Secrets

 Canadian men and women served during the Second World War, and the cataclysm that was that war affected them deeply. Their words, whether written, or especially told orally through recordings, resonate deeply throughout the exhibit.

This is the service uniform of Clovis Ira Bourdeleau, who served in the Merchant Navy from 1942 on, facing all of the dangers that his counterparts in the regular navy faced as part of the convoys across the Atlantic, bringing needed supplies to the war in Europe. Merchant Navy veterans had to fight for the right to be recognized as veterans in their own right.

As mentioned yesterday, there were many programs set into place to help veterans readjust to life at home and get started again after years in military service.

Veterans established Legion halls where they felt they could talk about their war experiences with others. Some were excluded from the Legion- women and racial minorities- who simply created their own groups.

Elaine Goble has spent twenty years painting Canadian veterans in a vivid way, and here we have two of her works. Remembrance Day 2000 is an early work in her series, depicting veteran Kenneth Edwards. Normandy Warrior at right is more recent, portraying Philip Favel, an Indigenous veteran who fought in Europe.

This quote particularly resonates with me. Veterans had seen so much horror during the war, and the instinctive reaction of many was to not talk about it, to internalize it.

Canadian soldiers had been posted in Hong Kong in December 1941 on garrison duty. The Japanese military attacked multiple targets, including at Pearl Harbor, over the same few hours. The Canadians were taken prisoner after the battle ended with great casualties. Anyone familiar with how the Japanese treated prisoners of war will know that the next few years were pure hell for those soldiers. A monument to that battle is here in Ottawa; it's been awhile since I last photographed it.