August 19, 2022

WILFRED MacDONALD, ‘DIEPPE RAID’ WAR VICTIM FROM BRACEBRIDGE REMEMBERED TODAY ON 80TH ANNIVERSARY

BRACEBRIDGE — During the Pope’s Indigenous mea culpa, one of the chiefs said “Don’t ask us to forget it — ‘it’s in the past.’”

Belatedly the government and church haven’t forgotten.

It’s the same with the Second World War.

This marks the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, in which almost 1,000 Canadians died — including Wilfred Sylvester MacDonald, 23, of Bracebridge.

Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau issued the following statement:

“Today, we remember the brave Canadians who took part in the Dieppe Raid, one of the most difficult and tragic days of the Second World War for our country.

“On Aug. 19, 1942, nearly 5,000 Canadian soldiers, along with their British and American allies, approached the beaches of and around Dieppe, in occupied France. Their objective was to test the enemy’s defences, damage its port facilities, and gather important intelligence to help defeat Nazi Germany.

“Unfortunately, the Canadian soldiers who came ashore were met with sustained enemy fire, and only a few small groups of Canadians managed to reach the streets of Dieppe. … Forced to retreat, the Allies returned to Britain after nine hours of intense fighting.

“During the course of this operation, many Canadian soldiers were wounded, 916 were killed, and 1,946 were taken as prisoners of war. … Despite this devastating setback, Canadian and Allied soldiers showed exceptional heroism, resilience, and courage. Invaluable lessons were learned from the Dieppe Raid … which was instrumental in leading the Allies to victory over Nazi Germany and, as a result, in changing the course of history.

“On this day, we pay tribute to the thousands of Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice at Dieppe. I invite everyone to take part in a commemorative event to mark this solemn anniversary, and to honour the memory of those who have defended our values of peace, freedom, and justice.

“Lest we forget.”

Bracebridge resident Wilfred MacDonald, was 23, a new father and a stretcher bearer when he died on the shores of Puys, France, when landing as part of the Dieppe Raid’s operation ‘Blue Beach’ on Aug. 19, 1942.

Among those who will never forget are MacDonald’s daughter, Catherine, who was born on Halloween four months after he shipped out first to Iceland with the Royal Regiment of Canada before dying two years later on Puys (code named Blue Beach) without every seeing her.

And his sister, Serena Anderson, for whom “he was like a father to me.”

MacDonald, 80, still lives in the family’s hometown of Bracebridge and Anderson, who turns 97 Tuesday, and lives in nearby Gravenhurst.

They visited his grave for the 50^th anniversary and this year a group from Orillia led by Jayne Turvey is at Dieppe. The commemoration trip is entitled ‘Dieppe Blue Beach Every Man Remembered.’

“It was just like a whole week of funerals,” Anderson said of their overseas trip in 1992.

Seeing her father’s gravesite: “It was so sacred. Just walking around that corner and seeing it, it felt like walking on heavenly ground. It was so quiet. I knelt beside his grave and felt so bad. I just had a good cry.”

Wilfred MacDonald, who as “a crack shot,” had a heart murmur and was a stretcher bearer, said his sister, who believes he may have been gunned down while carrying a wounded soldier when they landed.

His family was first informed that he was missing in action.

And it wasn’t until his mother, May, got a telegram nine months later on May 5, 1943, that his death was confirmed.

Apparently his remains were later dug up and he was still wearing his identifiable dog tags, said his sister.

**‘McDonald’ was ‘presumed dead’ in Bracebridge Gazette report, above, in March 1943. But the MacDonald family wasn’t officially informed until a telegraph, below, nine months after his death.**

Anderson, his only sibling, was working at the Bird’s Mill when someone told her brother — “who for some reason was known as “PIP” — was missing.

“It didn’t go over well” for the family who first lived across the road from the present day Royal Canadian Legion, which she said was once the 4^th ward school. Their father David MacDonald had died in a winter logging accident with the George McNeil Mill when a team of horses got loose hauling a sleigh and leaving the family “very poor,” even with a small death pension.

Anderson said on her visit to Dieppe that she picked up a stone on the beach and had a hole cut in it to make a necklace.

She said years later she met another man from Gravenhurst who knew her dad and had survived Dieppe as a PoW. He said her father was “one of the lucky ones to have died. He said ‘they didn’t have a fighting chance. They were like sitting ducks with the Germans up on the hill’” shooting down as hundreds of Allied landing crafts hit shore.

“He told me my dad said he couldn’t wait to get home to see his daughter,” who was just two when he died.

Anderson’s husband, Murray, later spent three years in the navy before returning home to raise their family.

Margaret MacDonald remarried Ivar Eidsness.

But the family remains proud that Wilfred’s name is enshrined in Memorial Park in downtown Bracebridge — even if they did have to have it corrected when it was spelled ‘McDonald.’ That may have been a result of the Bracebridge Gazette misspelling his name when first reporting he was ‘Now presumed dead’ in March 1943.

Eighty years later the MacDonalds are still remembering their fallen “hero” who helped change the course of the war in miscalculated Allied attack its landing believed to have been leaked to the Germans.

They will be pausing and reflecting — but never forgetting.