My uncle’s letter to my grandfather on June 8th, 1944, mentions DDay. He and his Algonquin Regiment comrades were still in England training, and would join the battle in July. But you can see from this letter that the invasion had quite an impact on morale – a positive one. Excerpts:
I am well, of course, and quite happy. Also, of course, excited, for the Second Front is still in the process of being established. You have only a small idea of what it has done to our morale over here. It’s given everything a new meaning, and at day time we watch planes going south, and say, “Ahha!”, see them coming north and nod at one another, watch them going east & west, and murmur excitedly. We see huge convoys going in all directions and wink. We see the Higher Paid Help riding by in their command vehicles and say, “I’ll bet….”
But for the last few weeks you couldn’t imagine the air activity that was going on. Absolutely terrific, and something Canada has still to see. Every sort of plane has gone over us, in all sorts of combinations, by day and by night. We’ve been awakened at night by them, prevented from lecturing by the noise of them, and kept dizzy counting them.
At this date everything seems to be going well on the beachhead, tho’ it’s hard to say from here – just as hard, if not harder, here as it is at home. We get hourly reports, newspapers, radio reports, and all the latest rumors. All of which also make us dizzy.
Read the whole thing and other letters here.
