BROOKDALE, Man. – Bill Jones wasn’t thinking much about the 21st century when German machine guns slashed through his unit and killed most of his brothers-in-arms in a farm field outside Ravenna, Italy.
And after running out of bullets, surrendering and being shipped to Stalag 7-A outside Munich, Germany, his main preoccupation was surviving until the Second World War ended so he could get back to Brookdale, the tiny farm town he came from.
But recently his thoughts have turned to the future, driven by fears of losing memories of the past.
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“We were looking at the (fading letters on the) honour roll in our church and our young minister said to me, ‘Bill, you’d better do something or nobody will be able to see who served’, ” Jones said.
“I realized all those names could just fade away.”
Although more than 200 farm and town boys from the 13 kilometres surrounding Brookdale served in the two world wars and Korea, and more than a dozen died, not Brookdale nor Oberon nor Mentmore nor Ingelow had ever erected a cenotaph or memorial.
Rose Jones, Bill’s wife, said that vacuum screamed to be filled.
“Somebody needed to do it,” she said. “We got ourselves a committee and did it.”
Brookdale and the other three villages don’t look like centres of dynamism and action, having the abandoned grain elevators, empty buildings and silence common to many farm communities, but as soon as the committee was formed, money began pouring in and $13,000 was raised – $1,000 more than the budget.
Within a few months the idea became a reality, in the form of a 2,200 kilogram black granite monument that now sits beside one of Brookdale’s few streets, next to the curling rink.
“It was the relatives who did it, the relatives of the men who served,” Bill Jones said about the fast community response. The monument, only conceived in January 2003, was dedicated Oct. 10 in the presence of more than 400 people.
Each of the monument’s four sides lists the names of one community’s veterans, beginning with those who made the “supreme sacrifice,” followed by a list of all who served.
In this the monument is unusual, because most memorials list only the names of those who died while serving, but Jones said local people wanted to recognize all who served.
On a recent cold November afternoon, Jones took a visitor to see the monument. On it was his name and also that of his father, who served in the First World War.
And he pointed out the name of the only man from Brookdale who died in the Second World War, a bomber pilot.
“They never found his body,” said Jones, lapsing into silence.
Earlier that afternoon Jones’s grandson, Devon Fraser, a soldier with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, called to ask how his grandparents were – and whether the monument was covered in snow. Fraser had been present at the dedication three weeks before.
“It must look nice, eh,” said Fraser.
Jones smiled.
