It was Christmas 1944 in Bournemouth, England, during the last years of the Second World War—a time when turkey dinner wasn’t exactly easy to come by. But squadron leader Cameron Taylor, a Canadian pilot who received two Distinguished Flying Cross awards, vowed that his men would eat well that Christmas.
So after making some arrangements by telephone, Taylor personally flew to Northern Ireland where he had once been based. Although a party with his old friends couldn’t be avoided, Taylor successfully completed his mission and returned to the base in Bournemouth with 100 live turkeys.
“He decided that Christmas that his guys, all Canadians, were not going to go without a turkey dinner,” said Ross Hamilton, a WWII veteran who participated in that 1944 Christmas dinner.
Hamilton, from Kelowna, British Columbia, recounted this story in Holidays at War, an initiative of the Historica-Dominion Institute, a national charitable organization based in Toronto.
The initiative is part of the institute’s The Memory Project: Stories of the Second World War, which aims to create a record of Canada’s participation in WWII as seen through the eyes of the men and women who were there.
The nationwide bilingual project provides living WWII veterans with the opportunity to preserve their memories through recorded interviews and digitized memorabilia.
“We’re collecting all these amazing stories,” says project manager Jenna Misener. “I think they’re really special stories and they are things that we as Canadians need to remember today and over the holiday season.”
Another veteran, James Ritchie from Ontario, described how he was based in Italy when Christmas rolled around. A turkey dinner was provided, but the soldiers had to eat it out of their mess tins as there were no plates.
“It was as close as we could be to home,” said Ritchie. The sergeant major also managed to obtain some kegs of wine for the men. He had planned to have it bottled, but the entire lot was consumed before he had the chance.
So after making some arrangements by telephone, Taylor personally flew to Northern Ireland where he had once been based. Although a party with his old friends couldn’t be avoided, Taylor successfully completed his mission and returned to the base in Bournemouth with 100 live turkeys.
“He decided that Christmas that his guys, all Canadians, were not going to go without a turkey dinner,” said Ross Hamilton, a WWII veteran who participated in that 1944 Christmas dinner.
Hamilton, from Kelowna, British Columbia, recounted this story in Holidays at War, an initiative of the Historica-Dominion Institute, a national charitable organization based in Toronto.
The initiative is part of the institute’s The Memory Project: Stories of the Second World War, which aims to create a record of Canada’s participation in WWII as seen through the eyes of the men and women who were there.
The nationwide bilingual project provides living WWII veterans with the opportunity to preserve their memories through recorded interviews and digitized memorabilia.
“We’re collecting all these amazing stories,” says project manager Jenna Misener. “I think they’re really special stories and they are things that we as Canadians need to remember today and over the holiday season.”
Another veteran, James Ritchie from Ontario, described how he was based in Italy when Christmas rolled around. A turkey dinner was provided, but the soldiers had to eat it out of their mess tins as there were no plates.
“It was as close as we could be to home,” said Ritchie. The sergeant major also managed to obtain some kegs of wine for the men. He had planned to have it bottled, but the entire lot was consumed before he had the chance.
