The Canadian Press: Second World War soldier whose remains found in France identified as Toronto man Quote:
Stan Beirnes can still clearly recall the day in August 1944 when he was exchanging fire with German soldiers near the French town of Haut Mesnil. He heard aircraft behind him and turned around in horror to see Allied planes mistakenly dropping bombs on Canadian and Polish soldiers several hundred yards away.
The pilots, believing they were bombing German soldiers, kept moving forward.
"The next planes dropped right on us. In fact, one of the bombs landed right in the middle of our air defence (dugout)," Beirnes said recently from his home in Oakville, Ont.
Beirnes, a bombardier with the 3rd Infantry Division, escaped uninjured but others were not so lucky.
"The sergeant, I examined him. He had one leg out at right angles ... and the other leg was right back, straight back. I went to feel his pulse to see if he was alive. He opened his eyes, but he didn't live too long."
Many of the dozens who were killed were in the Haut Mesnil quarry, where the division had set up its headquarters. Dozens more were listed as missing.
Now, almost 64 years after the incident, one of the men killed has been identified.
He is Pte. Ralph Ferns. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland and lived in Toronto before shipping out overseas with the Royal Regiment of Canada. He was 25.
His remains were discovered in the quarry in March 2005 by local residents, along with a badge that showed he was a Canadian soldier. For the next three years, the Department of National Defence worked to identify him, eventually finding a match through dental records.
On Friday, after consulting with relatives, the Department of National Defence released his name to the media.
The friendly fire tragedy was blamed on a mix-up. The colour of the bombers' target markers was the same yellow colour as the flares used by ground troops in the area. Some 77 of the total 811 aircraft belonging to the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force bombed the wrong area.
Many of the soldiers took cover in slit trenches in the quarry, some of which collapsed from the explosions, killing those trapped inside.
Jack Gross, a lieutenant at the time, was about 500 metres away on a road beside the quarry when the bombing started. He saw soldiers scrambling to get out.
"I can still see them, some on foot and some in vehicles, racing up past us to get the hell out of there," said Gross, who now lives in Grimsby, Ont.
"We had passed through the quarry. we were on the road out. We knew they were bombing the wrong place. We stood and watched it. It was terrible."
Despite the incident, the battle near Haut Mesnil was part of an important turning point of the Second World War - the battle of the Falaise gap, when Allied forces worked to surround the German 7th Army and Fifth Panzer Army.
Canadian and Polish troops came from the north while American troops came from the south and west. A few days after the battle, they managed to surround the Germans near Falaise, 18 km to the south.
Although fighting continued, the Germans were forced to withdraw from France. Some 10,000 were killed and 40,000 were taken prisoner.
Discovering the remains of soldiers is uncommon, but not unheard of.
In 2003, workers digging a trench for a gas pipeline near Vimy Ridge found the remains of two young soldiers from the First World War. DNA taken from the tooth of one of the men allowed researchers to eventually identify him as Pte. Herbert Peterson of Berry Creek, Alta.
Ferns is to be interred in a military ceremony at the Canadian War Cemetery in Bretteville-sur-Laize, France.
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Name: FERNS, RALPH T.
Initials: R T
Nationality: Canadian
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Royal Regiment of Canada, R.C.I.C.
Date of Death: 14/08/1944
Service No: B/68347
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 21, Column 3.
Memorial: BAYEUX MEMORIAL
31-05-2008, 09:58 AM
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