CASSINO, Italy — Veterans, youth and politicians gathered at a sprawling cemetery here yesterday to honour 855 Canadians buried under neat rows of aging white gravestones.
Heavy fog lifted to reveal bright blue skies as the special ceremony paid tribute to Canadians killed in action during the Italian campaign, a brutal 20-month offensive of the Second World War that claimed nearly 6,000 Canadian troops.
"The horror and tragedy of war seems very far away as we gather here in the silent beauty of this sacred place," said Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson. "And yet, this morning we can feel our nation’s great loss as fresh and deeply as when the 855 brave Canadians were laid to rest here."
Thompson is leading a delegation of veterans and youth from Canada who are commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Italian campaign by retracing the steps of the soldiers, visiting war cemeteries and laying wreaths at memorials to the fallen.
Thompson praised those who gave their "precious young lives" fighting to break through tough German defensive lines. He also paid tribute to Italy's losses, noting 60,000 died in heavy fighting and bombardment that destroyed Cassino.
The town's Mayor Bruno Vincenzo Scitarelli said a "holocaust of youth" took place on their soil.
"Their lives were given in the name of ideals that unfortunately are still hard to pursue today: peace and freedom," he said. "These ideals are intimately tied to Cassino and to its history and will certainly be part of its future."
Scitarelli said freedom must be strengthened and preserved "jealously as our most precious belonging."
Two Canadian youth, Nolan Hill and Melanie Morin, told the stories of two fallen soldiers they had researched before the trip. Hill laid a plastic container of Albertan soil and a provincial flag at a memorial to honour Pte. William Gair, a fellow Albertan killed in action during the Italian campaign.
"William never made it back home, so it only seems fair that he be reunited with his homeland again," he said.
Gair's brother Russell was in the same regiment and just 100 yards away when he was killed.
Historian and professor Gianni Blasi said while there is lingering resentment among the population for both German and Allied troops, Canadians are seen much differently.
"Civilians in this area saw the Canadians as people who were fighting, they were fighting seriously, but they had not forgotten they were human beings," he said. "They were not brutal. And to this day I have never heard anyone who speaks negatively about a Canadian."
kathleen.harris@sunmedia.ca
