Eighty-one years on, a child frolics in the shadows of the Mulberry harbours deposited along Gold Beach at Arromanches, France, after June 6, 1944. [Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

The summer of ’44: Canadians from Normandy to the Dutch border

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Eighty-one years after Allied forces hit the beaches of Normandy and launched the campaign to liberate Europe from six years of Nazi tyranny, the history still lives.

The bunkers and fortifications that formed Hitler’s Atlantikwall still cast a weary yet ominous presence over the English Channel. The wind, rain and ominous skies that clouded the beaches on June 6, 1944, still rage. The walls of courtyards, houses and 1,000-year-old churches still bear the scars of WW II battles.

And, of course, the cemeteries are sobering testament to the cost.

The history is not all visual, either.

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More from Front Lines

• Half of Canadians say they would go to war for their country; youth, not so much
• Rules-based order not working, says British field marshal
• Canada Day is forever Memorial Day in Newfoundland

HMCS Trentonian was sunk by U-1004 on Feb. 22, 1945, near Falmouth, England. Divers have since removed many artifacts from the vessel. [CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum]

Canadian naval historian speaks out about retrieving shipwreck artifacts

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

More than 80 years after HMCS Trentonian sank in U.K. waters resulting in six deaths, a British diver has recovered—or removed—its bell from the wreck site.

Not everyone, suffice it to say, is happy about it.

The Canadian Flower-class corvette, launched in 1943, had an arguably short yet nevertheless storied wartime career, contributing to the 1944 Normandy invasion and additional Allied convoy escort duties before it was torpedoed and sank on Feb. 22, 1945.

Five went down with the ship, a sixth later succumbed to his wounds.

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More from The Briefing

• A duplicate of a Canadian war memorial at home in Norway
• The Taste of Longing: A novelistic biography of WW II PoW Ethel Mulvany
• New children’s books shines light on Canadian military experience

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