By Cindy MacDougall
When Bill McLachlan talks about his six closest pals, a heart-broken man 50 years younger shines through his eyes.
They were all killed in the Second World War, young Canadians fighting in Europe. McLachlan had known all of them since Boy Scouts.
“Remembrance for me is those six men, killed before they were 21,” McLachlan, a Second World War veteran, says. “I think of these young people who were snuffed out at the prime of life.”
McLachlan, a life member of the Montgomery Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, organizes the branch’s annual poetry, essay and poster contest, and remembrance dinner to remind Centretown residents of the bravery and sacrifice of war veterans.
The 75-year-old retired teacher says education is an important part of keeping remembrance alive.
“Young people can read about (war), they can see it on TV, but I think it’s important that young people see and hear a real person, and ask questions,” McLachlan says.
“It’s difficult for (youth) to visualize a situation where a madman is controlling the world. That’s the way it was when I signed up in 1941.”
He says the branch’s contest, which is accepting pieces until Nov. 7, shows the way students see war and remembrance today.
“We get a lot of stuff about peace, and we have to put that aside,” he says. “Our theme is remembrance. You can have peace without remembrance.”
McLachlan is deputy commander of the legion’s national colour party and will be one of 16 legion members carrying flags at the annual Remembrance Day ceremony on Parliament Hill. The ceremony has been moved from the National War Memorial due to construction on Elgin Street.
McLachlan joined the Air Force in 1941, when he was 17. He served in Cape Bauld, Nfld., until he requested to go to Europe in 1943. He took a demotion in order to go, because the military were no longer sending sergeants overseas.
He served in Great Britain until the end of the war in Europe, then applied for a post in the Pacific. The atomic bomb attacks on Japan ended the war before he was transferred. He has written a 30-page memoir and is considering lengthening it to book format and having it published.
He says every young person should see the film Saving Private Ryan, a Hollywood movie released this summer, to understand what veterans experienced.
“That’s the truest bit of movie I’ve ever seen,” he says. “It’s not American fiction.” Though the movie concentrates on American troops who took Omaha beach on D-Day, McLachlan says Canadians experienced the same horror as they stormed Normandy.
McLachlan did not rush the beaches on D-Day. As a radar technician stationed in Newfoundland and England, he says he “never bayonetted anybody.” He was responsible for the safety of Allied aircraft.
The branch’s remembrance dinner on Nov. 7 is McLachlan’s project this year. The dinner will feature speakers, poetry and remembering fallen comrades.
“I think this will be the last year for it,” he says. “Last year, I didn’t (organize) it and it just didn’t get done.”
The legion has been struggling with a declining membership as veterans die. Membership rules have been changed to allow non-veterans to join.