Quench your thirst W. Van veteran ‘heard the pipes’ and joined up FEWER MEN answered the second call to arms at Seaforth Armory this past weekend than when the country entered the Second World War 50 years ago. The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada lost some of its men on the killing grounds of Europe. Those who survived now fall, man by man, by the wayside as time passes. PAGE 38 West Vancouver resident David Fairweather, who lost his oldest brother to fighting in Italy, was among the approximately 70 vets of the 1939 call to arms who an- swered the second call to arms. He was there to answer the first call to arms, Sept. 10, 1939. At age 19, Fairweathers world as 2 youth growing up in Port Hammond (Maple Ridge) revolved around baseball, shooting and Saturday night dances. But when Britain declared war on Hitler's Germany Sept. 3, Major David Fairweather ; Fairweather’s three elder brothers cae joined up and came back.home in et f uniform. “My family had been oa i military. There were six boys in the family and I was the fourth oldest. The eldest three joined right away. They came back in their uniforms and I thought I’d better join too,”’ Fairweather said. “The reason I joined Seaforth is that I had just happened to be driving up Burrard Street and heard the pipes and drums and I stopped, saw the recruiting posters and went in. There was an old | chum of mine from Maple Ridge ara at the door and he told me where pie ee eget . + altege aN By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter to go, as far as recruiting is con- cerned, and so I joined the regi- ment,”’ he said. Private Fairweather, #K52483, spent his first three months of mil- itary life based at the Seaforth Armory and immersed in drill and marching practice. ‘‘We would walk from the Seaforth Armory over to the Blair (rifle) range and back for a weekend shoot,’’ he said. By December, the battalion got word that it was heading overseas. ‘“*We were on the high seas for Christmas Day and we arrived in Gourock, Scotland on New Year’s Eve. From there we went down to Aldershot, England. That’s where the first division of the Canadian Army was put up. And then we trained for the next few years in England,”’ Fairweather said. He moved up through the ranks to become a sergeant. In Nov. 1942, he returned to officer train- ing camp at Gordon Head Victoria. Fairweather returned to Europe a lieutenant and rejoined the Seaforth batallion in Italy in Dec. 1943 to fight against German para- troopers in the battle for Ortona. A richly detailed history of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada 1919 to 1965, by Reginald H. Roy, partially describes the Ortona ex- perience this way: ‘‘To understand the battle for Ortona and to grasp its flavor one must appreciate first the fanatical defence put up by the Gertaan parachutists, the cream of the German forces in Italy. These well-trained, highly skilled men were as determined to deny the town to the attackers as the brigade was to take it. Armed lib- erally with automatic weapons and Phoio submitted MAJOR DAVID Fairweather (right), secend in command of the Seaforth Batalilion, accompanied Princess Margaret as she inspected the royal guard of honor at Vancouver International Airport during a 1963 royal tour of Canada. gtenades, and backed by tanks, engineers and all the necessary mil- itary paraphernalia, they were able to select their defensive posts and fields of fire well in advance in an area with which they were thoroughly familiar.”’ Fairweather was a platoon commander in D company at Or- tona. ‘‘Ortona was one of our ma- jor battles of the Italian campaign. It was the first real action that we had seen. 't was house to house fighting in the town of Ortona. It was a bloody affair and we had a lot of casualties.”” After the Seaforths took Or- tona, Fairweather spent the winter months of 1944 entrenched in a front line facing the Germans north of the Adriatic town. “We were about 1,000 to 1,500 yards away from the German line. On January 28 ! took a fighting patrol out and I was wounded. We got into the German lines and got into a fire fight. We got out again, but on the way out, we were heavi- jy mortared. Myself and two others were wounded,”’ he said. Fairweather took shrapnel in the back and spent six weeks recov- ering in a British hospital set up in southern Italy. He rejoined the batallion in April, 1944. He re- mained in Italy until March of 1945 and then the whole division moved to northwest Europe. ‘‘We actually ended the war going in to Amsterdam,’’ he said. Fairweather left the batallion in 1945 to volun- teer for duty in the Far East. But halfway across the Atlantic, Hiroshima was bombed by the Americans and the war was over. See Most Page 36 In compliance with the District of North Vancouver Council policy, Intrawest Properties Ltd. has been requested to hold a Public Information Meeting to present the particulars of a proposed 50-unit townhouse project at the intersections of Northlands Drive and Mount Seymour Parkway. DATE: 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 26, 1989 LOCATION: Windsor School, 931 Broadview Avenue, North Vancouver APPLICANT: intrawest Properties Ltd. PROJECT LOCATION: The purpose of this meeting is to acquaint the residents with the detaiis of the proposal and to answer any questions. District Council will receive a staff report on the issues raised at the meeting and will consider the proposa! at Intersections of Northlands Drive and Mount Seymour Parkway a later date. For further information, please contact: Mr. Edwin C. Alm, Intrawest Properties Ltd., 669-9777