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North Shore residents prepare to mark 100 years since Vimy Ridge

Veterans, descendants and students head to France to commemorate historic battle

North Shore residents are preparing for a sombre trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

The federal government is issuing 25,000 tickets for Canadians who registered for a ceremony to mark the battle that has been called the “crucible” that forged the Canadian identity.

After months of attempts by the British and French to capture a strategic hill held by the Germans in northern France, all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought together for the first time between April 9 and 12, 1917 and took the ridge.

“Vimy was a defining product in the march for Canadian nationhood, elevating a young country onto the world’s stage,” said Harry Greenwood, Branch 60 Royal Canadian Legion chairman. “The Canadians would fight it alone.”

Among those attending the Canadian National Vimy Ridge Memorial built on that hill is Brenton Spencer, a West Vancouver man whose grandfather Ralph Spencer and great uncle Percival Spencer both fought at Vimy Ridge.

“I want to visit and be where my grandfather was – to have a visceral connection,” Spencer said. “It just boils down to ‘Lest we forget.’ These things are becoming a distant memory.”

The West Vancouver school district is sending a contingent of 78 students to be present for the service in France. And Greenwood said he’s aware of hundreds of veterans and descendants of those who fought at Vimy who are also making the trip.

The Spencer brothers were part of B and C company of the Halifax-based 85th Batallion (Nova Scotia Highlanders).

Vimy Ridge
Percival and Ralph Spencer, two Halifax brothers who fought at Vimy Ridge. Ralph’s grandson is returning to Vimy next week to mark the 100th anniversary of the battle. photo supplied

“They were the black sheep of the regiment. They were fishermen, miners, farmers – a rough and ready bunch of almost outcasts,” Spencer said. “When there was no one else left to take the hill, they said to these guys ‘you’re up.’”

Canada contributed roughly 620,000 soldiers to the First World War, more per capita than any of the allied nations. Of them, 60,000 were killed or died of wounds, and 173,000 returned blind, gassed or crippled, Greenwood said.

At Vimy, 3,598 Canadians were killed and 7,000 wounded.

“The fact of the matter is, it did not avoid slaughter,” Greenwood said. “This is the horror of war. There’s not a damned thing romantic about war.”

Ralph Spencer died in 1972, but the battle left an indelible mark, Spencer said.

“My grandfather… was actually gassed by the Germans,” he said. “And he apologized because he did not have any hair when I first met him.”

Spencer’s great uncle Percival was killed three weeks before the 1919 armistice.

The memorial at Vimy features relief imagery capturing the anguish of those who lost loved ones in the First World War.

It’s not Spencer’s first visit. He took his daughter there once already.

“It’s all about the suffering and the loss and the mindlessness of war. It’s not bronze soldiers and their kits,” Spencer said. “For a young person, it gave her pause too. It’s an overwhelmingly powerful monument to the horrors of war.”

For those not making the trip to France, there are commemoration services to be held on the North Shore on Sunday, April 9.

North Shore Veterans Council Canada is hosting one at the cenotaph in Victoria Park at 1 p.m.

The West Vancouver branch has a parade along Marine Drive starting at 2 p.m. with a service to follow at the cenotaph in Memorial Park at 2:15 p.m.

Events like those are important, Greenwood said, especially for the young and new Canadians, who, without a proper understanding, may find their notions about war coloured by what they see on TV.

Spencer is a regular at the Remembrance Day ceremonies held in West Vancouver each year and said he’s heartened to see the crowds seem to grow both bigger and more diverse each year.

“We don’t have a proprietary hold on what is Canada – never have – because so many of those that signed up in World War 1 were foreign born,” he said. “Canada continues to be a nation of immigrants. It’s stronger, more prosperous and more dynamic because of all these pressures. I see this reflected every Nov. 11.”