Victor Osborne stood and saluted while a Remembrance Day crowd at Nanaimo’s cenotaph sang to him to celebrate the Second World War veteran’s 106th birthday.
Osborne was on the HMS Hood as a teenager in the mid 1930s, when the ship helped protect vessels carrying food and supplies to Spain during the Spanish civil war.
He left HMS Hood before it was sunk in 1941 by German shells, killing all but three of the 1,418 people on board.
Osborne went on to serve for years and many people in Nanaimo cherish him as their WWII hero, said his daughter, Suzanne King.
“He is my hero and the hero of our whole family. He rarely speaks of his heroism. He has a huge heart and went out of his way to save a lot people. He wears a lot of medals,” King said in an email.
Singing to Osborne is always part of the ceremony, said Jason Lott, president of the Royal Canadian Legion branch 10 in Nanaimo.
In Victoria, hundreds gathered at the cenotaph on the legislature grounds, spilling into the road. A Canadian flag was lowered as a moment of silence was observed during the ceremony.
Commodore David Mazur of Canadian Fleet Pacific said he uses the moment of silence to put himself in the shoes of those who have experienced war.
“Nothing I’ve ever done compares to that, so it’s just a moment to reflect and really say how much some people have had to stand up for our freedoms and what we enjoy in Canada,” he said.
For naval warfare officer Acting Sub-Lt. Jishnu Menon, Monday was a special day, only his second Remembrance Day since enlisting.
It was Menon’s father’s dream to serve in the military but he wasn’t able to due to a health condition.His father, along with his mother and brother, watched him graduate from basic training in April 2023.
“He’s really proud of me,” Menon said.
His brother was inspired to join the Air Cadets and hopes to join the Air Force when he finishes university, Menon said.
Rodney Boskovitch, vice-president of the Royal Canadian Legion public service branch 127 in Victoria, spends Remembrance Day thinking of his father and other family members, and those he served with who have died or suffer from PTSD or other lasting physical and emotional impacts.
“You just have to think about who came before us in the trenches of the Second World War, and I always say, if you’re having a bad day, just think about what they went through and hopefully it will sort you out,” said Boskovitch, who retired after 40 years in the military.
He has been in one uniform or another since he was 10 years old.
“It’s just in my DNA to serve,” he said.
Boskovitch’s grandfather was in the U.S. navy during the First World War and his uncle trained to be a gunner, but the Second World War ended before he saw action.
Boskovitch’s father was not in the military, but he was born in Yugoslavia. During German occupation, he witnessed his parents shot to death and was taken to a concentration camp, where he eventually escaped but suffered a gunshot wound to his leg, Boskovitch said.
His father immigrated to Canada and died when Boskovitch was in his mid-20s.
At Victoria’s Afghanistan Memorial at the corner of Quadra and Courtney streets, a crowd gathered Monday morning as Doug Friesen, a former military chaplain who retired after almost 40 years, talked of the sacrifices Canadians made in Afghanistan.
Jane Nuttall, who lost her son Lt. Andrew Nuttall in Afghanistan, and Catherine Lang, whose niece Michelle Lang was killed in Kandahar while on assignment for the Calgary Herald newspaper, laid the first wreaths at the memorial.
Killed in 2009, Lang was the first Canadian journalist to die in the war in Afghanistan.
Some 158 military members were killed during the war.
