Royal Canadian Legion Branch 30

 Supporting Veterans, promoting Remembrance and helping our communities is our duty. We are dedicated to supporting Veterans and their families in need, honouring those who sacrificed for our country and providing essential services within our communities. 

The Legion serves all Veterans

The Royal Canadian Legion was founded by Veterans and for Veterans. We advocate for the care and benefits for all who served Canada, regardless of when or where they served. The Legion also provides representation and assistance to Veterans, including currently serving Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP, and their families, and access to our services is available to them at no cost, whether or not they are Legion members. The Legion helps thousands of Veterans each year and makes significant positive changes in their lives. 

The Legion exists so that Canada never forgets

The Legion understands the importance of honouring past sacrifices and acknowledging the courage of those who served and still serve today. Through Remembrance Day ceremonies, the Poppy campaign, commemorative activities, youth education programs and more, the Legion helps Canadians to honour and remember.

Legion Branches are the cornerstone of communities across Canada, and provide one of the largest volunteer bases in the country. With 1,400 Branches from coast to coast to coast, our members provide local services and supports to build a stronger Canada. Whether helping local Veterans, supporting seniors, providing youth sports programs, raising funds, volunteering to help those in need, or simply offering a place to gather for fun and celebration, Legionnaires provide essential services in their communities.

The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 30 - Port Hope is a service club for veterans, their families and friends. They sponsor community events, Air Cadets and donate to various worthwhile causes and organizations. The Legion holds Remembrance Day, Canada Day  and Decoration Day activities. The Legion also provides hall rentals for small weddings, celebrations of life, dinners, birthday parties, showers, dances, fundraisers, sports, community meetings and banquets. 

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT-BECOME A MEMBER

 When you join the Legion, you support the many services we offer to Veterans, serving military, RCMP Members, and their families. You don’t have to be a Veteran to join!Veterans put their lives on the line for their country; becoming a member of the Legion is the ultimate way to show your appreciation for that service. Your membership also helps provide essential services within our communities, including seniors support services, housing and care for the elderly, drop-in centres, Cadets, youth and sport programs, and much more. There are many ways the Legion gives, and by joining you give too. 

 Legion members care deeply about supporting the men and women who serve this country and want to make a difference in the lives of Veterans, contribute to our communities, and Remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Country. When you join the Legion, you support the many services we offer to Veterans, serving military, RCMP, and their families.

 Join the Legion today!

 There are many ways the Legion gives, and by joining you give too. 

The recipient of the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch # 30 Legionnaire of the Year Award for 2018 is a very worthy recipient, a Comrade who personifies the Legion. 

He assisted the Poppy Chairman with computer work and actively participated in the Poppy Campaign.

He designed a model of the Cenotaph 

This Member is a great ambassador of the Legion and promoter of all that we do in the community.

Fellow Comrades, please show your appreciation to the Legionnaire of the Year for 2019 …

Comrade Wayne Stephens!!!!!  

Congratulations  Wayne ,, well deserved.    

The Ladies Auxiliary is an essential part of the Legion.  

The Auxiliary are made up of Ladies who volunteer their time to running functions for the Legion as well as fundraising to assist others.

President : Arlene Pettipas - 905-885-8421

1st Vice President : Kathy Joachim

2nd Vice President : Patricia Honey

Secretary: Tracy Brown

Treasurer: Susan MacDonald

Sgt-at-Arms : Jean Tarrington

Sports Officier : Janet Watts

Executive : Sandra Bolton

                  Cathy Moore

Our Meetings are the second Tuesday of the Month - 7pm at the Legion.  

We are always looking for new members so if you have a little spare time or we are also always open to volunteers to help out with our events.  If you would like to join or become a volunteer please contact President Arlene Pettipas @ 905-885-8421 or call the legion at 905-885-6585 and join a rewarding organization.

Meeting Schedule 

Tuesday January 8th/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday February 12/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday March 12/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday April 9th/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday May 14th/19 @ 7PM - ELECTIONS

Tuesday June 11th/19 @ 7pm - POT LUCK

No Meetings in July & August 2019

Tuesday September 10th/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday October 8th/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday November 12th/19 @ 7pm

Tuesday December 10/19 @ 7pm

 The Port Hope & District Pipe Band enjoy entertaining in parades, shows and at Highland Games throughout the area. 

