Tag Archives: Legion Magazine

Wartime attacks on health-care workers and facilities on steep rise

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Front Lines

A young patient was among those wounded in a Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian children’s hospital in Kyiv on July 8, 2024. Two people were killed and at least 16 wounded in the strike on Okhmatdyt Hospital.[ZelenskyyUa/X]

Wartime attacks on health-care workers and facilities on steep rise

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Attacks on clinics, hospitals and health-care workers in conflict zones numbered more than 3,600 in 2024, a 62 per cent increase in two years, says a new report.

More than a third of the attacks targeted Gaza or the West Bank; hundreds more were recorded in Ukraine, Lebanon, Myanmar and Sudan.

The report “Epidemic of Violence: Violence Against Health Care in Conflict 2024,” by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, says the attacks consisted of air, missile and drone strikes; shelling; tank fire; shootings; arson; the looting and takeover of health facilities; and the arrest and detention of health workers.

“By far the largest number of attacks on health care—more than 1,300—took place in Gaza and the West Bank, far more than we have ever reported in one conflict in one year, including more than double the number of health workers killed,” wrote coalition chair Len Rubenstein.

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Collectible playing cards and mug bundle
Veterans Benefit Guide
The Briefing
The Briefing

Flying Officer Donald Galloway Watt McKie was returning from a mission when his, and another plane were shot down by U.K. friendly fire. He did not survive. [McKie family]

Remembering Canadian downed by U.K. friendly fire tragedy in WW II

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Craig McKie of Fraser Valley, B.C., never met his father.

He was just two months old on May 29, 1944, when Flying Officer Donald Galloway Watt McKie of Toronto, piloting the Wellington bomber LN443, lost his life, along with all five other crew members, following a friendly fire incident near the rural English village of Hazelbury Bryan in Dorset.

The absence the tragedy left never went away. It was “always there,” recalls Craig. There was “always a missing chair.”

As for many families who lost fathers, brothers and sons, the McKie’s never really got over it.

The lost became internalized and its ripple felt for generations, including by people who didn’t even meet him. Craig’s daughter Catriana was one of them.

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Email sent to: mkbarbour@gmail.com

Canvet Publications Ltd.
86 Aird Place |
Kanata, Ontario | K2L 0A1 | Canada |
1-844-602-5737 | 613-591-0116 | magazine@legion.ca

By the numbers: Who contributed, and sacrificed, the most in WW II?

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An item from the Legion Magazine.
Front Lines
Front Lines

A landing craft sets out with Canadian troops aboard destined for the Normandy beaches. Canadians at Juno penetrated further inland on June 6, 1944, than any Allies at the five D-Day beachheads.[Dennis Sullivan/DND/LAC/PA-132790.]

By the numbers: Who contributed, and sacrificed, the most in WW II?

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

The American president outraged a host of Allied nations recently when he claimed the United States “won World War 2” and should be celebrating the fact.

Donald Trump made the statement after a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron who, he said, told him France was “celebrating our victory over the Germans.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said a week after VE-Day on May 8. “Now, we don’t take credit for what we do. And I said, what the hell? Every country I’ve spoken to in the last week is celebrating the war but us. Isn’t that terrible?

“Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war. We won the war.”

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Notebooks
Veterans Benefit Guide
The Briefing
The Briefing

The final book in Phil Craig’s trilogy, 1945: The Reckoning: War, Empire and Struggle for a New World, follows an Indian family with two boys divided by the opposing side they chose to fight for. [Phil Criag]

Phil Craig confronts colonialism in new book

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

British author and filmmaker Phil Craig has long anticipated completing his book trilogy on the Second World War. First came Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain in 1999, co-written with Tim Clayton. In 2002, a second collaborative effort—again with Clayton—produced End of the Beginning, retracing the desperate days from May to November 1942 to coincide with what was then the 60th anniversary year.

Now, Craig has rounded off his WW II saga with the recent publication of 1945: The Reckoning: War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World. Brimming with poignant first-hand accounts and untold stories, the already well-received book confronts the realities of Far East colonialism in the war’s final months and the immediate aftermath. Among the topics examined are the “rather shameful and foolish things” carried out by the British in the name of imperial agendas, says Craig himself.

Nuance, however, is a key factor throughout the volume, as the bestselling writer explains after sitting down for a Legion Magazine exclusive.

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Email sent to: mkbarbour@gmail.com

Canvet Publications Ltd.
86 Aird Place |
Kanata, Ontario | K2L 0A1 | Canada |
1-844-602-5737 | 613-591-0116 | magazine@legion.ca