COCHRANE— Serving in the military often leaves scars both visible and invisible on the veterans who fight for their country, Remembrance Day serves as an opportunity to honour their legacies and sacrifices.
Bonnie Baynes' two older brothers and husband William Charles Baynes served in the Second World War.
“They were very young when they went away,” Baynes said.
Baynes was about four-years-old when they went overseas and six when they returned in 1945.
Her brothers went overseas with the West Novies and were stationed in Aldershot, England.
Baynes' brothers were following in the footsteps of her father who served in the First World War.
Her father served in the First World War and had three bullets shot into him, including one in the spine. After 13 operations located it in the gall bladder coated over “just like a stone.”
Baynes' brother Del was sent to the frontlines in Italy where he had many harrowing experiences, Baynes said, and he did not escape the war unscathed.
“He stepped on a mine and through a lot of prayer and thinking of how he could get out of the mess, because he felt the pin going into the ground, and he got the idea that if he leaned over as far as he could get he might be able to save his life,” Baynes said. “He did that, and it took the leg and the eye off him, but it left a lot of shrapnel in his body— He was a mess when he came back home.”
Her brother Ben did not make it to the front lines, but saw a lot of bombing in England. He had to have surgery because he developed severe ulcers— Three-quarters of his stomach was eventually removed.
“When both of the boys came home they were shell shocked,” Baynes said. “My mother sat in a rocking chair for about six months between the double beds.”
When they returned to Canada they brought the memories of the war with them, Baynes said. Her brothers were shellshocked, she said, and her brother Del especially could have no-one come up behind him without startling him.
They would often wake from nightmares of fighting in the war.
Del recieved an artificial leg after the war, she said, but doctors had not taken enough of the stump off and would break open when he walked. In the end he had to go back to the hospital to get the prosthesis to fit correctly.
Baynes' said she remembers her brothers coming home with Patterson’s Crispy Crunch Choccy Bursts they had received from the Red Cross. They shared the treats together as a family and ate the chocolate bars for a while because they had been able to buy candy due to rationing.
“There’s some humour in this along with all the sadness,” Baynes said.
Baynes's husband William Charles Baynes enlisted in the Canadian military when he was about 16-years-old. He was on the puncher in the Navy on the high seas for a couple of years seeing some action during the Second World War.
“I didn’t experience what he had gone through, only what he had told me,” Baynes said. “He was very young when he went into that.”
“All these boys went in there because they wanted to give their people at home freedom,” Baynes said. “A lot of boys went over and never came back.”
The war left no one unscathed, she said, and she lost neighbours. Baynes' said she has memories of her sister crying over different boys who died in the war.
She hopes people do their best to honour Remembrance Day this year given the health measures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I hope that all these people will realize how much has been taken away from us as a society,” Baynes said. “We can’t go to our churches, we can’t remember our boys that went overseas as well as we would like to. We’ll have to do the best we can with the situation of today.”
Baynes will be laying the wreath for the Cochrane Ladies Auxiliary.
She noted family members play a pivotal role in supporting service members during the war, Baynes said, adding that entire communities worked together to look after each other.
“We went through hard times during the war,” Baynes said. “Those people in those days went through an awful lot and they had to sacrifice an awful lot for what we have today."
