Friday, October 3, 2014

Picture Monument

From the G & M:
"New Westminster monument to famous war photo gets unveiling Saturday"



It’s credited as the most famous Canadian photo of the Second World War, a little boy running from his mother for the outstretched hand of his soldier father, but for Warren “Whitey” Bernard, his image as a five-year-old is more powerful for what it doesn’t show. That little white-haired boy – now a 79-year-old retiree from Tofino, B.C. – will unveil a monument Saturday in New Westminster, B.C., based on the photo that symbolized the emotional turmoil of Canada’s men heading off to war. The photo, called Wait for Me Daddy, moved from the newspaper to Life magazine, then to every B.C. school during the war and is now proudly displayed in the Canadian War Museum. For Bernard, it’s the memories behind the image that are distinctive. “That’s probably the last time we were together as a nuclear family, as they put it today,” said Bernard in a recent telephone interview from his home. “We were never together again as a family after that moment.” His parents’ marriage didn’t survive the war. They would split up just a few years later, and there was no joyful reunion between his father Jack and mother Bernice when Jack returned to Vancouver in October 1945, said Bernard. When Canada declared war against Germany in September 1939, the Bernards were living in Summerland, a community in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley. His father was in the militia and was a sergeant and an acting troop sergeant major for the B.C. Dragoons, a senior rank for non-commissioned members. But the unit was not activated, and Bernard said his father decided to drop his rank and enlist instead as a private with the British Columbia Regiment, Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles, which is based on the coast, and is also known as the “Dukes.”Bernard said his mother never forgave his father, adding their marriage was “never made in heaven.” So the Bernards uprooted themselves from their little brown house in Summerland, and their neighbours, their family and friends. They headed to Vancouver, where his mother – who had been orphaned as a child – had no relatives and needed to find a job and a place to live. John Maker, Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum, said the photo touched a public nerve at the time and sums up the war experience. He said the photo depicts pride, sadness and the anxiety of what’s to come. The image of the mother letting go of the child and the child trying to grab his father’s hand is symbolic of the links between soldiers and the home front, Maker said. “I think for the Second World War it is probably the most famous Canadian photo of the war, really,” he said. Bernard said after Dettloff took the photo, his dad was shipped to a training camp on Vancouver Island, headed east and then sailed across the Atlantic to England. Bernard will speak when the memorial sculpture commemorating the photo is unveiled Saturday in New Westminster’s Hyack Square. Canada Post and the Royal Canadian Mint are also releasing a commemorative stamp and $2 coin, respectively.


^ While it is a good photograph of the war I don't understand why it symbolizes the whole war from Canadians. I have seen many iconic World War 2 pictures and while this is definitely iconic I'm not sure it sums up everything in one package. ^

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/new-westminster-monument-will-give-famous-war-photo-permanent-home/article20912905/

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