(Ottawa) Legend has it that one of the 916 Canadian soldiers killed in the disastrous raid on Dieppe in August 1942 was carrying an old flag.
Posted at 10:09 a.m.
Updated at 11:31 a.m.
How did this 150-year-old flag end up on the Dieppe beach? It remains a mystery.
But more than 80 years later, this old Canadian flag will be at the center of the next national ceremony marking Remembrance Day. And the country can thank three Americans for it.
The story begins in 1965 at a yard sale in Columbus, Nebraska. Charles Lowry would have seen the old “Red Ensign” – the Canadian flag before the adoption of the maple leaf – in the hands of an American veteran.
“It was an old flag and the guy wanted to get rid of it,” said Charles’ son, Mike Lowry. Dad asked him what the story was behind that flag. »
The man explained to Charles that he was a guard in a prison camp at the end of World War II. At one point he had noticed a German prisoner holding what he thought was a Nazi banner, but in reality it was a Canadian flag.
The Royal Canadian Legion has confirmed that this flag was made between 1870 and 1873 after Manitoba joined Confederation. At the time, the American did not know anything about it. All he could say was what the German had told him: the flag had been found near the body of one of the 916 Canadian soldiers killed in Dieppe in 1942.
In the early morning of August 19, 1942, nearly 5,000 Canadian soldiers, 1,100 British soldiers and a few American rangers attempted to seize the Norman port of Dieppe and withdraw. The objective was to test German defenses and examine the possibility of launching an amphibious attack against German-occupied territories in Europe. A real rehearsal for June 6, 1944.
The result was disastrous. In addition to some 900 killed, 2,400 Canadian soldiers were wounded or captured in the attack.
“The German claimed that he had not been involved in the fighting. He was part of a platoon to bury the dead. He found the flag on a killed soldier and kept it as a souvenir, Mike Lowry said. The American who took it intended to turn it over to a Canadian unit. »
The flag eventually ended up in Nebraska.
Charles Lowry attempted to trace the family of the flag’s former owner. Mike, who was then a high school student, helped him in his efforts.
“Columbus Library had two books on flags,” Mike said. We have read them. We then searched all Canadian provinces, then Australia and New Zealand and the other British colonies. We never found. My father put in a lot of effort. I know he was still trying to find out. But when I was in college. He was trying to find someone who knew something. »
And when Charles died in 2003 at the age of 93, Mike inherited the ‘Red Ensign’.
And he took up the torch from his father.
He contacted the Royal Canadian Legion about five years ago to give it to them. She jumped at the chance.
The Legion says that several members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War carried a flag when going into battle. Some of these flags were later given to servicemen in World War II, perhaps out of superstition.
The Lowry’s flag returned to Dieppe with a delegation of veterans in 2019. Royal Canadian Legion spokeswoman Nujma Bond says it will be placed in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Remembrance Day to commemorate the Dieppe Raid.
“It’s really a story of hope, memory and unity,” she says. We are really happy to share it with Canadians. We are happy to be able to show this flag as a symbol for memory and sacrifice. »
When asked how he feels about seeing his father’s recovered flag loom so large during the national Remembrance Day ceremony, Mike Lowry thinks of his father.
“Dad always wanted to return the flag to its owner’s family or the unit it belonged to. Today, I have the impression that it is handed over to an entire country. I am very honored and very proud of it. »