Please take the time to enjoy learning about how they originated, their past accomplishments and learn about their future adventures and events. 

If you or someone you know is interested in joining or learning, qualified piping and drumming instruction are available free of charge on Thursday evenings. 

Come to the practice hall between 6:30 pm and 7 pm. or contact them at: porthopepipeband@gmail.com 

The band meet each Thursday evening at 7:30 pm for chanter and drumming practice at: 

Ruth Clarke Activity Centre 

81 Mill Street South, 

Port Hope, ON 

L1A 3Z9 

Band President- Heather A’Court 

Pipe Major-Jamie York 

Drum Sgt.- Al Wilson  

 Web site : http://porthopeanddistrictpipeband.ca 

 Please donate a little time and sign up for the Poppy Campaign.  Board is set up at the Port Hope Legion.  Contact Poppy Chairman Comrade John DeBoer for further information @ 905-885-6585 - leave message. 

Thank you so much for all you do.

Every year, the Legion conducts the Poppy Campaign to honour those who serve, and to raise funds in support of Veterans and their families. From the last Friday in October to Remembrance Day, all Canadians can be a part of the campaign. Wear a poppy, attend a ceremony, and show your recognition for those who gave their lives for our freedom.

All help is greatly appreciated...Contact  Poppy Chairman John DeBoer to help in any way.... or leave a message @ 905-885-6585

 “We will remember them” is a call heard at many military memorial ceremonies and parades, but it was only in 1931 that Ottawa passed an act permanently fixing Canada’s national military memorial day to the anniversary of Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, marking the end of the Great War. The day was named Remembrance Day. The same act moved Thanksgiving to October from its traditional November date, still adhered to by our American neighbours.
 

The 1931 Armistice Remembrance Day Act became an inauspicious memorial to those who died in what was called at the time “the war to end all wars.” As the poet W.H. Auden wrote, the 1930s were “a low dishonest decade” in which “clever hopes expired.” The decade ushered in the Second World War, which was infinitely more savage and apocalyptic than the first. It was appropriate to commemorate those killed in that futile First World War with symbolic artificial paper poppies under tombstone-cold grey skies of November.
 

But for 30 years before, Canadians had a different memorial called Decoration Day in which we commemorated our war dead with the laying of real flowers, not in the hopeless gloom of November but in the warm light and optimism of late spring or in summer, often on the weekend closest to June 2, the anniversary of Canada's forgotten first modern battle, the Battle of Ridgeway in 1866.

    The ancient ceremony of the Piling of the Drums had its origins where new banners or colors were presented. Colors have always been regarded with great reverence. Historians record that Colors have been associated with religion from the earliest times. Israelites carried the social standard of the Maccabees which bore the initial letter of the Hebrew text. These early associations linking religion with the battle flags and standards have their counterpart in the ceremonial attached to Colours today. Many Commonwealth countries adopted the British custom for the consecration of the Colors prior to the presentation to the Units. The drums are traditionally piled to provide an altar for the consecration. The drums are brought forward and piled in the center. The pile consists of five side drums in a circle with the emblazoning the right way up, facing outwards. The bass drum is laid on the side drums and a tenor drum on top, both with the center of the emblazoning facing the person blessing the Colors. The Colors are then draped on the pile for the consecration, the pikes resting on the hoop to retain the Colors pikes in position. There is no drill laid down for the piling drums, but the drummers concerned normally turn to their left and right and marches out in a single file, forming a circle around the designated spot, turn inwards and arrange their instruments in the center. After the Colors have been consecrated, the drums are recovered in the same way. The   Colors after being blessed by the various religious leaders, is handed over to the visiting dignitary , who will present the newly consecrated Colors to the CO / Commander of the Unit. The Colors are then trooped.   

 Many, many years ago when soldiers were in the field there were no altars on which to hold religious services, so the soldiers would pile their drums neatly to make an altar and drape the drums with their standards [flags]. A clergyman would then consecrate the 'altar' and celebrate inter-faith religious services for the soldiers. 

