Remarkable scenes of gratitude greet Canadian war veterans in the Netherlands

As a former Spitfire pilot who flew 60 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War, George Brewster is not one to be rattled easily.

But he says experiencing the warmth and gratitude of the Dutch people who have come out to cheer him and other Canadian Second World War veterans this weekend has left him speechless.

"It's a sense of wonder," said the 102-year-old resident of Duncan, B.C., who's visiting communities in the Netherlands as part of a Canadian delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.

Twenty-two Canadian vets, ranging in age from 96 to 105, have made the long transatlantic trip. Several, like Brewster, saw action in the skies, at sea or on the ground in Holland during those crucial final months of intense combat.

"When you meet people you realize how gracious and kind they are, and how they remember. And that remembrance is a thing that is etched in my mind," Brewster told CBC News.

On Saturday, thousands of residents of the city of Apeldoorn, which was liberated by Canadian troops on April 17, 1945, lined the streets and draped Canadian flags from their balconies as a parade with the veterans and bagpipers wound its way through the streets. 

Volunteers handed out Canadian flags and pins, and many nearby homes were decorated with red maple leafs.

Brewster and the other vets, who were mostly pushed in wheelchairs, were treated like celebrities with onlookers reaching out to shake their hands and say thank you.

"I'm a very ordinary person who has lived through many extraordinary events, but only by the grace of God. And I'm humbled by this," he said.

The push through Holland and the Rhineland by the First Canadian Army in 1944 and 1945 saw a series of vicious and ultimately decisive battles that helped seal the defeat of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Out of an estimated 175,000 Canadian soldiers who served in the First Canadian Army, 6,700 were killed.  

It was a Canadian general who eventually accepted the surrender of Nazi forces in the Netherlands in the town of Wageningen on May 5, 1945, the date the Dutch now call "Liberation Day."

With the country facing a severe famine due to a harsh winter and inhumane treatment by its Nazi occupiers, the Canadians saved countless Dutch from dying by quickly bringing in food supplies, and staying on for months afterward until the population could stand on its own.

"We are just grateful to those from overseas who came to our little country and set us free," said 57-year-old Ronald Grin, who attended the Apeldoorn parade with his 27-year-old daughter, Shawna.