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Canadian War Museum oral history project examines war’s aftermath

Published

2 years ago

November 3, 2022

HALIFAX — The pride in Blanche Bennett’s voice was evident as she vividly recounted the day 80 years ago when she volunteered to serve in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps.

Bennett, who turns 100 on Nov. 12, was just 19 when she signed up in 1942 to become one of the nearly 46,000 women who served their country in the military during the Second World War. She said in a recent interview that she immediately went home and informed her surprised mother of her plan.

“She said, ‘Well, you’re not going,’ and I said, ‘Of course I’m going,’” Bennett recalled. “She said, ‘You can’t, they don’t have women in the army,’ and I said, ‘They do now. They got me.’”

Bennett, a native of Summerside, P.E.I., who now lives in a Charlottetown long-term care home, is one of about 120 veterans and family members who have been interviewed as part of an ongoing oral history project by the Canadian War Museum. The project is taking a unique approach by focusing not on wartime experiences but on what followed.

Michael Petrou, the research project’s lead historian, believes In Their Own Voices will fill a gap in war historiography by highlighting the positive and negative effects on veterans and their families as they moved on with their lives.

“The military service doesn’t end when it officially ends. It continues to influence the lives of veterans afterwards,” said Petrou. “People forget the massive social change that military service and conflict has.”

Bennett said her pride in serving influenced her life following the war, and that is one of the reasons why she participated in the project.

“To be really honest, I think it’s great when people ask me to talk about the war, because for a long time after the war there were an awful lot of people who didn’t even know that women served,” she said.

Bennett was a member of a signals squadron and served as a telephone operator in Halifax until the war ended. She met and married her husband Murray during that time and went on to raise a family of three daughters as her husband embarked on a postwar career in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“I don’t think I ever became a civilian, because after the war I was back in it again,” she said with a warm laugh.

In their retirement years, the couple were active in Remembrance Week activities and often gave talks in Island schools. Bennett said the recognition she and other women have since received is gratifying if late in coming.

“Things did change,” she said. “People began to notice that we were somebody and had done something. To me, it was the highlight of my whole life.”

By contrast, Toronto-area author Jonathon Reid’s experience as the son of a Second World War veteran who was captured after the downfall of Hong Kong is largely one of pain, bewilderment and loss.

The 74-year-old said he decided to be interviewed by Petrou because of his own journey in trying to understand his father, John Reid, who died in 1979 at the age of 65.

“I grew up with the results of his war experience, which were a broken family, a lack of a father most of the time and a very sad mother,” said Reid. “I realized that this project … was really a more public version of what I had been trying to do on a personal level.”

Reid recounted his father’s service as an army doctor and his family’s postwar experience in a 2020 book, “The Captain Was a Doctor.” The book details how John Reid led his men heroically through nearly four years of captivity, which included more than two years of forced labour in Japan.

Back home after the war, he and his wife started a family, but Reid said his father was distant and refused to talk about his experiences. Eventually, he abandoned his family.

He said despite the trauma that caused, both he and his brother strove to lead happy and productive lives.

“There is a resounding impact that goes down at least one generation and I would think two,” Reid said. “You have to accept it and go on. Just realize that your job then is to understand as best you can, but get up and keep going.”

Petrou said stories such as Bennett’s and Reid’s are the essence of what the project is trying to achieve.

“We want veterans to show themselves in all their complexities, their flaws and their successes too,” he said.

Petrou said he hopes to do as many as 200 more interviews, with an online video exhibition planned for 2025 as well as a book and an academic conference. There are also plans to provide educational materials for schools.

“My hope and my suspicion is that these interviews will echo in the museum in ways we don’t quite know yet for many years,” Petrou said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2022.

Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press

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Langford, Heim lead Rangers to wild 13-8 win over Blue Jays

Published

52 mins ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Rookie Wyatt Langford homered, doubled twice and became the first Texas player this season to reach base five times, struggling Jonah Heim delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie and the Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 13-8 on Tuesday night.

Leody Taveras also had a homer among his three hits for the Rangers.

Langford, who also walked twice, has 12 homers and 25 doubles this season. He is hitting .345 in September.

“I think it’s really important to finish on a strong note,” Langford said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do that.”

Heim was 1-for-34 in September before he lined a single to right field off Tommy Nance (0-2) to score Adolis García and Nathaniel Lowe, giving Texas a 9-7 lead. Heim went to the plate hitting .212 with 53 RBIs after being voted an All-Star starter last season with a career-best 95 RBIs. He added a double in the eighth ahead of Taveras’ homer during a three-run inning.

Texas had 13 hits and left 13 men on. It was the Rangers’ highest-scoring game since a 15-8 win at Oakland on May 7.

Matt Festa (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, giving him a 5-0 record in 13 appearances with the Rangers after being granted free agency by the New York Mets on July 7.

Nathan Eovaldi, a star of Texas’ 2023 run to the franchise’s first World Series championship, had his worst start of the year in what could have been his final home start with the Rangers. Eovaldi, who will be a free agent next season, allowed 11 hits (the most of his two seasons with Texas) and seven runs (tied for the most).

“I felt like early in the game they just had a few hits that found the holes, a few first-pitch base hits,” said Eovaldi, who is vested for a $20 million player option with Texas for 2025. “I think at the end of the day I just need to do a better job of executing my pitches.”

Eovaldi took a 7-3 lead into the fifth inning after the Rangers scored five unearned runs in the fourth. The Jays then scored four runs to knock out Eovaldi after 4 2/3 innings.

Six of the seven runs scored against Toronto starter Chris Bassitt in 3 2/3 innings were unearned. Bassitt had a throwing error during Texas’ two-run third inning.

“We didn’t help ourselves defensively, taking care of the ball to secure some outs,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.

The Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a double and two singles, his most hits in a game since having four on Sept. 3. Guerrero is hitting .384 since the All-Star break.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette (calf) was activated and played for the first time since July 19, going 2 for 5 with an RBI. … OF Daulton Varsho (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list and will have rotator cuff surgery … INF Will Wagner (knee inflammation) was placed on the 60-day list.

UP NEXT

Rangers: LHP Chad Bradford (5-3, 3.97 ERA) will pitch Wednesday night’s game on extended five days’ rest after allowing career highs in hits (nine), runs (eight) and home runs (three) in 3 2/3 innings losing at Arizona on Sept. 14.

Blue Jays: RHP Bowden Francis (8-4, 3.50) has had two no-hitters get away in the ninth inning this season, including in his previous start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11. Francis is the first major-leaguer to have that happen since Rangers Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan in 1989.

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Billie Jean King set to earn another honor with the Congressional Gold Medal

Published

2 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.

Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”

The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.

King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”

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Account tweaks for young Instagram users ‘minimum’ expected by B.C., David Eby says

Published

2 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.

The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.

Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.

Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”

He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.

In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024

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