PAYING their respects to the many brave men and women who lost their lives in battle. Photos by Tom Godfrey.
Several hundred people packed around the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 101 in Long Branch to pay tribute to our veterans on Remembrance Day.
The front of the Lake Shore Blvd. W. Legion hall was filled, as people looked from inside the hall. Prayers and words of tribute were said as a bagpiper played during the 11 a.m. service to honour those who paid the ultimate prize.
MANY of our veterans are getting up their in age but still show up to remember their friends in war.
Many of our veterans, who are up there in age, were helped by family members as they laid their poppies on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
There was an earlier well-attended Sunrise Service at 7 a.m. at the New Toronto monument at Colonel Samuel Smith Park at Lake Shore Blvd. and Kipling Avenue.
“We will never forget those who gave their lives,” Major Bill King, of the Salvation Army, told the crowd. “Their sacrifices were honourable.”
Canada lost some 113,000 sailors, airmen, naval officers, and other personnel who were killed during the two World Wars; the close to 1,000 more who died in the Korean War; the 158 service men and women who lost their lives in Afghanistan and the dozens of troops who have been killed while serving on various peacekeeping missions around the world.
REMEMBERING and passing on the message to younger Canadians about the perils of war.
“Thank you for the sacrifice and for laying down your lives,” King said. “We honour you.”
The Canadian flag was earlier lifted to the top a Legion flagpole and there was two minutes of silence to remember the valiant men who lost their lives. Many were from this area.
The solemn ceremony included the playing of the last post and a flyover from jets.
TAKING part in the service were area politicians MP Peter Maloney, (left) MPP Christine Hogarth and Councillor Mark Grimes.
“It was a great ceremony and it gives us time to reflect,” said MPP Christine Hogarth. “If it weren’t for them (veterans), we would not be here today.”
Her great uncle, Donald MacDonald Hogarth, served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW1 and was promoted to major in 1915 in charge of military supplies and transport in London. In 1917 he was appointed a lieutenant-colonel and made director of supply and transport for the Canadian forces.
MPP Christine Hogarth’s great uncle Donald MacDonald Hogarth served in WW1. Courtesy photo.
Hogarth, who was awarded a Distinguished Service Order (DSO), was born in Osceola, Ont., in June 1879 and died in June 1950. He was a politician and astute mining financier, who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the riding of Port Arthur from 1911 to 1923 and again from 1926 to 1929.
He achieved the rank of Major-General in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was a well-known mining financier who founded some of the biggest gold mines in Northern Ontario.
There were also ceremonies held on Remembrance Day at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 643, on Jutland Road and at the Etobicoke Civic Centre. The largest service is held yearly in Ottawa.