Photo courtesy Kirsty Sinclair
A group of cadets from Fort Frances are back home after participating in the 75th anniversary of D-Day at Juno Beach.
Five cadets with the 908 Rainy Lake Royal Canadian Air Cadets Squadron and three adults were among the thousands who gathered on June 7.
Warrant Officer, Second Class, Courtney Sinclair, was among three selected to represent one of 359 Canadian soldiers who died on that day in 1944.
“They gave us a little dog tags with the name of a person on it that we were representing so just being able to connect with someone in a more real way,” says Sinclair. “I was also able to find the grave of the person I was representing. A lot of things kind of came together and connected and because of the ceremony.”
Photo courtesy Kirsty Sinclair
The soldier was Corporal Walter John Klos, who was from Brandon and a member of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles at the time.
“Looking around I noticed how beautiful it really was there but thinking back it definitely wouldn’t have looked the same with all like the spikes on the beach and warships,” says Sinclair.
Lieutenant Kirsty Sinclair says the ceremony itself was very moving. It was attended by thousands of people and several dignitaries. Sinclair recalls a meeting with one of them.
“I walked over to a group of cadets and I were introduced myself and it ended up being the general of the European Air Force. I told her that I was here at my cadets and she said ‘I want to meet them.’ I said ‘I’ll bring them to you’ and she said ‘no, I’ll follow you.’ So I led her through a group of maybe 1500 people at that moment to my cadets where she spent quality time talking with the two cadets who were not part of the ceremony. It was phenomenal.”
The group also visited Amsterdam, Belgium and Paris before returning home last week.
“It was incredible to take a group of kids who’d never really left North America and watch them transform as they learned and grew. It was an amazing experience.”
The cadets spoke about their experiences to legion members attending the biennial meeting of the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Command.
