Thank you.
Let me say to you that I am, indeed, the senior Canadian veteran of the battle of the freedom of the Netherlands. It's a function of age, among other things.
My part in the battle was in the air force with 430 Squadron, operating out of the great city of Eindhoven in Holland. I was a fighter pilot flying Mustang fighters doing fighter reconnaissance. Our job in our Mustangs was to support the army. We did low-level reconnaissance, visual, photographic, and the direction of artillery fire. Our job was not to shoot down other airplanes. Our job was to support the army, and that we did, I think, reasonably well.
When we got to a place called Venlo in Holland, Peter will tell you I knocked the bridges down at Venlo on November 19 with a huge artillery piece fired by the British battery. It was an eight-inch gun. Montgomery had decided that the bridges had to come down because the Germans were taking a lot of equipment across as they retreated, and so Montgomery said it had to be done, had to be down.
I was really old at the time. I was 20. I knew one end of an airplane from the other, and that was about it. In any event, I had done a lot of artillery shoots in Normandy, so I was selected to do this shoot. The gun was called a Super Heavy gun. It turned out to be an eight-inch American gun that the British had put together and were able to take into the battle area. It was the first time it had been fired. I was able, in contact with my radio at the battery, to range the shots.
For those of you who know artillery, the time of flight of the shells was 55 seconds. I had been operating with 150 millimetre guns elsewhere, and when the first shell hit, it hit right in the centre of Venlo. I was astonished by the amount of damage that was done, but I was able to get the shells landing on the other side of Maas River and eventually I left with the shells landing right beside the bridge, 14 miles away from the gun, and in the morning the bridges were down. I have a full record of that from British people. The battery commander never reported at all that the bridges were down because it had been ranged by an air force pilot, and a colonial at that. In any event, we got it down.
My time in the air force and in Holland was quite enlightening, at least it was for me, and I was able to survive the event. So I am now the senior person.
My notes indicate this, that from the fall of 1944 to the spring of 1945, the First Canadian Army played a major role in liberating The Netherlands and its people who had really suffered a great deal under the Germans.
The army was international in nature: our Canadian army, and the British, Polish, American, Belgian, and Dutch, totalling anywhere around 105,000 soldiers and more. We had 15 Canadian fighter squadrons involved in that battle, which was a very large presence of Spitfires, Typhoons and Mustangs.
More than 7,600 Canadians died during the nine-month liberation battle. That's a huge number when you look at it. A vast number of our Canadian lads are buried in Holland, and that speaks also to the respect that the Dutch have for Canada, the amount of sacrifice that was made. The Germans were really tough to battle with. We know that the Dutch treat us very kindly, and I have had the opportunity of being over there three times now for their great celebrations at the beginning of May.
In terms of Canada's involvement on May 5, the German generals surrendered to Canadian General Foulkes and Prince Bernhard at Wageningen. In a visit to Wageningen, where they have a huge parade on May 5 that is enormous, I had the opportunity to meet Prince Bernhard in 2004 and we became good friends. It's a major part of what we're going to be doing in relation to the celebration and commemorations in Holland this spring.
We leave here on May 1. On May 1 and May 2 the air force has organized to get us across with one or two Airbuses. There's always a discussion about whether we should have one or two, but we think we need two. We'll get that done. The Prime Minister will be over with us as well. Indeed our own minister will go for a short period of time and we will be able to celebrate first of all at Groesbeek, the great cemetery in Holland where a host of Canadians are buried. That will be on May 3. The next one is at Holten, which is the following day, and we will participate in that activity. The Dutch take care of our grave-sites extremely well and have their young people involved in terms of keeping them up.
The Minister of Veterans Affairs will be with us part of the time that we're going to be in Holland. The Prime Minister and Mrs. Harper will be there part of the time as well.
We are anticipating taking about 80 veterans of the battle. About 50 will be part of the official party and the others will be able to come through a subsidy of $2,000 for travel. We did that with Juno Beach as well and we're going to do it again in Holland. We have about 80 veterans now who are signed up either as the official party or under the $2,000 in travel assistance. The travel assistance also provides $2,000 for caregivers, if you will, to travel with the veterans. At the age of 91 I'm in very good shape. A lot of my colleagues are a bit older than that and they're not in the same condition that I happen to be at the moment. I'm in pretty good shape, Mr. Chairman.