Remembrance Day pays respects to the thousands of Canadians who died in battle, but today's ceremony will see three former soldiers in particular honoured at the cenotaph in downtown Barrie.
William (Bill) Snow has lived in Barrie for more than 50 years, but was born 100 years ago in Newfoundland in 1922. A veteran of the Second World War, Snow enlisted in the Canadian Army in Toronto in 1943.
When asked what made him want to sign up, his answer was simple.
“We were at war. It's what everyone at my age was doing,” Snow tells BarrieToday. “We couldn't sit around and watch what was happening. I felt obligated to do it.”
While overseas, Snow served with the 1st Canadian Radar Battery in the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion. He arrived in France just after the D-Day invasion, in June 1944.
Snow’s responsibilities included spotting targets for the artillery corps when they were fighting in the Northwest Campaign through France, Holland and Belgium.
Snow replied that he was a truck driver during the war when asked, but with a little nudging he made it clear that his job entailed more than that simple description.
“It was our job to spot targets for the artillery and knock out mortars. We had radar while I drove and we had to spot them and knock them out,” Snow says. “The mortars were a killing machine to our troops and if we were pinned down, the mortars had to be located and eliminated quickly.”
Snow says some of his friends were killed, but it was part of the mission and he knew that was a possibility.
“Of course friends were killed, people I never met were killed. We knew that would happen going in,” Snow says.
When asked if he was ever scared, Snow answered the same as everyone else.
“That's just natural, being scared. We were young men, kids really, far away from home,” he says. “Everybody was scared. They were lying if they said they weren’t. But at the time, it didn’t matter because you did what you had to do, that's all.”
Snow was in Germany when the war was declared over and says he could tell it was coming to a conclusion.
“There wasn’t as much happening at the time. We were really pushing the Germans down and it was clearly near its end,” he says. “To be honest, we Canadians really took it to them and were making many Germans surrender as it was.”
Snow still lives on his own following the death of his wife, Janet, just over five years ago. Together, they raised a son and a daughter, and also have four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
With the weather looking good for today’s Remembrance Day ceremony, Snow hopes to see a big crowd, “like it has always been and should be.”
BarrieToday also asked Snow what he remembers most as he looks back on his military duty, particularly during Nov. 11 events.
“That was a different time, that's for sure. You can’t compare that time in history to anything else,” he says. “I was in it for just over a year, but it had really been going on for five before (that). I was England for much of the time before I went to battle and the English were getting bombed in the middle of the night. There were some folks who had it rough.”
Snow continued by saying he's glad he went overseas and took part in the war effort.
“Now that it is done, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I’m quite happy I did what I did," he says. "We left so many people over there. Imagine that we were able to make it home. When I think back, now, I am glad I went. But when I was there, there were several times I thought to myself, ‘Well, what the heck am I doing here?’ But no, I’m glad I enlisted.”
The Barrie Royal Canadian Legion says another man, Alan Johnston, will also be honoured today. He was born in Barrie in 1925 and enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1945 when he was 19. His basic training took place in Orillia and his advanced training was done at Camp Ipperwash, located northeast of Sarnia on the shores of Lake Huron.
Johnston won the Cross Rifles and Crown for weapons efficiency with the Lee-Enfield rifle, the Bren, the Sten and the Thompson machine-gun.
The war in the European and in Pacific theatres ended before he was able to go overseas and he was discharged from the army in May 1946. Johnston returned to farming in what was then called Vespra Township (part of present-day Springwater) and served on the Vespra council for 12 years as a councillor and four years as reeve.
Also being honoured is Will Dwyer, who passed away earlier this year and was known throughout Barrie, Simcoe County and beyond as the 'Million-Dollar Man' for his work in support of the Terry Fox Foundation. He was also one of the local legion's top poppy sellers.
In 15 years, Dwyer collected in excess of $125,000 for the Legion Poppy Trust.
During the Second World War, Dwyer served with the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment in the British Royal Artillery in the defence of England and in the Italian Campaign. Overall, he served 25 years in the Newfoundland and Canadian military.
