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Several times a year, Dave Woodall totes bucket, stepladder and cleaning materials down to Windsor’s riverfront to do a little extra to honour and remember the huge sacrifices made by local soldiers on a single bloody morning long ago.
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We can never forget, Woodall said Friday as he polished the shiny steel letters and symbols on the Dieppe Raid Memorial at downtown Windsor’s Dieppe Gardens.
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The 81st anniversary of the Aug. 19, 1942, raid along the French shoreline of Nazi Germany’s Fortress Europe will be commemorated this Saturday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
It was Canada’s bloodiest day on the battlefields of the Second World War, and a staggering nine out of 10 young men belonging to The Essex Scottish Regiment who participated would end up killed or captured within hours of scrambling ashore at Red Beach.
Everyone in Windsor knew someone who didn’t return that day, said Woodall, whether family, friend, classmate, colleague or neighbour.
Last year’s Dieppe national memorial service held in Windsor had one living veteran from that raid, John Date, who was 100 years old, a Sarnia man who signed up to serve in his youth and who would spend the rest of the Second World War — another 32 months — as a prisoner of war.
But even after the last veteran of that period is gone, Woodall said we can never forget their sacrifices in securing freedom from tyranny. In a “Canada et Dieppe” message sent last year to close to 30,000 residents of his seaside city, the mayor of Dieppe pointed to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and reminded them “it is our duty … to prolong the memory” of those who fight for the freedom of others.
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Woodall’s Windsor business was involved in engineering and building the original black granite memorial designed by then-University of Windsor student Rory O’Connor, which was erected along the beach in Dieppe. A second, exact replica, followed along Windsor’s waterfront.
A unique feature of its design sees a shaft of sunlight pierce through the inside at exactly 1 p.m. local time each August 19 — the time the raid’s withdrawal was signalled — and illuminate a stainless steel maple leaf on the ground. The maple leaf in Windsor is set among stones brought overseas from the Red Beach landing zone.
Woodall is a former honorary lieutenant-colonel of the The Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, and remains a member of Delta Company, the reserve infantry regiment’s civilian support group.
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