Yorkton veterans reflect on service, history during Remembrance Day

Hundreds of people attended the Remembrance Day ceremony in Yorkton. Various groups laid wreaths on the cenotaph in honour of Canadian soldiers. (Sierra D'Souza Butts/CTV News)

A member of the Royal Canadian Legion Yorkton Branch said his personal connection to Remembrance Day is through his family migrating to Canada after his father experienced the Dutch famine of 1944-45.

“My father is from Holland and was a young boy during World War II,” shared Allan Rundel, padre of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Yorkton’s branch.

“After D-Day, the Canadian soldiers were assigned to go to Holland, Belgium, to free them, but had to stop short in 1944 because of the winter. That winter of hunger was a very poignant part of my father’s life in remembrance. They had to eat tulip bulbs and other things, because the land had been flooded and a lot of the food stuff left.”

The Dutch famine – also known as the Dutch Hunger Winter – occurred when German forces placed an embargo on inland shipping – effectively cutting off the food supply of the western Netherlands.

As a result, millions of civilians faced starvation until Canadian and other Allied forces intervened in April of 1945.

“My father remembers very distinctively, the Canadian soldiers who came through and shared some of their food,” said Rundel.

“One in particular gave my father a chocolate bar and that stood out to him as a 10-year-old boy who hadn’t seen that in many years. Because of that - and the Canadians coming and helping to liberate Holland – my father decided to immigrate to Canada. He married a Saskatchewan girl, they were in B.C., and that’s where I am today.”

Rundel said being able to share his story with others on a significant day of memorial is what Remembrance Day is about.

“I’m very proud of being a Canadian, and to have that heritage and to be a part of the Legion in remembering what not just what the Canadian soldiers done, but all soldiers in liberating Europe, and in the other wars that have followed,” he expressed.

One veteran in Yorkton said it is heartwarming to see the community come together in honour of those who served.

“I was participating [in the ceremony] for many years. It's nice to sit back here and watch it be carried on,” expressed Peter Wyatt, who served as military policeman in Germany with NATO and in Cyprus with the United Nations.

“There's always something inside of you that makes you feel proud of what's going on."