Edmonton author to present father's military uniform to D-Day Museum in Normandy
CBC
An Edmonton author will present a significant piece of his family history Friday to the D-Day Museum in Arromanches, France: his father's Second World War military uniform.
The khaki wool battle dress jacket belonged to Cpl. Gerry Levers, Don Levers told CBC's Edmonton AM on Thursday in an interview from Normandy Beach.
"I think my dad would appreciate the fact that his uniform was there," Levers said.
The public presentation be part of this week's commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched the largest seaborne invasion in history, storming the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of western Europe.
Among the 156,000 Allied troops that fought to secure Juno Beach, 14,000 were Canadians. Gerry Levers of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, nicknamed The Little Black Devils, was among them.
Although Levers travelled to France to present his father's jacket, he was not the one in possession of it. In fact, discovering his father's military uniform was its own ordeal.
He first learned about the jacket's existence while researching his book Our Father's Footsteps, which chronicles the stories of four Second World War soldiers who landed on Normandy Beach.
It all started in August 2021 with a Facebook message from Frederick Jeanne, a historian at the Overlord Museum in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Levers had met Jeanne in 2019 while researching his book.
Jeanne informed Levers of a military memorabilia collector in the Netherlands who was waiting to receive part of a uniform that could be his father's, although it hadn't been confirmed.
The uniform matched the one worn by his father in photographs. It was the right size, and featured the correct regiment badge and wound stripe, but no other identifying information.
A gold cigarette case was in one of the pockets, inscribed with the initials G.W.L. and a date: 7-30-38.
"The date meant nothing," Levers recalled. "We researched it and looked at it and looked at it and it meant nothing to anybody in our family or extended family."
Because his father was originally from Winnipeg, Man., in April 2023 Levers reached out to a friend at the Winnipeg Public Library.
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