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wy" §-- Scugog Citizen - Tuesday, August 30, 1994 Dieppe veterans get their official medal More than half a century after the fact, Vic Sparrow and other Dieppe veterans received medals which officially recognize the ill- fated raid on the French coast that cost nearly 1,000 Canadian lives. On August 19, the Port Perry resident was in Ottawa for the presentation ceremony where he received the Dieppe Medal which he will wear proudly on special occasions. The Dieppe Veterans and POW Association, of which Vic is treasurer, has been trying to convince Ottawa for years to issue a Dieppe medal. The medal is an augmentation to the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal to show that the wearer was at Dieppe. Dieppe veterans, said Vic, were not issued the France-German Star as it was for service after the Normandy Invasion in 1944. "We were the only (veterans) who had nothing to show that we were in action." he said last week in a long, candid interview with the Scugog Citizen at his home in Port Perry. Vic was a 25-year old sapper with the 2nd Field Co. of the Royal Canadian Engineers when he hit the beach at dawn on August 19, 1942. Their orders were to move into the town and blow up rail lines and rolling stock. He never got past the sea wall. In fact, he spent most of the morning tending to badly wounded comrades on the beach. By noon that day he was a prisoner of the Germans, and he would stay a POW for nearly three years, most of the time in a dreary POW camp called Stalag VIII B deep in eastern Germany. Of the 4,963 Canadians at Dieppe that day, 907 lost their lives, 1946 became POWs and 2,210 returned to England, many of them badly wounded. Much, of course, has been written about Dieppe and Vic agrees that "it was a disaster, doomed to failure." Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong-- from lack of heavy naval bombardment to the tank tracks getting caught in the large Pawmely Matters MOORE - CICIRETTO officiated the ceremony. cathedral train Oshawa. Lisa Ciciretto, daughter of Angelo and Gail Ciciretto of Oshawa and Bill Moore, son of Bill and Marilyn Moore of Ashburn were united in marriage on July 2nd, 1994 at St. fF] Gertrude's Roman Catholic Church. Father Joseph Kelly Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a white gown with lace bodice, sweetheart neckline and intricately designed Attending Lisa as her maid of honour was Tanya Dykshoorn of Stoney Creek. Her bridesmaids were Cheryl Morrison of Toronto, Sheila Moore of Port Perry, Kim McIntosh of Courtice, Stephanie Fox-Comery of Whitby. The flower girls were Lisa Lee of Port Perry and Tonya Van Wen of Janetville Performing the duties of best man was Pete Worfolk of Guelph. The ushers were Steve Cattell of Whitby, Greg Worboy of Courtice, Jason Ciciretto and Michael Ciciretto, both of Following a reception, held at the Casablanca Banquet Centre in Toronto, the happy couple left for a two week honeymoon in the Caribbean. The newlyweds currently reside in Oshawa. " stones on the "beach," to the fact the Germans were well prepared for the invaders. But Vic agrees with the assessment that the lessons and the sacrifices at Dieppe served the Allies well at Normandy and other invasions. "For every one killed at Dieppe, ten were saved at D-Day," he said. But on the fateful morning, it didn't take very long for Vic to conclude that things were going dreadfully wrong. "As soon as | hit the beach, there were fellahs all around me dropping like flies. I realized in a few minutes this was going to fail," he recalled. Captured at noon, he spent the rest of day tending to Canadian wounded at a hospital, then a week in a camp in France before the POWs were herded into cattle cars for the 5 day journey to Stalag VIII B close to the Polish border in Upper Silesia. Dieppe veteran Vic Sparrow was presented with the Dieppe medal at a ceremony In Ottawa recently. See story. A Gallery of Tunctional "rt 158 QUEEN STREET, PORT PERRY CEENIEVS Taste the Adventure of Rotisserie Chicken! s FOR TWO! ONE HALF CHICKEN, ROOSTER'S B°B+Q DIPPING SAUCE, FRIES OR RICE FOR TWO, COLESLAW AND BREAD only 412 "We were 40 men to a car and we didn't get much water," he said. About a month later, the Germans ordered that the Canadians be bound in retaliation for the shooting of Germans at Dieppe. "They tied our hands together with string from the Red Cross parcels. We were marched to the latrines ten at a time, still tied," he recalls. Eventually, the Germans un- tied the POWs at night and finally a couple of months later the bindings came off completely. On two occasions Vic was forced to be part of a work party. outside the camp, felling trees and building a railway bridge. His job on the bridge project was to break open the concrete bags and dump the powder into a hopper. His co-workers often urged him to slow down. What they didn't know was that often the hopper would arrive without sand, or without gravel, a deliberate act of sabatoge. "We had to get the cement powder in the hopper quickly to cover up the fact there was no sand, or no gravel " he said with a big smile on his face. In January, 1945 with the Russian Army nearing the camp, the Germans evacuated the prisoners, forcing them to march west out of the path of the Soviets They were still marching in early May and many didn't make it, especially the Russian prisoners who had no Red Cross parcels. If a prisoner dropped from hunger, disease or exhaustion, he was shot on the spot. On May 6, near Munich, about 1000 miles from the camp, Vic fipally became a free man again when he was liberated by an American patrol. After a few weeks in England, he finally got back to Canada on July 24, and was discharged September 7, 1945, six years to the day after he signed up for active duty. Receiving the Dieppe medal on August 19, 1994 (52 years to the day after the raid) won't erase the horrible memories or ease ine pain he often feels at the thought of fallen comrades. But there is a sense of satisfaction that those who were there are now officially "recognized with their own medal. At that August 19 ceremony in Ottawa, Vic's wife Jeanne also received a Dieppe medal for her late husband Jim Elliot, a Dieppe veteran who was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW. Vic and Jeanne married two years ago, after they were widowed. TRY THIS WEEK'S FEATURE! DINNER