarius Rising. As an aviator with the Royal Flying Corp (which became the RAF in 1918), he had lots of thrilling and harrowing experiences in that dangerous job where life expectancy on the front lines was about three weeks. At the end of the war, he wonders what to do with himself, saying, “I was twenty years old.”

This photo of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery at Etaples on the north coast of France can’t even begin to convey the enormity of the site or the profound sadness that you feel when walking among the nearly11,000 graves. Seeing the ages on the tombstones is heartbreaking - they are mostly young men and a few women - a Canadian nurse lies on the front right - who never had much of a chance at life. Many in Britain felt they had lost their finest young minds and potential leaders. Back home was a generation of “superfluous” women, who, outnumbering the men, would never marry and so, had to make careers for themselves. For some, the war was never really over.

Lest we Forget

Like my characters, I can’t forget the Great War. I lived through it with them, felt their pain and sorrow, and am now helping them to rebuild their lives in Book 3 of The Muskoka Novels.

So every day is Remembrance Day for them and for me. 

At this time of reflection, John McCrae’s less famous poem also deserves to be read.

The Anxious Dead

           

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear

    Above their heads the legions pressing on:

(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,

    And died not knowing how the day had gone.)

O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see

    The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar;

Then let your mighty chorus witness be

    To them, and Caesar, that we still make war.

Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call,

    That we have sworn, and will not turn aside,

That we will onward till we win or fall,

    That we will keep the faith for which they died.

Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,

    They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;

Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,

    And in content may turn them to their sleep.

Lest we forget.

Remembrance Day

I mentioned in a previous blog that the people of Ypres (Ieper ) Belgium have, since 1928, held a nightly ceremony at the Menin Gate to commemorate the fallen of WW1. Once a year, on Nov. 11 at 11:00 am, we stop for two minutes to remember those mostly very young men and women who innocently, patriotically went off to “do their duty” for King and country, one in ten never to return, and all the other soldiers in other conflicts, some still ongoing. Those who haven’t seen Terry Kelly’s poignant music video about the real meaning of those two minutes of homage should have a look at “A Pittance of Time”.

Through my novels, I’ve been told that I’ve contributed to a deeper understanding of the “war to end all wars”. My books are not war novels, per se, but are about the people caught up in the cataclysm - young men who become aviators, soldiers, front-line medics, and their wives, sweethearts, sisters who endure their own hardships as ambulance drivers and nurses, as well as those anxiously waiting on the home front, who also made enormous contributions. It is by seeing the war through the eyes of individuals that we can truly understand the life-altering consequences of that tumultuous time. As one of my fans recently commented: “I attended the War Museum in Ottawa and with your characters in mind, I could see Chas flying high in his plane! Attaching a soul to the stories and pictures we looked at brought a whole new human meaning to me. It was no longer something we learned about once in school - it had a face, a life, a love, and a tragedy.”

The photo above was taken at the impressive Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, France.