In modern times the Legion honours those military personnel who died in all the wars by carrying on the tradition of the Drum Head Service of Remembrance.  

 Brief History of D-Day

What 

D-Day was the start of the Battle of Normandy.

And the beginning of the end.

Allied soldiers — British, American, Canadian — came together in an extraordinary naval, air and land campaign to reclaim Europe from the Nazis, an effort that put thousands of troops on the beaches of Northern France on D-Day: June 6, 1944.

The major invasion (code name: Operation Overlord) that began June 6 continued with the German army flailing at Falaise in mid-August and ended August 25 with the liberation of Paris.

Eleven months after D-Day, on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered.

D-Day itself was the largest ever invasion by sea (code name for that part: Operation Neptune) in the history of warfare. It gave Allied forces a foothold on the coast of France. Within a few weeks a million soldiers were on those beaches, pushing inland into France to begin liberating Europe.

Where

Normandy is one of the 18 different regions of France. The area is in the northwest of the country, and known for its beautiful beaches — which sit across the Channel from England.

For the D-Day invasion, five beach areas in Normandy were code-named Juno, Sword, Gold, Utah and Omaha. Juno Beach is where Canadian troops landed; the Americans were on Omaha and Utah; the British on Gold and Sword.

The toughest landings were on Omaha and Juno. Ocean reefs briefly held up the landing on Juno and Canadian soldiers initially came onto the beach with no tank support. The men were sitting ducks. Canadian troops nonetheless distinguished themselves that day by advancing seven miles inland — farthest of all the Allies.

Who

D-Day required an unparalleled cooperative effort: besides the American, Canadian and British troops storming the beaches, soldiers offering land, sea and air support came from France, Belgium, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Rhodesia.

Some 150,000 Allied soldiers were part of D-Day, and 14,000 of them were the Canadians who landed on Juno Beach. The men were from the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade.

(About 450 men from the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion had dropped into France before dawn, part of the advance arm of D-Day.)

On D-Day, 359 Canadians died; about 5,000 in total died during the fighting in Normandy.

According to an Ancestry.ca analysis, their average age was 23.

When

The original date of D-Day was June 5, but the weather turned.

The mission required a full moon to help light the way for advance aircraft, among other things, and a low-ish tide, so landing craft could see the mines and detritus planted near the shore by the German army.

Only a few days each month fit the moon/tide bill.

On June 5, high winds and low clouds cancelled any potential action by sea or air. A crisis was averted when chief meteorologist James Stagg and Norwegian meteorologist Sverre Petterssen were able to predict a reasonable weather window June 6.

General Eisenhower ordered the D-Day invasion to go ahead.

The weather forecast was crucial — not just because the Allies got it right, but because the Germans got it wrong. They knew an Allied invasion was likely, but they didn’t know when. German meteorologists believed stormy weather around June 5 and 6 made an invasion impossible, so they slacked off; troops were unprepared, senior officers were elsewhere and the ‘Desert Fox’ — Field Marshall Erwin Rommel — went home to Germany for his wife’s birthday.

The rest is, um, history.

Why

D-Day and the Battle of Normandy were about regaining control of Europe, ending the war and safeguarding the freedoms we all currently enjoy.

Sprechen sie Deutsch? You might have.

Ask a Historian

Terry Copp is one of Canada’s foremost military historians.

For over 50 years he was a university professor, and he is co-founder and Director Emeritus of the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies — a national leading research centre studying the impact of war on society.

Copp is the author or co-author of some 20 books, including the ‘bible’ of the Canadian D-Day effort, Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy.

His meticulous research established the importance of the contribution made by this country’s forces in Normandy.

We asked Professor Copp about the most important thing Canadians should know about D-Day. He said:

“The selection of 3rd Canadian division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade as the core of Force ‘J’ to land on D-Day at Juno, was a consequence of the key role Canada played in the Second World War.”

“D-Day began the campaign that ended the war in the west, completing the struggle to liberate western Europe, and Canadians on land, sea and air were an important part of the story.”

Facts & Figures

As Allied troops massed along the south coast of England in preparation for D-Day, it took 4,000 cooks to keep them fed.

