BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
For Mervin Gribbons, Victory in Europe (VE) Day was truly a time to celebrate. The end of the Second World War in Europe, which was officially marked May 8, 1945, meant three of his brothers were safe from combat.
 |
Alex McGregor (top row, second from left) and the rest of his elementary school classmates, pictured in 1940, experienced bombings and hunger in Glasgow, Scotland during the Second World War. |
Gribbons, now 74, was 14 and living in North Bay in 1945. The entire city showed up to join in parades in the downtown core, he remembers.
?A friend of my brother?s had an old Tin Lizzie. We were going up and down the main street, blowing horns. So it was a real celebration. We were
so happy because we knew that it wouldn?t be long until we would be going to the railroad station and meeting family that were coming back from the war.?
Now, as the 60th anniversary of VE Day approaches, Gribbons is reflecting how lucky he was not to lose any of his brothers.
?I think of the people who didn?t come back. Thank God for my family that did come back. We lost a lot of family before my mom and dad passed away, and that would have been just one more blow.?
A member of the Canadian aircrew, Hedley Williams was in training when VE day celebrations broke out. Williams, a Sudbury native, went to Ireland in 1944 to train for air combat and barely avoided dropping bombs over Europe thanks to VE day.
?At the time it meant I had some more tomorrows,? said Williams of the VE day celebrations in Belfast, Ireland. ?The town was hoping quite a bit.
?Now it?s the same old story, the winners are losers the way the world works,? said Williams. ?They don?t seem to catch on that war is no damn good. A lot of people die for nothing.?
Former boy soldier and current Capreol legionnaire George Little also remembers the war, along with many friends who died in combat overseas.
?It was a celebration,? recalls Little who was stationed in Kingston, Ont. when the war ended. ?We heard about it before it was news.?
Enlisting at the age of 16, Little was a boy soldier until his 18th birthday, at which point he became a private. He volunteered for duty in the Pacific but never made it overseas.
?Of course the war was over, so we never got there, thank God.?
Alex McGregor, 73, also has strong memories of VE Day. The retired Thorneloe University classics professor was born in Toronto, but his family moved to Scotland during the 1930s. He grew up amid German bombings and food rationing.
 |
Merv Gribbons, 74, was happy when VE Day was celebrated in 1945 because it meant his three brothers in the military were safe. |
At the end of the war, McGregor was a 13-year-old student at White Hills Secondary School in Glasgow. He got out of a dreaded Latin test because of the celebrations.
?There were firecrackers and bonfires, and people were lighting off flares. Mostly what I remember was an incredible feeling of freedom and release. We no longer had to worry about getting bombed to hell,? he says.
?During the war you lived in terror of bombs, and went to the bomb shelters, which were totally useless. They were basically blast shelters. So we lived in terror in these things.
?And then a bunch of us started leaping and singing and rejoicing because the war was over.?
It?s important to celebrate the anniversary of VE Day because so many lives were lost during the war, says McGregor.
He remembers young men just a few years older who left for the war and were never seen again.
McGregor is glad Prime Minister Paul Martin worked out a deal with the opposition leaders to attend VE Day celebrations in Holland on Monday.
Earlier this week, Minister of Veterans Affairs Albina Guarnieri was flown back to Canada from Holland because her absence left the Liberal party
vulnerable in the event of a non-confidence vote.
Jean Havel, 84, was one of thousands of women who served in the Canadian military during the Second World War. She worked in the supplies warehouse in Brockville and eventually became a non-commissioned officer.
On May 8, 1945, Havel was in Montreal, waiting to be sent to Japan. She remembers the excitement of the VE Day celebrations in the big city.
?I remember they had a big celebration on the streets. All the fire trucks came out, and were going up and down Ste. Catherine?s Street. They were
having a great time. We couldn?t believe it,? she says.
The past president of the Royal Canadian Legion Lockerby Branch 564 didn?t go to Japan as planned because the country surrendered to the Allies several months later on Aug. 14, 1945.
Havel says she was one of the lucky ones because she escaped a potentially fatal situation.
?You don?t think about it. I wasn?t nervous until afterward when I learned how they treated people there. And then you start thinking, why in the
world would I want to go??
- With files by Jason Thompson
