Valour in the Presence of the Enemy

Government MPs vote down attempt to create Victoria Cross review board

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Government MPs have voted down the proposed creation of a board to review historical combat actions, including those of Private Jess Larochelle, with an eye to recommending Victoria Crosses where warranted.

Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole drafted a detailed proposal after New Democrat MP Niki Ashton tabled a 14,129-name petition on May 19 urging the federal government to re-evaluate Larochelle’s decorated conduct in Afghanistan.

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 Imperial War Museum

A banner day for RCAF fighters

“The Huns were like bees. They seemed confused and acted as though they did not know what they were doing,” said Warrant Officer Murray Havers, one of a group of Royal Canadian Air Force pilots to shoot down 26 German planes between dawn and dusk over the Normandy front on June 28, 1944.

The story of “one of the most brilliant achievements in the history of the RCAF” was told in great detail in a Canadian Press report the following day.

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 Stephen J. Thorne/Legion Magazine

Small blessings: Military marks National Indigenous Peoples Day in Ottawa

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

For years after he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 2004, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Stevens, an Anishinaabe from Nipissing First Nation in northeastern Ontario, hid his Indigenous roots.

The military was a lumbering organization, far from progressive and slow to change. Being anything other than white was perceived as a potential impediment to progress in the Canadian Forces—and worse.

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 Segundaguerra.com/bing

The unfortunate fate of convoy HX-49

There is safety in numbers, so the saying goes. That was the thinking that led to the merging of two Second World War convoys headed for Great Britain in June 1940.

The first convoy of 26 ships from Canada and the United States had left Halifax on June 9, accompanied by an armed merchant cruiser and two Royal Canadian Navy destroyers. On June 13, it was joined at sea by a group of 24 vessels from the Caribbean and South America, with two escorts.

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