The Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 24 Cranbrook, marked the coming 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War with a special ceremony at the Veterans Cemetery in Cranbrook, Sunday, Oct. 28.
Every year ahead pf Remembrance Day, Nov. 11, the Legion places Canadian Flags on the graves of the veterans buried in Cranbrook. This year, with the added significance of the centennial of the World War I armistice, something extra was added.
In attendance were the 552 Key City Royal Canadian Air Cadets of Cranbrook, and the 1813 Lord Strathcona’s Horse Army Cadet Corp of Cranbrook, who following a ceremony of remembrance, joined veterans of the Cranbrook Legion in placing the flags on the more than 150 graves in the Veterans Cemetery and several more in the adjoining cemeteries.
The ceremony commenced with the entrance of the Legion Colour Guard. Trumpeter Murray Knipfel played The Last Post. Tammy Templeton of the Kimberley Pipe Band played The Lament. Capt. Rob Bott of the Air Cadets sang In The Arms Of An Angel, by Sarah McLachlan.
Legion President Michael Landry gave the Act of Remembrance.
Larry Miller served as Master of Ceremonies, who read out the sombre figures.
• More than 610,000 Canadians served in World War I.
• Of these, 61,000 were killed.
• 1,388 were killed while serving with the British Flying Services.
• And of these, 116 were Cranbrook area boys, whose names are on the Cenotaph in Rotary Park.
• Several of those interred in the Cranbrook Veterans Cemetery were among the 172,000 wounded during World War I.
Interred in the Veterans Cemetery are:
• Three members of the Northwest Mounted Police;
• Five veterans of the Boer War;
• Four veterans of both the Boer War and the First World War;
• 95 veterans of the First World War;
• 12 veterans of both the First World War and the Second World;
• 30 veterans of the Second World War;
• One veteran of the Korean War;
• Two peacekeepers;
• Several other veterans in adjoining cemeteries.
Remembrance Day ceremonies will be on Sunday, Nov. 11, with the parade to Rotary Park commencing around 10:30 a.m.
Photos by Barry Coulter and Christina Blaskovich
