Hundreds fill Hamilton's downtown Gore Park to remember Canada's war dead

Hundreds of observers marked Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of D-Day during a downtown ceremony at the Gore Park cenotaph on Monday, recalling efforts by local soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefield.

D-Day took place on June 6, 1944, when Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. It marked a major turning point in the Second World War, which had seen Hitler's Nazis sweep across much of Europe over the previous five years.

HMCS Haida, a tribal-class destroyer that is moored in Hamilton and is now a museum, was part of the D-Day mission, Neil Bell, executive director of Friends of HMCS Haida, said before the official start of the ceremony. Bell was speaking with Cable 14 from Gore Park, in a live interview that was broadcast on large screens.

He said the sailors who participated in D-Day would have largely been young men "fresh off of farms."

"The vast majority of Haida would be navy reservists with two to three months' experience," Bell said. "It would have been their first time away from home."

Two warplanes — the Lancaster bomber and the B-25 bomber — flew low over Hamilton's downtown shortly before the ceremony, part of a route that also took them over a large swath of the Niagara Peninsula, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Dundas, Ancaster, Brantford and Norfolk County, according to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Both planes were heavily used in the battles of the Second World War.

The Gore Park service included recitations by students, music from the Dundas Concert Band and the traditional Last Post, played by bugle player Cpl. Mike Barry.

Capt. Padre Michael Aldred, regimental chaplain of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, based out of the armoury on James Street N., encouraged those in attendance not to forget what history has taught us.

"Let us open our hearts to the lessons of the past," he said.