Amazing Military History

Heroes Remember

Amazing Military History

Transcript

The biggest thing that has happened is that our history, our military history, has not been taught. I don’t know about other provinces but definitely in Ontario they haven’t taught the history. About four or five years ago they started with grade 10. Now they’re covering from 1900 to the year 2000 in the semester that they have. There’s a whole group of people from about the early 60s up until the late 80s where it was a denial. It was wrong to even talk about and basically ... I guess and I can say this ... it probably goes back to the Trudeau era and so on because of how he was involved and not involved. There’s denial about it and the Vietnam War where there’s denial in the States and people came up here. The thing is that we have a very honourable and amazing military history that Canadians basically tied in with Great Britain and the Empire. We are very much a part of it and this is where my father came from ... going back to the Boer War and the First World War. The thing is, in the Second World War we only had 11 million 500 thousand people in Canada across this whole nation. From 1939 to 1945; 1,082,000 served in – had served or were serving in – the armed forces. Almost exactly 10% and with distinction and this is what we did in the First World War; it was the Canadians that took Vimy Ridge. The French tried to, the British tried and the Canadians did! In South Africa, at Paardeburg, the Canadians were front and centre and this continued in the Second World War ... the very thing. We were in Normandy. Our Canadian Forces with the 3rd Div. My brother didn’t go in with the first wave and I didn’t catch up to him until ... that’s another whole story ... July of ‘43-44! They obtained ... they got the furthest and obtained their objective. No other did ... and they had to draw back but they made their objective! And this is what they did and it was nasty fighting all the way up through. My brother Ted never talked about his war experiences and this is one thing that I have to get across ... because when I came home from overseas, I went back into retailing and Mrs. Howden came into the store. Andy Howden and I met in grade 4 – elementary all the way through highschool. I joined the air force. I didn’t know that he joined the air force until I’m in Bournemouth and I meet Sandy Borland. I knew Sandy was in and he was a fighter pilot – had joined 416 squadron. I had joined 412 shortly before. And we met in the main street and he said, “Guess what Charley? Andy Howden and Howie Steen are in having lunch in the officers mess. I’ll go and get them and we’ll have a picture taken.” So in front of the Royal Bath in Bournemouth, there’s four fellows from Guelph, Ontario; Andy Howden, Howie Steen, Charlie Fox, and Sandy Borland. Two came back and two didn’t. So Mrs. Howden came into the store – I went back into retailing in Guelph; Walker’s Stores. She started crying ... came right up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me. This would be probably January 1946 just shortly after I came back. She was saying, “Why my Andy and not you?” and started pounding me on the chest. “Why my Andy and not you?!” And all I could do was hold her and say, “Mrs. Howden, I don’t know why not me.” And for that reason I didn’t talk about things for forty years. My brother Ted never talked about it. And this is, a lot of Veterans don’t talk. Some are talking now but don’t talk because they felt guilty.

Description

Mr. Fox puts Canada’s 20^th century military history into context, and discusses the reluctance of Veterans to speak about their experiences.

Charley Fox

Mr. Fox was born in Guelph, Ontario in 1920. He signed up in March, 1940, and was called up the following October. Mr. Fox excelled during pilot training, but a bout of scarlet fever prevented him from accompanying his squadron overseas. Once returned to health, he became a flight instructor, during which time he married. A short time later, he was sent overseas and joined the 412 Spitfire Squadron. He was involved in air support for D-Day and flew many follow-up missions destroying “targets of opportunity” in France and Holland. After the war, Mr. Fox returned home and became a retailer. He now resides in London, Ontario.

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