A Peninsula senior was among nine Second World War veterans honoured at a ceremony last week commemorating the 70th anniversary of VE-Day.
William Cameron was presented with France’s Legion of Honour at a ceremony April 16 at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel.
The medal – representing France’s highest honour – was presented by the Consul General of France, Jean-Christophe Fleury, at the event, which was hosted by the province’s finance minster Mike De Jong.
Cameron, 91, was a member of the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War, and was aboard the HCMS Kitchener, escorting U.S. flotillas at Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy.
Raised in Burnaby, Cameron completed his basic naval training in Victoria before he was drafted into Eastern Canada in 1943 aboard the HMCS Kitchener in Liverpool, N.S.
After a few runs in the North Atlantic, the ship was directed to the U.K., where they spent a few weeks in Scotland, followed by its arrival June 3, 1944 at Plymouth Harbour in the English Channel.
The ship’s captain was given orders to escort two First World War battleships to Normandy to be filled with cement and sunk for breakwater on the beach leading up to the invasion.
Warned that the losses sustained carrying out these orders could be catastrophic, the ship’s captain successfully appealed to have their duties changed. Instead, Cameron and his fellow officers sailed with an American convoy of ships on D-Day, June 6, carrying soldiers for landing at Omaha Beach.
“It was quite something to see, the planes and the ships and everything that was going on,” Cameron told Peace Arch News.
“It was pretty hectic.”
Last year, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, Cameron and his wife, Joyce, were invited by the provincial and federal governments to travel to France to take part in a number of ceremonies.
The couple – who have lived in South Surrey for close to 25 years – flew to Toronto, where they attended a celebration with a number of dignitaries. They then boarded a military jet out of Ottawa for Europe, accompanied by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen.
“She was handing out cookies to everybody and I didn’t know who she was until after, when someone told me she was the prime minister’s wife,” Cameron recalled.
The more recent ceremony in Vancouver came less than a month before the country is set to commemorate the 70th anniversary of VE-Day on May 8, which marks Germany’s surrender and the end of the Second World War.