Battle of the Atlantic ceremony held in Montague, P.E.I.
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MONTAGUE, P.E.I. — A ceremony commemorating the tip of the Battle of the Atlantic was held at Waterfront Park in Montague on Could 7.
Younger sea cadets and members of the Canadian Armed Forces had been there in uniform to recollect the longest steady battle of the Second World Struggle and people misplaced.
The ceremony started with the enjoying of O Canada adopted by opening remarks from Lt.-Cmdr. John MacDonald, who defined the importance of this occasion.
“This 12 months the Royal Canadian Navy marks the seventy-eighth anniversary of the tip of the Battle of the Atlantic,” stated MacDonald from the park’s gazebo overlooking the water.
Within the harsh setting of the North-Atlantic, Allied naval and air forces went in opposition to Italian and German submarines, ships and plane, whose main targets had been service provider ships carrying important life-sustaining cargo from North America to Europe, he stated.
Following these remarks, lieutenant-commander and chaplain Greg Davis spoke and invited these in attendance to participate in prayer or a second of non-public contemplation.
He learn from the journal of a Second World Struggle veteran who served on a corvette warship in 1941 throughout the Battle of the Atlantic.
“It appears unattainable that we will proceed to take this unrelenting pounding and nonetheless stay in a single piece,” stated Davis studying from the journal.
Davis went on to precise his gratitude for veterans like this.
“At this time, we bow our heads in recognition of the nice service and sacrifice some have been requested to make, residing by the horror that’s warfare. We are saying thanks, and know that it’ll by no means be sufficient,” he stated.
Then, MacDonald and Davis boarded a small boat to put a wreath within the river by Waterfront Park to honour those that made the last word sacrifice.
“Since these lives had been misplaced at sea, we wish to commemorate them at sea,” stated MacDonald in an interview after the ceremony.
“With out these convoys going forwards and backwards, we wouldn’t have seen success. We had so many of us, sailors and airmen, that misplaced their lives throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. It’s essential for us to verify they’re commemorated every 12 months,” he stated.
The Battle of the Atlantic lasted from 1939 to 1945, the objective was to manage the North Atlantic Ocean. Throughout this time, Canada’s Navy grew from 13 vessels to just about 400 and suffered 2,210 fatalities.
Following the ceremony, members of the Canadian Armed Forces and sea cadets marched from the park to the Montague Curling Membership for a reception.
Chris Nicholson, a grasp sailor whose been within the reserves for greater than 22 years, was completely happy to see the ceremony held in his hometown.
“For us within the Navy, there’s two crucial days that we pause to recollect: Remembrance Day being one and the Battle of the Atlantic being the opposite,” stated Nicolson. “Those that misplaced their lives, those that got here dwelling and had been by no means the identical, and we’ve got misplaced most of these folks.”
George Melitides is a contract reporter with SaltWire in Prince Edward Island.
