June 6 marks the 75th anniversary of the largest single-day amphibious military invasion of all time.
About 15,000 Canadian soldiers landed on Juno Beach on D-Day and another 450 or so landed in the dark behind enemy lines by parachute.
Canadian casualties that day included 340 killed, 574 wounded and 47 taken prisoner. Over 5,000 Canadians were killed in the Normandy campaign; 1,017 of them in the first six days.
For some, 75 years might seem like a long time, but in the grand scheme of global history, it’s a blink of an eye.
Yet each year there are fewer living survivors to relay firsthand accounts of what it was actually like to storm the seawall amid constant bombardment from German guns.
Even experienced Canadian soldiers would have had no idea what they were running into, but they carried on courageously, advancing farther inland than any other Allied troops.
The success of the invasion marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War and reinforced the reputation of Canadian soldiers as some of the finest on the planet.
Please take a moment on June 6 to remember their sacrifices.
Erin … again
One of the pillars of democracy is a free press. And perhaps the press’ greatest responsibility is holding taxpayer-funded administrations accountable.
That remains our sole motivation for seeking answers from the Town of Erin on the amount spent on severances for fired employees – and subsequently on lawyers and staff to cover up the information.
Taxpayers deserve to know how their hard-earned money is spent and town officials need to know they can’t run roughshod over taxpayers in a self-serving ruse.
That explains yet another article in this week’s Advertiser on the matter. Now, it seems, after we poked several holes in the town’s version of events, Erin officials are trying a different strategy: radio silence. Better not to dig the grave deeper, I guess.
It’s frustrating because it would have saved everyone so much time, effort and money if Erin officials were honest and forthright from the start. Yet here we are, 20 months into this saga, with no end in sight.
It’s a travesty – one for which we hope someone will one day be held accountable. Erin taxpayers deserve at least that much.
