Kamloops commemorates sacrifices made, 75 years after D-Day

Their efforts allowed troops to come ashore and combat German forces in Normandy.

Now on the 75th anniversary, Kamloops residents came together to acknowledge the endeavors of veterans all those years ago.

75 of the 14,000 Canadians who took part in Operation Overlord called Kamloops home.

Looking on from the crowd at Memorial Park was 96-year-old D-Day veteran Ken Legge. At age 19, he joined the navy and was stationed on a destroyer outside of France.

“I was a free agent. I just had to maintain all the guns on board the ship. I was familiar with all the guns we had, and I just had to maintain them when they broke down. So I was quite a free spirit, you see.”

While he didn’t know it at the time, Legge took part in preparation efforts for the D-Day attack.

“We weren’t aware that it was going to happen. Nobody was,” he explains. “We were taken off the convoy duty and placed on seek-and-destroy. And our job was to eradicate as many U-boats as we could. That was our job anyhow, but it was a little more predominant with D-Day coming up and us not being aware of it.”

Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

“We worked off the French coast for almost two months prior to D-Day — because we were intercepting the submarines, U boats, coming from the Mediterranean.”

According to Legge, at about 2:00 a.m on June 6, 1944, he and the rest of the forces saw how massive the operation was going to be.

“It was pitch-black out. We could hear aircraft, we couldn’t see them but we could hear them,” he explains, “and as it got light out we could see all these huge ships, and all these landing craft. Thousands of ships and landing craft coming in to the French coast.”

After the war, Legge continued his service-minded approach to life and became a fireman. Eventually, he was made North Vancouver’s Deputy Fire Chief before retiring.

“I did my autobiography within the last 10 or 12 years in story form,” Legge says. “But I shied away from that (the war) part of it. It was just one phase of me growing up, and I just didn’t want to emphasize it too much.”

Over the last decade, Legge has lived in Kamloops and taken part in many Remembrance Day ceremonies.

His daughter, Dale Hutchings says she’s proud of the service her dad gave.

“It’s hard to get a story out of him but we do hear little bits and pieces every once in awhile.”

Now over half a century later, the lives given for the benefit of future generations have not been forgotten. Hutchings took a pause while reflecting what D-Day means to her.

“Well…”

“(It means) she gets to visit her dad”, laughs Legge.

“We’re free to do what we want because of it. Because of D-Day,” Hutchings says. “It freed everybody.”

by Dylana Milobar

Kamloops commemorates sacrifices made, 75 years after D-Day

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