A pilgrimage of tears: Local minister recaps experiences visiting war battle sites

Rev. Paul Robinson took part in the Pilgrimage of Remembrance, organized by the Legion National Foundation, that saw participants visit First and Second World War battlefields where Canadians played a pivotal role. He holds a head of wheat, which was his reminder of a spot where 35 Canadian soldiers were murdered during the Second World War. Robinson speaks to local groups to keep the stories of Canadian soldier alive. (Jeff Helsdon Photo)

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

If the hundreds of wartime graves didn’t make a large enough impression on local minister Paul Robinson, the stories of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives left an impression he will never forget.

Robinson was part of the Pilgrimage of Remembrance, organized by the Legion National Foundation, to take selected representatives from across the country to the European battle sites of the First and Second World Wars. The two-week trip takes place every two years, and a limited number of spaces are available to the public who wish to participate by paying a fee.

The Branch 153 Legion padre heard about the trip in 2022 and was selected to go in 2023.

“I am very passionate about ‘Lest we Forget’ and that we keep on remembering,” he said. “The whole purpose of this trip is to keep the story going.”

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces from 1966 to 1981, Robinson became a pastor after his time with the military. He was then asked to join the reserves and be the chaplain for the Governor General’s Foot Guards, which is an Ottawa reserve unit. His military experience provides him with a unique understanding of what he observed in Europe.

Since returning, he has been doing his part to ensure the stories stay alive, making presentations to service clubs, other Legion branches, and the local Air Cadets. He made one such presentation this week to the Rotary Club and shared an overview with the Post prior to Remembrance Day.

Robinson explained a pilgrimage is a journey to a shrine or sacred place.

“Those battlefields where our valiant soldiers put their lives on the line, and where so many spilled their blood – those battlefields are sacred, hallowed places.”

The Tyne Cot Cemetery, near the First World War battlefield of Passchendaele, was the first stop. Its endless rows of graves – 12,000 of them - made an impression on him, as it had on King George V decades earlier. After seeing the cemetery, the king said, “There can be no more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.”

Robinson learned the stories of the soldiers through guide John Goheen. Each tour participant was assigned a soldier to research and find their graves. The local padre was assigned to find information on Murdock John Munroe, who was born in eastern Ontario and signed up with the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. Within six months of when he signed up, he was killed in Flanders.

Although it has been more than a century since the First World War ended, Robinson witnessed that the scars were still visible on the land. More than 40,000 soldiers who died at Ypres Salient are buried in the mud, and bones still turn up. Somebody on the tour asked about the white flecks in the soil, and was told they were bone fragments. Then, someone found a human bone, and it was reported to the authorities.

Robinson said today, both live rounds, grenades, and spent casings show up in fields. Much of the area around Vimy remains fenced off due to mines.

Robinson recounted the story of Alexander Decoteau, an Olympic runner and Indigenous soldier who was given a gold watch by King George V. When he was killed at Passchendaele, the watch went missing. It was later found on a German POW, from whom it was taken, and returned to the family.

Goheen told an unrelated story to the attendees about a previous pilgrimage, during which a participant had brought a pocket watch owned by his great-uncle, who had died at Passchendaele. The watch never worked in the ensuing 95 years, but Goheen was stopped in the middle of his presentation at Passchendaele by the nephew of the watch owner, proclaiming that the watch had suddenly started working.

“It hadn’t ticked for 95 years but it started ticking at the place where its owner died,” Robinson said, adding he can’t explain it.

Part of Robinson’s presentation tells a behind-the-scenes story about doctor Lt.-Col. John McCrae, the author of “In Flanders Fields”.

A direct hit from a shell killed McCrae’s friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer, while the doctor was working at a field dressing station. Helmer’s body parts were placed in burlap sandbags, shaped as a body, and buried. McCrae conducted Helmer’s funeral and wrote “In Flanders Fields” the next day.

Robinson was struck by the enduring tradition of holding nightly Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Menin Gate, which have taken place every evening since July 2, 1928! The names of 7,000 Canadians with no known grave are inscribed on the gate.

Visiting the Second World War battle site of Dieppe, Robinson gained a better understanding of what the soldiers faced when coming ashore in what he called “one of the darkest chapters in our military history”. Lacking adequate support, of the 5,000 Canadians who landed in the disastrous raid, 1,000 died, and another 2,000 were taken prisoner. One issue among many arose when the stones on the beach immobilized the tanks during the first amphibious assault for tanks.

Robinson showed the stones during his presentation.

“We walked that stony beach in silence, picturing the horrible scene of young Canadians dying for others,” he said. “Those stones, too, are silent witnesses to the blood spilled at Dieppe.”

They stopped by a wheat field where a Nazi general had 40 captured Canadians sit in a circle on the ground. A German-speaking Canadian understood that they were going to shoot them all, and ordered the men on the outside to run through the field towards the Canadian lines when the firing started. Five of 40 escaped. Robinson noted that there is no memorial at the site of this atrocity, but he kept a head of wheat as his personal reminder.

Stopping by another memorial where the crew of a Lancaster bomber crashed and Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski sacrificed his life trying to save his tailgunner, the group of Canadians realized there was no flag on the memorial. Robinson remembered that he had one in his suitcase, which he had been carrying the entire journey.

“With a bit of ingenuity, and some zip-ties, our team was able to fasten the flag to the pole, trim the overhanging maple – yes, a maple – step back and salute,” he recounted.

Amongst the thousands of graves Robinson saw were some that hit closer to home for him. He paid respects to his grandmother’s cousin, British Private Thomas Blakeman, who died less than two months before the war’s end. A stop was also made at the grave of Norfolk resident Lance-Cpl. Frank Brinn, killed six weeks before the Armistice was signed, and whose great-nephew is a friend of Robinson’s.

As the former padre for the foot guards, Robinson also sought out the graves of soldiers from that regiment in some of the cemeteries.

“Some of the inscriptions showed the pain the family felt,” he said. “I cried when I read them.”

Throughout his presentation, Robinson – a proud Canadian – shared some of the brave accomplishments of the country’s soldiers during both wars, and how the other countries respected the Canadians.

As the journey came to an end, he realized it had been a pilgrimage of tears.

“As we went from site to site, I kept realizing that my cheeks were wet. I hadn’t realized I was crying,” Robinson said.

The journey made a lasting impression on him.

“I will carry with me the pain and heartache of those sites and their stories forever.”