Toronto war veteran headed to France for WWI anniversary
Posted March 30, 2017 12:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A 97-year-old Toronto man, a veteran of the Second World War, will be one of a handful of Canadian war heroes to travel to France next month to witness events marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
“I’m very honoured, very proud to be honouring the World War One veterans,” Norm Cash said from his home in North York on Wednesday. “None of them left I’m sure. Very few left from World War Two either.”
Cash will be one of 50 veterans making the journey, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 26 Canadian youth on board a government plane departing from Ottawa on April 5.
On April 9, the Canadian delegation will be joined by Prince Charles and his sons Prince William and Prince Harry as part of the ceremony for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France.
“I’m looking forward to seeing that, being part of it,” Cash said. “Paying my respects to the real heroes of the war. The ones who didn’t make it. They’re the real heroes.”
The Battle of Vimy Ridge is known as the bloodiest day in Canada’s military history, when the Canadian Corps captured the entrenched German positions on Vimy Ridge in northern France. It came at a heavy toll to Canadians – 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded.
Tim Cook, a military historian and author of the book Vimy: The Battle and the Legend, says Vimy it has become legendary more for how it pulled Canadian troops together rather than it being Canada’s greatest military accomplishment.
“Vimy is more than a battle,” Cook said. “Even though the battle itself really didn’t chance the nature of the war, it was a tactical victory … it really becomes a stand-in for the war itself.”
Cash himself took part the Battle of Normandy as a young man fighting in the Second World War – another one of Canadians defining military moments.
“Fighting in the Battle of Normandy, I don’t remember part of it,” Cash said. “It’s a bad dream.”
Cash says he’s looking forward to seeing that iconic Canadian National Vimy Memorial and walking in the footsteps of heroes. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is Canada’s largest First World War monument in Europe. With its two limestone pylons and a statue of a cloaked woman that represents Canada mourning her dead sons, the memorial is inscribed with the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were posted missing or presumed dead in France during that war.
From Macleans: A century later, remembering the hard win at Vimy Ridge
