Memorial in Bracebridge that includes Allen C. Olimer
Photo take after the bombing, August 8, 1944
Courtesy: Fort Garry Horse Museum and Archives
The D-Day 70th anniversary commemorations are under way.
I’m glad to see some veterans can still make it for the ceremonies.
But it’s also important to remember the sacrifices made on the beaches in France and those who are buried in a foreign grave.
During the Normandy campaign, about 5,000 Canadians died.
One of them was my uncle, Allen Olimer. He was killed in August, 1944 during a mission gone horribly wrong in which Americans fired on the Allies, mistaking them for the enemy.
Allen Olimer is buried in Brettville-Sur Laize Canadian War Cemetery, grave marker I.A.1. He was 35 years old at the time of his death.
He was a member of the Fort Garry Horse (aka 10th Canadian Armoured Regiment) which was part of the independent 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade which included the 1st Hussars of London and the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment of Sherbrooke.
So significant was the D-Day invasion and the Normandy campaign that the beaches at Normandy are still referred to on maps and signposts by their invasion codenames.
Isle of Rumleski 