Every day, 20,000 tons of food, fuel, ammunition and equipment were required to keep 36 divisions running smoothly.

Besides 7,000 boats, D-Day involved 9900 aircraft and some 20,000 airborne troopers. 

There were about 5,000 landing craft, 289 escort vessels and 277 minesweepers

On the Allied side there were 23 infantry divisions, 12 armoured divisions and four airborne divisions involved.

Some 15,000 French citizens died during the fighting in Normandy.

The total of Allied and German deaths by August 30 was over 425,000.

THE ATLANTIC WALL

To protect the coast against invasion, the Germans fortified Europe’s northern shore from Spain up to the North Sea — essentially building a 2,000 mile long ‘fence’ consisting of fortresses, gun emplacements, tank traps, bunkers and obstacles.

It took 2 years to build and involved millions of tons of steel and concrete, a forest of guns, barbed wire and booby-traps and five million mines. It cost a fortune in manpower and money.

And it was breached in a day: June 6, 1944.

Operation Overlord Statistics (As stated from Warfare History Network from the link-The total of Allied and German deaths by August 30 was over 425,000.)

The Normandy invasion consisted of the following:

· 5,333 Allied ships and landing craft embarking nearly 175,000 men.

· The British and Canadians put 75,215 British and Canadian troops ashore

· Americans: 57,500

· Total:132,715

· 3,400 were killed or missing.

The foregoing figures exclude approximately 20,000 Allied airborne troopers.

D-Day Casualties:

· The First U.S. Army, accounting for the first twenty-four hours in Normandy, tabulated 1,465 killed, 1,928 missing, and 6,603 wounded. The after-action report of U.S. VII Corps (ending 1 July) showed 22,119 casualties including 2,811 killed, 5,665 missing, 79 prisoners, and 13,564 wounded, including paratroopers.

· Canadian forces at Juno Beach sustained 946 casualties, of whom 335 were listed as killed.

· Surprisingly, no British figures were published, but Cornelius Ryan cites estimates of 2,500 to 3,000 killed, wounded, and missing, including 650 from the Sixth Airborne Division.

· German sources vary between four thousand and nine thousand D-Day casualties on 6 June—a range of 125 percent. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s report for all of June cited killed, wounded, and missing of some 250,000 men, including twenty-eight generals.

American Personnel in Britain:

· 1,931,885 land

· 659,554 air

· 285,000 naval

· Total:2,876,439 officers and men housed in 1,108 bases and camps

Divisions of the Allied forces for Operation Overlord (the assault forces on 6 June involved two U.S., two British, and one Canadian division.)

· 23 infantry divisions (thirteen U.S., eight British, two Canadian)

· 12 armored divisions (five U.S., four British, one each Canadian, French, and Polish)

· 4 airborne (two each U.S. and British)

· Total:23 American divisions, 14 British, 3 Canadian, 1 French and 1 Polish.

Air assets:

· 3,958 heavy bombers (3,455 operational)

· 1,234 medium and light bombers (989 operational)

· 4,709 fighters (3,824 operational)

· Total: 9,901 (8,268 operational).

German troops:

· 850,000 German troops awaiting the invasion, many were Eastern European conscripts; there were even some Koreans.

· In Normandy itself the Germans had deployed 80,000 troops, but only one panzer division.

· 60 infantry divisions in France and ten panzer divisions, possessing 1,552 tanks,In Normandy itself the Germans had deployed eighty thousand troops, but only one panzer division.

Approximately fifteen thousand French civilians died in the Normandy campaign, partly from Allied bombing and partly from combat actions of Allied and German ground forces.

The total number of casualties that occurred during Operation Overlord, from June 6 (the date of D-Day) to August 30 (when German forces retreated across the Seine) was over 425,000 Allied and German troops. This figure includes over 209,000 Allied casualties:

· Nearly 37,000 dead amongst the ground forces

· 16,714 deaths amongst the Allied air forces.

· Of the Allied casualties, 83,045 were from 21st Army Group (British, Canadian and Polish ground forces)

· 125,847 from the US ground forces.

But the numbers alone don’t tell the full story of the battle that raged in Normandy on June 6th, 1944 ☹

The information is copied from the Sun and Warfare History Network.