King Charles III waves to the crowd as he and Queen Camilla depart the National War Memorial after placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier the day before the 25th anniversary ceremonies.[Stephen J. Thorne/Legion Magazine]

Ceremony marks 25th anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

A quarter century ago, an unidentified Canadian soldier killed at the seminal First World War Battle of Vimy Ridge was ceremonially exhumed from his grave 8.5 kilometres away in Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery and brought home to Canada.

Vimy, because it was here, in France in April 1917, that all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together for the first time, claiming—under unprecedented Canadian leadership—a victory that would propel the country to its rightful place in the war, and the world. Brought home, because Canadians—indeed, all secure, free-living people—need reminding of what it took, and still takes, to keep them secure and free.

More than 18,000 of the over 66,000 Canadians killed in the Great War were never identified, their names listed on the Vimy Memorial (11,285) and the Menin Gate in Belgium (6,940). This soldier was destined to represent them all and the 27,000 who remain unidentified from the Second World War, 16 from Korea and undetermined others from the Boer War and other conflicts.

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Mandy Shintani admires a samurai sword at the Nikkei National Museum.

“Samurai in Our Closet”: New podcast highlights Japanese-Canadian WW II service and civilian internment

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Mandy Shintani remembers the samurai in her family closet.

Just a child at the time, the third-generation Japanese-Canadian—or Sansei—had little understanding of where, exactly, the sword came from and why it was there.

It belonged to her father, that much she knew, but the reason it stayed hidden away and how it had come into his possession in the first place remained unanswered.

“When I was a kid,” explained Shintani, “I didn’t even know he’d been interned,” referring to Canada’s racially motivated policies of the Second World War where more than 22,000 Japanese-Canadians were forcibly removed from the West Coast, then incarcerated after Japan launched the Dec. 7, 1941, assault on Pearl Harbor.

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