By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal

On a ridge in Northern France stands what may well be the most striking and admired
memorial to war ever constructed.

Yet there are no figures of soldiers; nor will you find images of cannon or stacks of cannon
balls or other weaponry.

Canada’s National War Memorial at Vimy Ridge represents this country’s most storied
military victory, fought 105 years ago this month.

The stunning, soaring twin limestone towers represent Canada and France – the nation for
whose liberation so much blood was shed on this hallowed Great War battlefield.

Treasured by all Canadians, the Vimy Memorial stands atop Hill 145, the highest point on
the seven-mile ridge. The four corps of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fighting together
as one unit for the first time in the war, captured Vimy Ridge in a frontal assault on April
9, 1917.

War came again in 1939, and Canadians received a great shock following the fall of France.
On June 1, 1940, newspapers across Canada described the destruction of the Vimy
memorial by the invading armies of Nazi Germany.

Canadians, as it turned out, were not the only ones outraged by the false reports. Adolf
Hitler, a surprising admirer of Canada’s National War Memorial, angrily denied the
reports. To prove the press wrong, he gathered a group of his military commanders in
front of the memorial and was photographed in front of the still-standing, soaring pylons
on June 2, 1940.

Hitler even stationed black-uniformed SS guards with orders to protect the memorial from
regular German army units and ordered the Luftwaffe not to damage the monument.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

A little less than four years earlier, more than 100,000 people, including 6,200 Canadian
veterans and their families, had gathered in the 250-acre Vimy Park, land ceded in
perpetuity to Canada from a grateful France, for the monument’s dedication.

King Edward VIII had undraped a Red Ensign and a Union Jack from the most heart-
wrenching feature of the sculpture – the figure of a young woman, her head bowed in
sorrow and grief. Known as Canada Bereft, the figure represents the young nation of
Canada, mourning her 61,000 fallen sons and daughters

Along the base of the monument are carved the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who
had fallen in battle but who had no known grave.

The youngest of those names – Robert Batey – was a 15-year-old Sarnia lad who had lied
about his age and enlisted at age fourteen.

It was June 26, 1936. The memorial had taken eleven years to build. Ten days earlier, four
ships had set out from Montreal’s harbour on what came to be known as the Vimy
Pilgrimage. The 6,200 Canadians aboard were those who had fought at Vimy, or their
widows, sons and daughters.

For those who made the Vimy Pilgrimage, the memory of the Great War had not faded
over eighteen years. Their losses were still raw.

For those of us who reflect on our country’s great sacrifice during the Great War – the so-
called “war to end all wars” – the stirring beauty of Canada’s National War Memorial at
Vimy Ridge is a constant reminder of the duty of solemn reflection we owe to all who
fought there.

Striking enough to stir the stone heart of an Adolf Hitler, it can hardly fail to move our
own hearts, especially this month.