I’m typing this as I sit at the airport in Reykjavik, Iceland. I have a layover here for a few hours before I fly to the Faroe Islands for a conference.

This is the first time I’ve been to Iceland, but as soon as we touched down I thought of my Uncle Bert. He had sailed into Reykjavik in early June of 1940 aboard the Empress of Australia as a member of the Royal Regiment of Canada. They were garrisoned here to build roads, improve harbours and set up coast watch stations before being sent to England at the end of October. It looks like he spent almost 5 months here.

On August 19, 1942 the Royal Regiment took part in the Dieppe Raid. Things didn’t go as planned, and the regiment suffered the worst casualties of the day. Two hundred sixty men were captured and two hundred, including Uncle Bert, were killed. Dieppe is still remembered as Canada’s worst defeat.

 

My mom was only 7 years old when he died so she only remembered fleeting images of him. She told me she remembered her mom crying the day a parcel that she’d sent to Uncle Bert was returned unopened. Other than that, all I’d really been told was that my uncle had died at Dieppe and his body had never been found.

In 1979 I backpacked through Europe for 3 months. The trip started in Norway, meandered as far south as Greece and then back up towards England. My visit to Paris was near the end of the trip. While there I visited “Les Invalides”. It’s an amazing military museum that was once a hospital for Napoleon’s soldiers. As I was leaving I spotted a sign over a door that said “Commonwealth Victime de la Guerre” (Commonwealth War Victims). On a whim I went in and asked if they had any information regarding a Canadian soldier named Bert Doonan. As soon as they found out I was a Canadian and that my uncle had died in the war they became extremely friendly and helpful. I wasn’t expecting much because all I knew was his name and the date of the Dieppe raid. They gave me an address to try that was on the other side of the city. I almost gave up but instead boarded a metro train and found the place. At first the sweet little lady sounded like there wasn’t much she could tell me. I must have looked disappointed because she asked me to wait a bit longer while she tried another filing cabinet. A short time later, in a flurry of rapid French, she excitedly shared the address of his “tombe”. She had actually found the location of his grave… something I had not expected. I was surprised, excited and grateful.

The train ride from Paris to Mers les Bains took about 3 hours the next morning. Mers les Bains is a coastal town about 20 miles north-east of Dieppe, and the piece of paper the kind little lady had given me said his “tombe” was located in the community grave yard there.

There are ten commonwealth war graves in that big beautiful yard. All are in a row up against the southern brick wall. Six of the graves belong to British sailors, the other four belong to Canadians killed at Dieppe. Uncle Bert’s grave is one of them.

I can’t say that I cried when I saw the headstone with his name on it, but what had started as a bit of a treasure hunt all of a sudden became very real. He’d been 23 years old. I was 21. I’d been holidaying around Europe for months and he’d never had the chance. I somehow knew that I’d never take another Remembrance Day for granted.

Since I was there in 1979 several of my cousins have made the trip. I need to go back there too.

In 2003 my son, Cy was in France and visited the cemetery. He had his picture taken beside Uncle Bert’s grave just as I had done twenty-four years earlier. We put both pictures in the same frame and put it on our mantle.

In 2005, Dave Stone, a Nova Scotian singer & song-writer, visited Fort St. John to spend time teaching his skills to high school kids. He visited our house one evening to play some songs and have a beer. Being a history buff, Dave was interested in the pictures on the mantle. He asked me to tell the story that went with them so I explained how I’d happened on the grave in 1979. He asked how it felt to find something that no one else had. I told him that although I didn’t actually cry, it had crossed my mind that I’d been able to “party my way across Europe for months while Uncle Bert had never even had the chance to try a French beer.” Being a song-writer, he said, “that’s a good line”. He flew home the next day and a week later he sent me the first draft of a song he calls “French Beer”.

I told the story and shared the song at dozens of school assemblies back in the day. The kids never failed to impress me with their interest and respect.

So… as I sit here in Reykjavik, I can’t help but hope Uncle Bert got to try some of Iceland’s “Egils Gull” lager while he was here in 1940 🙂

Click here if you haven’t heard Dave’s song or seen the pictures.