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Stalemate: How the First World War reached a four-year impasse

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Red piping or blue adorn cages surrounding elm saplings at seemingly random points alongside roadways around the town of Ieper in western Belgium.

A centennial project of the In Flanders Fields Museum, they trace the near-encirclement of the town and delineate the furthest point of advance by invading German forces (red) and the corresponding Allied (blue) front lines through five major battles around what was then known, and is forever remembered, as Ypres.

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Painting the Battle of Ortona

STORY BY PAIGE JASMINE GILMAR

“The price of Peace, borne by the brave—

Is priceless…”

So goes part of the final stanza of George Elliott Clarke’s “At Ortona: An oratorio,” a poetic memorial of the blood, guts and glory of the Second World War’s Battle of Ortona. While lauded by CBC war correspondents as an example of Canadian heroism in the 1940s, the battle was largely forgotten.

The fight to push Nazi forces from the Italian town in December 1943 left more than 500 dead and nearly 2,000 more casualties, and featured dramatic house-to-house urban combat. It was Canada’s first stand-alone victory of the war. But as its 80th anniversary nears, Ortona remains for many people an obscure moment in Canadian history.

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STEPHEN J. THORNE

The Flanders legacy: Stijn Butaye and the iron harvest

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Stijn Butaye was 12 years old when he strutted into his mother’s Flanders farmhouse kitchen holding an unexploded First World War grenade in his hand like a cat proudly presenting its owner a mouse. Not unlike the proverbial cat owner, his mother promptly sent him back outside, where he was prudently disarmed and given a stern lecture about the realities of rural life in eastern Belgium.

A short time later, the boy recovered a mud-encrusted, near-century-old Lee-Enfield rifle. His mother’s reservations notwithstanding, Butaye was hooked.

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• The Calgary Mosquito project: Resurrecting a WW II legend in Nanton, Alta.
• Recognizing Indigenous veterans: Foundation tracks down lost graves
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The Korean War’s only RCAF prisoner

STORY BY PAIGE JASMINE GILMAR

Squadron Leader Andrew (Andy) MacKenzie described himself as an ordinary man caught up in an extraordinary situation—a recurring theme in his life. From piloting a Spitfire in the Second World War to ejecting out of a burning plane at 12,000 metres (40,000 feet), thrills and chills followed the happy-go-lucky flying ace in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 27 years.

But perhaps no experience was as chilling as being shot down by friendly fire on Dec. 5, 1952, and taken prisoner by Chinese authorities during the Korean War, making MacKenzie the only Canadian air force PoW during the conflict.

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• The many sides of Arthur Currie
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