The record, 4 novembre 2010, Supplément 1

« VUvOSf ne sss vt W tSSS.UVES UK w' A S.,0 or K»\K -i- - -¦-¦'• • ' ''i"i:i'n~u~iiriMMiawÉiiliéiÉMi '»ip jj p in RECORD the voice op the Eastern Townships since 1S97 Supplement November 2010 " Page 2 Thursday, November 4, 2010 REMEMBRANCE DAY newsroom@sherbrookerecord.com The Record V-J Day at last! During the Second World War, approximately 10,000 Canadians served in Asia.Almost 2,000 soldiers from Manitoba’s Winnipeg Grenadiers and Quebec’s Royal Rifles of Canada set sail for Hong Kong in late October 1941 to help defend the British Crown Colony.The Japanese invaded on December 8, 1941.Badly outnumbered, the defenders fought bravely before being forced to surrender on Christmas Day.Approximately 290 Canadians were killed and almost 500 wounded.The survivors’ ordeal was just beginning.Over the next four years, 267 more would die as a result of malnutrition, beatings by prison guards and forced labour.Ronald Routledge of Saskatchewan was there: “Well, I went down to a hundred pounds, you know.I was maybe a hundred and eighty odd pounds when I was my normal weight, but I was down to about a hundred pounds.” Many other Canadians also saw action in Asia during the war, including thousands of Royal Canadian Air Force airmen who served in the Burma Campaign as radar operators and members of bomber, transport, reconnaisance and fighter squadrons.Ontario’s Leonard Bir-chall was even dubbed “the Saviour of Ceylon” by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill after detecting the Japanese invasion fleet sailing for the island of Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka).His plane was shot down, but not before the crew had radioed a warning that helped the Allies repel the attack.Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.V-J (Victory over Japan) Day marked the end of years of fighting in the Second World War.The Canadian POWs were finally liberated and returned home.DtRUSHA SUPPLY Canada’s one stop supply shop since 1978 serving the wholesalers, retailers & artists Monument Industry Counter Top & Dimensional Stone Fabrication Sign & Gloss Industry Masonry Trade Construction 'Lest We Forget O-’».-*'*1» La 100 Years of the Canadian Navy TJie Canadian Navy was founded in 1910.At the outbreak of the First World War, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) only had two ships and fewer than 350 men.It would play such roles as controlling shipping in Canadian ports, performing radio-telegraph services and undertaking mine sweeping and patrolling operations during the war.The Second World War saw the RCN grow greatly and play an important role in the Battle of the Atlantic — the struggle between the Allied navies, who needed to maintain the vital flow of war materials from North America to Europe, and the German U-boats (submarines) that wanted to cut off that supply.By the end of the war, Canada had the third-largest navy in the world with 434 vessels and 95,000 men and women in uniform.During the Korean War, eight Canadian destroyers helped blockade the enemy coast, guard against amphibious landings, protect aircraft carriers, bom- bard coastal areas and assist isolated fishing villages.With the unification of the Canadian military in the late 1960s, the RCN became the sea arm of the Canadian Forces.Our ships patrolled Canada’s shores during the Cold War, watching for Soviet submarines, and have served with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces over the years.The Canadian Navy tradition of service continues today, whether guarding our coasts, watching for smuggling, undertaking sovereignty operations in the North, or patrolling the waters off Southwest Asia in the fight against terrorism.The Murmansk Run One of the most dangerous routes sailed by the Merchant Navy during the Second World War was the notorious Murmansk Run.Despite constant German attack and extreme weather conditions, supplies were shipped to the Arctic port of Murmansk to assist the Soviet Union in its fight against Germany.It was so dangerous that if a ship was sunk, the survivors could not be rescued.From 1941 to 1945, more than forty convoys sailed, transporting millions of tons of supplies, such as aircraft, tanks.jeeps, locomotives, flatcars, guns, ammunition, fuel and millions of pairs of boots.These supplies allowed the Soviet Union to continue fighting Germany on the Eastern Front, thus preventing the Germans From concentrating all their forces against the Allies in the West.Operation Medusa f-T'lhe challenges faced by Canadians serving in Afghanistan with the UN-JL sanctioned International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) have been great and the risks many.While much of the toll taken on Canadian Forces members has come from roadside bombs and suicide attacks, Canadians have also taken part in major combat with the Taliban.Operation Medusa was a Canadian-led offensive in the Kandahar area of the country in September 2006.Afghan, American, Dutch and Danish forces were also involved.The goal was to clear the Taliban from the Panjwai district to help the Afghan government establish control over the area.The many hostile villages, terrain criss-crossed by irrigation ditches, trenches and tunnels, extreme climate and roadside bombs made it a difficult place for the Canadians to op- erate.Approximately 1,400 ISAF soldiers, including more than 1,000 Canadians, took part, making it Canada’s largest combat operation in more than 50 years.It was hard fighting and the Canadians took heavy fire, but the Taliban were pushed from the district.The cost was high, however —12 Canadian Forces members were killed in the two-week offensive.R.DAMAGE INSURANCE FIRM "IN MEMORY OF THOSE 50 BRAVE" 251 -D Queen Street, Sherbrooke, QC JIM I K5 TEL.819-569-9255 • TOLL FREE 1-866-837-9997 Canadians readying to storm a compound where Taliban soldiers are hiding during Operation Medusa. The Record newsroom@sherbrooker ecord.com REMEMBRANCE DAY Thursday, November 4, 2010 Page 3 At War in Korea Remembrance Korea has traditionally been known as the “Land of the Morning Calm,” but for the more than 26,000 brave Canadians who travelled halfway around the world to fight with the United Nations (UN) forces in the Korean War, calmness was in short supply.Alberta’s Ray Nickerson enlisted in the Canadian Army at age 16 and served in Korea.He remembers his first encounter with the enemy: ".We took an attack at night.one wave and another wave behind and another wave behind, like, it seemed like they had endless, endless, endless men.And it was pretty damn scary when the flares were going up and you could see all these, it looked like a bunch of ants crawling around, coming up the hills .it was scary, but you knew you had a job to do and you had to do it, you know.” Hear about the events leading up to the conflict, watch interviews with Canadian Veterans who were there, or explore an interactive time line and map.Visit www.vac-acc.gc.ca today and search for Land of the Morning Calm.The war began on June 25, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea.When an armistice was finally signed on July 27, 1953, after more than three years of Canadian artillery in action in Korea, June 1951.fighting, the border was back close to where it had been before the war.Canada had helped restore peace and freedom to the people of South Korea—a peace paid for in part by the 516 Canadian servicemen who died during the war.No formal peace treaty was ever signed, however, and tensions along the border between the two countries remain high today.on the Road Canadians have long put their lives on the line in the cause of peace and freedom.Remembering their achievements and sacrifices is a great way to honour their service.People do this in many ways.In March 2009, 20-year-old Trooper Jack “Bouts” Bouthillier of Ontario was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.His father, Raynald Bouthillier, wanted a fitting way to honour his son and other Canadians who have died in Afghanistan.He modified one of his company’s trucks with pictures of “Bouts,” scenes from Afghanistan, and the names of all Canadians who have died in service there.Peacekeeping In A Place With No Peace To Keep In the years following the Korean War, Canada developed a well-deserved reputation for taking part in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping efforts around the world.Peacekeeping involves sending impartial troops into a war-torn area after a cease-fire has been negotiated to prevent new fighting breaking out.In the early 1990s, the Eastern European country of Yugoslavia was torn apart by ethnic and religious differences and civil war erupted.Atrocities were committed against civilians on all sides.The UN sent in forces to try to contain the worst of the violence, but fighting was still going on.In September 1993, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry serving in the UN forces found themselves in the middle of the heaviest firefight a Canadian unit had then experienced since the Korean War.The “Medak Pocket” was a portion of Croatia that was then under Serbian control.The Croats had launched an offensive to take the area and heavy fighting broke out.A cease-fire was arranged, with UN forces overseeing the with- drawal of both sides.Canadian and French soldiers began to move in but Croatian forces began firing on the Canadians.The Patricias bravely repelled many attacks and held their position despite being pounded with heavy machine gun fire, grenades, cannons and small arms fire.The next morning, despite another cease-fire, the Croats still prevented UN troops from entering the pocket.The Canadian commander held an impromptu press conference in front of their roadblock to show the world what they were doing, forcing the Croats to open the road.Tragically, the UN forces found the ethnically Serbian villages in the Medak Pocket destroyed and many civilians killed—the victims of “ethnic cleansing.” ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION Branch 10 971 Galt East, Col J S Bourque Sherbrooke Remembrance Day Service November 7, 2010 2:00 p.m.Church Service at St.Michel Cathedral 130 de la Cathédrale followed by a parade to Cenotaph with Service at 3:00 p.m.Lunch will be served at Branch #10 after parade 57864 Newfoundlanders in Gallipoli When B: :’.ain declared war in August 1914, Newfoundland, which was a colony of Britain at the time, responded quickly by recruiting its first 1,000 men for overseas service.In September 1915, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment landed on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula, joining British, Australian and New Zealand troops.Gallipoli would be the Newfoundlanders’ first experience of the horrors of trench warfare—artillery fire, snipers, great cold and disease caused by living in such harsh conditions.The regiment also earned its first bat- tle honour when they captured “Caribou Hill” in November.They covered the withdrawal of Allied troops from the region, being among the last to leave in January 1916.Approximately 40 Newfoundlanders had died, a taste of the great casualties the regiment would soon suffer on the Western Front.Helen Labrecque Real Estate Broker h labrecque @ sutton.com Cell: 819-572-1070 On Remembrance Day let us pause to honour the memory of those who gave their lives that we might live in freedom! 819-823-7474 STÏSL15: (cSfimerfil cjpfç Honoring those who gave their lives &ÆË mm