10 November 2000

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Pte. Victor Howey	L&W Badge	When you get home tell them of us and say For your tomorrow We gave our today

BERGEN OP ZOOM, the Netherlands - The cold Dutch earth that had clasped Pte. Victor Howey's body in the spot where he fell 56 years ago re-embraced him again, this time he was given a dignified military burial at a Canadian war graves cemetery in the Netherlands.

Pte. Howey was just 24 when he was killed in January 1945, probably by an exploding mine, while attacking a German position on a dyke along the River Maas. His body, never collected, vanished into the Netherlands's blasted landscape.

He remained listed as "missing" until last January, when Dutch engineers checking for unexploded ordnance in the dyke uncovered him -- along with seven German soldiers. Pte. Howey was identified in August from dental records.

With three family members watching and a piper to lead him home, he was buried alongside hundreds of other young soldiers in the Canadian war cemetery at Bergen Op Zoom. The town was one of the many liberated by Canadians in the Second World War, and dozens of residents came out to pay their respects.

Pte. Howey's casket was covered with the Maple Leaf flag he never knew, having fought and died under the Red Ensign. In a short, poignant eulogy, Lt. Col. Tim Carter, the current commanding officer of Howey's Lincoln and Welland Regiment, spoke forcefully of "his sacrifice, freely given."

But Lt. Col. Carter also reminded those in attendances that Pte. Howey and the other young men lying beneath the tombstone of Bergen Op Zoom cemetery were more than convenient symbols to evoke memories of an old war. "He was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's husband," said Lt.-Col. Carter. Pte. Howey left a widow, Phyllis, who lives in Newfoundland but was too ill to attend the service. She never re-married.

"We always heard stories about Uncle Vic, so he was a very real part of our family," said 17-year-old Lesley Howey, his great-niece who huddled for warmth and comfort with her brother, Christopher, 19, and father, Robert, throughout the service. "As soon as I saw him come in, I couldn't stop crying." The family still lives in the house outside Belmont, Ont., where Victor Howey grew up ("I sleep in his old room," Christopher says). In Bergen Op Zoom, the family still appeared stunned to be attending a funeral they never expected to hold, yet extremely proud at the huge emotional reaction it sparked.

But what is remarkable about the long-after-the-fact recovery of Pte. Howey's body is that, while rare, it is hardly unique. The contested, blood-soaked plains of northern Europe are effectively an unmarked graveyard, with thousands of unidentified war dead lying in the grip of its mud.

"Oh, we find at least 10 to 15 bodies a year," says Warrant Officer Fred Bolle, 51, who has been part of the Dutch Military's Recovery and Identification Service for 15 years and who excavated Pte. Howey's body. "We don't seek them out. They are found by farmers or during building projects."

Warrant Officer Bolle pulls out a map of the Kapelsche Veer where Pte. Howey died, fingering the spot where he was found and pointing out the German parachute regiment's positions that were the "Lincs & Winks" objective that day.

The bodies of Pte. Howey and the Germans were all positioned as they fell. None had been so much as cursorily buried. Other members of the Canadian regiment are believed to be in the same area. The horrific fight cost them 183 casualties.

Warrant Officer Bolle says he has a list of 1,500 soldiers still unaccounted for from all sides. His team found another Canadian earlier this year entombed in a Lancaster bomber that crashed just outside Amsterdam. The Canadian airman was part of a British crew, and will be buried in the Netherlands next spring.

But the unearthing of long-dead soldiers and missing artifacts also opens a door into morally ambiguous areas. Is it right to disturb the dead, especially if they cannot be identified? These, after all, are the sons, husbands and brothers Lt.-Col. Carter referred to.

In a more sinister vein, are searches for human remains acting as a cover for collectors and agents seeking profitable war mementoes. Those questions nag Jackie Platteeuw, 56, a retired civil servant from Ypres, Belgium, as he stands in a waterlogged field in the neighbouring town of Boezinge. A pretty canal runs past and, behind him, the spire of Boezinge's graceful church pokes through the mist cast by the afternoon light.

It is a terrible place. During the First World War, German and British troops cut this field with their maze of trenches. The proximity is horrifying. "A man with a good arm could reach the enemy with a grenade," says Mr. Platteeuw.

Since the First World War, the land had been owned by a local doctor and veteran, who insisted it remain untouched so the men who died so horribly in its stinking trenches could rest "for eternity." Eternity ended three years ago when the doctor's descendants sold off the property and the neighbouring industrial estate snapped it up for expansion. "It's sad, but Belgium is a small country and every inch counts," explains Mr. Platteeuw. But before the companies could expand and build, the Ypres authorities authorized Mr. Platteeuw and about 30 other amateur colleagues who call themselves "The Diggers" to move through with their shovels, excavating and mapping the trenches. They have turned up thousands of weapons, ammunition, and personal effects from razors to belt buckles and 105 bodies.

"Once we started finding bodies, the remains became our first purpose," says Mr. Platteeuw, standing in the muck of a turned out trench. Bullet casings and belt buckles protrude from the mud, everywhere visible to the eye. "These men died horrible deaths." But The Diggers have had less success in identifying the bodies. They have put a name to just one of the 105, a ratio the Commonwealth War Graves Commission calls, with a raised eyebrow, very low. That leads many in Ypres to question the men's motives. Are the bodies really shorn of all regimental markings as is claimed, they ask? Or are treasure hunters happy for a crack at an undisturbed battlefield stripping them first?

Back across the border, the Dutch Army's Warrant Officer Bolle says private excavations like the one in Ypres are illegal in the Netherlands. Even the military only deals with identifying bodies that come up accidentally. "It's a mission for me, a calling," says Warrant Officer Bolle. "You are a Sherlock Holmes for human remains". The satisfaction when you finally get the name is tremendous.

In January 1945 the area around Kapelsche Veer was fortified and defended by members of the 10^th and 17^th German Parachute Regiment. All previous attacks on the island, by the 1^st Polish Armoured Division in late December and again on 7^th January and the Royal Marine Commandos 13 & 14 January had proven unsuccessful. Operation Elephant was launched at 0730 hours on Friday 26 January 1945.

The most astonishing thing in this entire operation was the determination of the troops on both sides of this battle. It seemed that at all costs neither side was prepared to give in despite the casualty list. The Canadian casualties in the assault were 6 Officers and 23 Men killed with 5 Men presumed killed one of who was Private Victor Howey as well as Private Charles Beaudry and Private Robert Barritt. One Officer and 5 Men died from their wound. Wounded were 8 Officers and 111 Men. In addition 2 Officers and 12 Men were injured in the battle and another 66 Men evacuated with frostbite or other sickness attributed to the action. It was estimated that the enemy had suffered 155 killed, 64 wounded and 14 taken prisoner.

From this point on in the war any battle that had been fought in the past or those that would be fought in the future by the Troops that survived this ordeal on the Maas would be referred to as "was that before or after Kapelsche Veer". 

 

Private Charles Beaudry from Dalhousie, New Brunswick		Private George Robert Barritt from Runciman, Saskatchewan

The Ceremony was well attended by Canadian military personnel, local Dutch and Belgium people and members of the Royal British Legion as each coffin was carried in accompanied by a piper and members of the fallen soldier's family. The lament was played followed by the service, volleys being fired by the Guard of Honour, Last Post, Paying of last respects, Moment of Silence and a floral tributes. The ceremony ended with a fly past from the Royal Netherlands Air Force.