Dutch school children singing O Canada led to the answer to a question that had plagued a Canadian veteran for 50 years. Norm Constantine, an army signalman during World War II, had wondered off and on for many years whether his service had made a difference. In 1995 he went back to Holland along with many of his compatriots for the 50-year celebration of the liberation of that small European country. One day when he was walking around Aalten, the host town to the Canadian veterans, Constantine passed a school where he heard the Canadian national anthem being sung. Acting on a whim, Constantine went into the school and spoke to the principal. When Constantine identified himself as a veteran, the Dutchman implored him to come back the next day at noon for a special lunch. The next day when the veteran showed up, there was a banquet prepared for him and wife Rhoda. Over 200 citizens, the majority elderly, had turned out to honour the Canadians."I was flabbergasted," Norm said. It moved the Sechelt man to realize the last time he had seen many of these people, they had been small children themselves.But the circumstances were very different in 1945."Little kids in Holland were starving. We would see them out behind our camps up to their armpits in the garbage pails looking for little bits of leftover food," Norm said.After that heart-rending sight, the soldiers gave the children whatever they could spare from their own rations. "The little ones were always taking [the food gifts] home to mama, not eating it themselves," Norm remembers. "When you're in a war like that, you wonder just what it means. The lunch brought it home. They were so grateful. We were their liberators. When we left the school, I shook hands with everyone and all the women hugged me."It wasn't all in vain. There was a purpose, "And while marking the anniversary was one reason Norm had travelled with Rhoda and many other Canadians to Holland, he also had a personal reason to be there.During the conflict, Norm was posted to No. 12, Tele-op Section of the 2nd Canadian Corps Signals. "Once in Holland, we worked our way to Naimagen, Germany. When we hit there, things were quiet for a short period so I looked up my predecessor who had been promoted to Captain with the 2nd Canadian Corps Signal," he said.The man, Capt. Dave Loughnan (known as Spud to his friends), was familiar to Norm. He had first met Loughnan when he was an NCO officer in Victoria and Norm was in the signal corps in Vancouver. When they met again in Germany, Norm picked his friend's brain on anything relating to the No. 12 Tele-op, Loughnan's former company."He informed me that the locals had started a little social meeting place for Canadians and he suggested we meet there the following Wednesday for a few drinks," Norm said.The meeting, unfortunately, never happened.Instead both men became a part of Operation Blockbuster. Its purpose was to defeat the enemy on the Rhine River and drive them back into Germany.This was finally completed, following some of the hardest fighting of the war. Fighting that claimed the life of Loughnan."Spud was looking for a line to one of the regiments that was out of commission. He picked up a lineman and found the trouble in an open field. When they stopped to repair it, mortar fire killed him and several other infantrymen," Norm said.It became the Sunshine Coast man's objective to find his friend's grave. He found it - and an unsettling revelation."When standing beside the cross of my comrade-in-arms and looking over the acres and acres of white crosses designating the final resting place of thousands of our fallen comrades, I was suddenly hit emotionally. I could only think 'what a waste, what a loss this was to Canada.' These men, if living, would have participated in every part of our country. Perhaps one or two of them would have been prime minister. I pray that no such tragedies will be allowed in the future - thoughts that occurred as tears were running down my face."Gone, but never forgotten by the grateful Dutch people.
