A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
A wonderful crusade
The day before the big opening, the French police, built a security fence around it. Workers set up wooden benches for an audience of 5,000. Rain left the glass and titanium-clad building on the Normandy beach glistening like a polished jewel. And inside the museum itself, Canadian army cadets removed the pins from nearly 44,000 poppies - the pinless Remembrance symbols would be dropped from an aircraft during the ceremony - symbolizing the number of Canadians killed in the Second World War.
“I was on this beach 59 years ago,” Garth Webb said during the opening of the Juno Beach Centre on the June 6 anniversary in 2003. “And it's just as big a thrill to be here today.”
Garth, the man who created the JBC, died in Burlington this past week at 93.
The thrill Garth Webb got on the 59th anniversary of D-Day only begins to describe what the man accomplished there. In the first place, he was part of the Royal Canadian Artillery that landed on Juno Beach in 1944. His 14th Field Regiment helped the Canadian infantry advance farther inland than anyone that day. Then, after the war, during a series of youth exchanges between France and Canada in the 1980s, Webb had bristled at how young people concluded that D-Day had been a purely Anglo-American show and that Canadians hadn't even participated.
“Canada had a great presence in Europe,” Garth Webb told me back in 2003. “But we had nothing, except graveyards and a few memorials to show Canada's participation in the Second World War.”
That's when the former artillery officer, then a successful businessman after the war, switched gears and began a one-man crusade to build a museum on Juno Beach. It took him 10 years and pitches in every government, corporate and public forum one could imagine - not to mention a few radio and TV interviews (where I first met him) - before his Juno Beach Centre Association eventually unveiled a completed museum in Normandy that June day in 2003. But just like the Jimmy Stewart character in It's a Wonderful Life, I think it's safe to say if Garth Webb hadn't existed, much of what we now know as the Juno Beach story might never have happened.
In the first place, without Lt. Webb at the helm of his 14th Field self-propelled gun, called a Priest, it's possible his gun crew might never have made it to the beach that morning. He spent the night, as the D-Day armada of landing craft made its way across the English Channel, reviewing the fire plan (of firing the gun even as the landing craft delivered his Priest vehicle to the beach) and feeding his crew anti-nausea pills (preventing seasickness). He never considered the odds of survival.
“Guys who waited all night wondering, 'Am I going to live through tomorrow?' they had more concern and fear that I did. I was too busy… I looked where I was going and walked right through it.”
His Priest gun and crew got ashore on D-Day without a scratch. But if it weren't for Webb's skill and confidence, his gun crew might not have made it all the way to VE Day, in Holland in 1945. Similarly, when it came to coaxing dollars from Canadians' pockets to finance his JBC, if it weren't for his determination and focus, it might never have succeeded. Initially, I was one of the naysayers; I remember interviewing Webb on CBC Radio's “Fresh Air” program in the 1990s.
“Who's going to finance this?” I asked him.
“I expect the Canadian and provincial governments, corporations and the general public will donate to this cause,” he said and added, “just watch.”
Well, in spite of my scepticism, the country did watch. Thanks to Webb, the country did donate. As well, he and his merry band of volunteers convinced the residents of Courseulles-sur-Mer to donate a beach campground on which to build the Juno Beach Centre. He then personally presented his pet project to thousands of school children, their parents and every level of government and every corporation in the country. Eventually, more than 11,000 Canadians bought commemorative bricks to finance construction. Governments from Ontario to B.C. and from Paris to Ottawa kicked in millions. And corporate Canada, especially Wal-Mart (to the tune of $3.5 million), made sure Canadians understood the significance of Canada and the Juno Beach landings.
“History occurs when character meets circumstance,” Mario Pilozzi, then CEO of Wal-Mart, said at the JBC opening in 2003. “(Garth Webb) and the veterans have ensured that a learning facility exists to pay tribute to the accomplishments of their generation.”
But if Garth Webb hadn't been in command aboard that landing craft on June 6, 1944… if he hadn't taken his crusade to so many people (including those at Port Perry High School and Uxbridge Secondary School)… if he hadn't given as much of himself on the battlefield or the board room… then we wouldn't be the beneficiaries of his extraordinary gift, the Juno Beach Centre.
For other Barris Beat columns go to www.tedbarris.com
