An RCMP Black Hawk helicopter flies over the National War Memorial as the formal 2025 National Remembrance Day Ceremony concludes. [Aaron Kylie/LM]

Where Canada remembers: The National War Memorial hosts its 85th annual ceremony in tribute to military sacrifice

STORY BY AARON KYLIE

Beyond the grounds of Parliament Hill, there may be no other location as synonymous with Canadians gathering en masse as the National War Memorial. Since 1940, thousands have flocked annually to the country’s cenotaph, known as “The Response,” to pay their respects to those who have served, and continue to serve, Canada in uniform.

Coincidentally, design proposals for the monument, with a budget set at $100,000, were first sought 100 years ago in February 1925. The tribute was to evoke “the spirit of heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the spirit of all that is noble and great that was exemplified in the lives of those sacrificed in the Great War, and the services rendered by the men and women who went overseas.”

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The 29th (Canadian) Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla conducts an exercise in May 1944. Weeks later, it would participate with the British during the invasion at Sword Beach on D-Day [LAC/3204508]

The Canadians at Sword Beach: Part 1

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

We all know the story, or at least a version of it.

The success of D-Day on June 6, 1944, was the result of a combined arms operation spearheaded by U.S., British and Canadian forces. These three Allied nations, the oft-cited tale goes, were assigned five heavily defended sectors between them.

The British were tasked with landing at the beaches codenamed Sword and Gold; the Americans took on the mantle of assaulting Utah and Omaha beaches; and the Canadians squared off against German resistance on Juno Beach.

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In one of hockey’s oldest rivalries, the Royal Military College of Canada plays against the United States Military Academy West Point in Kingston, Ont., on Feb. 1, 2025, for the 102nd time. [United States Military Academy West Point]

Excerpt from O Canada: War & Hockey

STORY BY STEPHEN SMITH

Hockey is the game we hold dearest in Canada, the one we define ourselves by, still. It’s a haven for our identity, and it’s where we cultivate our national pride— and store our strategic reserve of contradictions, too. We like to think of it as a natural resource, of course, hewn from the wintry north, and forged by us into the game—and the passion—it has become, even as it, too, has forged us.

The story isn’t quite that straightforward, we should acknowledge. While hockey does indeed have roots in Indigenous games of stick-and- ball, it owes much as well to migrant imports: Scottish shinty, Irish hurling and various golf-like Dutch diversions. But isn’t that a Canadian story in itself?

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Military historian and author Fred Gaffen has summarized Canada’s role in WW II in his latest book Path To Victory. [Burnstown Publishing House]

Historian Fred Gaffen recounts Canada’s WW II story in a new single-volume book

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Military historian and author Fred Gaffen is the first to admit that there are “so many books written about the Second World War, many of them by Canadians.” Nevertheless, he argues, a proportion might appear to be a “bit too formidable,” perhaps especially for those who want the facts without academic rabbit holes.

Gaffen cites his grandchildren and new Canadians interested in history as two motivators for writing his recent book, Path to Victory: Canada and the Second World War 1939 – 1945, released in August 2025 by Burnstown Publishing House.

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