Chancellor Wilson remembers those who served

On Sunday morning, Chancellor Lynton “Red” Wilson delivered a moving speech at McMaster’s annual Remembrance Day ceremony in Convocation Hall. Below is the speech in full.

As the summer of 1942 began, Canadian soldiers had yet to engage the enemy in any major operation of the Second World War. For two years, Canadian army troops had been stationed in Britain but were largely inactive. The commanders of the Canadian forces at the time, including Hamilton-born General Harry Crerar, were looking for an opportunity for our soldiers to prove their worth.  That opportunity arrived as Operation Jubilee.

Seventy years ago, at 0500 hours on Aug. 19, 4,963 men of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, including 600 Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, began an assault on the heavily-armoured French beaches at what is now, to Canadians, a familiar place … Dieppe.

Before the pull-back order at 1100 hours, 2,752 Canadians were killed or captured.

Six disastrous hours, yet the history of the Raid on Dieppe is as important to our Canadian identity as any of our great military accomplishments – Vimy, Passchendaele, Normandy or the Liberation of Holland.

Today, we remember that in 1942, there were no Canadian conscripts fighting overseas. Every Canadian in Operation Jubilee served by choice.

We remember that the valour and precision the Canadians displayed that morning, even in the face of an insurmountable enemy, once again established our country’s fighting credentials for Allied leaders who seemed to have forgotten our sacrifice and heroism during the Great War.

We remember the Canadians who fought at Dieppe – and on so many other battlegrounds in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – because they demonstrated the qualities to which we aspire, both as individuals and as a nation – patriotism, dedication, determination, bravery, sacrifice and duty.

Remembrance Day brings with it a responsibility to remind ourselves to live up to the heroism of our fellow Canadians. It is about reminding ourselves of who we are at our very best.

In this way, all Canadians stand in the shadow of the 4,963 who served at Dieppe. All members of the McMaster family stand in the shadow of the men named on our Honour Roll.

Perhaps only a few times in the 145-year history of our country, have there been military actions that have marked a path for our nation. Dieppe was one of those few.

Our soldiers at Dieppe changed Canada’s role in the war and beyond, for there is a strong argument that in those six bloody hours, Canada arrived on the modern world stage.

In the sacrifices and bravery of Dieppe, we earned a place among the great nations of the world, and through our contributions to the Allied war effort, we set our path to global prominence. The contemporary Canadian economy, our confidence, and our independence can, in many ways, trace their origins to our commitment to the two World Wars.

The poet Philip Larkin described a line of young men outside a war recruiting office with the words, “Never such innocence again.”

In many ways, the same is true of Canada’s participation in the World Wars. At the end, never was the country so innocent again, but in place of that innocence had emerged a newly confident nation, a mature nation, one prepared to assert itself in a post-colonial world.

Every year on Nov. 11, we Canadians remember, but that remembrance is also an act of self-definition for Canada and Canadians.

We, the members of the McMaster family, live in a land and at a time of unprecedented privilege.  We have the honour of being part of an intellectual community based on values like academic freedom and the celebration of diversity.

Lest we forget that these privileges trace back not just to the successes of Vimy Ridge and Holland, but to the trenches of the Somme and the tragic beaches of Dieppe.

The thread that connects those battlegrounds to Convocation Hall is not abstract. It is connected to the measurable forces of politics, economy and social evolution.

The lives we live and the nation we build are the truest monuments to the men and women who have served our country, and it is our responsibility to continue our journey the way they began it … by living up to the best of what they showed it means to be Canadian.

Today, we honour our veterans and our servicemen and women, and thank them.  We give them these few minutes on Nov. 11, and it is so little for what we have received.

Today, we remember.