The Cape Breton Highlanders

The toast was composed by Joe Oldford, (DCM) and is given by Joe at each reunion during the annual Saturday evening banquet. It is repeated here so that you who have not had the opportunity of joining with us at our get-to-g ethers, may share the pride that is ours.

Ceremonies marking the 60th Anniversary of the Normandy landings were extensive and well publicized. We will do our best to inform about the Cape Breton Highlanders and the Italian Campaign.

Sixty-three years after his unit was disbanded, a veteran from Nova Scotia has received a medal from the U.S. army.

In 1940 when I was 8 years of age I lived in the rectory in a village called Michelmersh in Hampshire. Not far from the house was the village hall alongside a small wood. One day a contingent of soldiers arrived and set up tents, cooking facilities, machine guns. with some fortunate ones bedding down in the village hall. Like all young children we were excited by all this activity and as soon as we finished school we would join our new friends. These soldiers were the Cape Breton Highlanders, and after 68 years I still think of these brave young men who came to our small village from so far away to help us when we so much needed it, and who were so kind to the children of the village. I remember they came to the rectory to use our bathroom to wash and bath. I don't think they stayed for more than a few weeks, but that time is forever imprinted on my memory and I often wonder what happened to them.

Peter Crew ~ Stamford Lincolnshire, England