The village of Buckhorn, Ont., held its Remembrance Day services on Wednesday and used the occasion to dedicate its new cenotaph.
It replaces a monument that was erected just after the Second World War that was beginning to show its age.
Since it is a small community, there are only 13 names of local men who went off to war and did not return: Eight from the First World War; four from the Second World War and one from Afghanistan. The names and the communities still exist, tying the past to the present.
“Private Warren Aldred Windover, from Halls Bridge, enlisted, his actual age was 15. He was killed in action at age 17,” said Shelly Bertram Fallis, Master of Ceremonies.
Two Second World War veterans attending Wednesday’s service say they find themselves thinking about wartime comrades who did not return and some who did.
“My wife’s brother was killed on Remembrance Day in 1940. He was in the British Army and he was on the cliffs of Dover doing guard duty and got a shell from the French Coast,” said veteran John Bannan.
“I remember some of my crew members that got killed, that I flew with during the war, and I had six brothers that served overseas besides myself, and I remember them all,” said Air Force veteran Arnold Graham. “Seven of us went overseas and we all come home.”
John Bannan came home after seeing action in France, Holland and Germany but he did not come home alone: He brought home his English war bride
“It was a wartime marriage, they said it wouldn’t last. And we have been fighting it out for 73 years now,” he laughed.
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