Regina Rifles mark D-Day, announce plans for next year’s 80th anniversary

The 79th anniversary of D-Day was marked in Normandy on Tuesday, and the commemoration had a Saskatchewan connection.

Ed Staniowski, a retired lieutenant-colonel with the Royal Regina Rifles, was on Juno Beach to take in the event. He told the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Tuesday it was very special to be there.

“The day is much like it was back 79 years ago. It’s quite windy … The sea is coming in heavy behind me,” Staniowski said. “It’s amazing what’s been happening here all morning and every year going back 79 years, going back to that fateful day the Regina Rifles came ashore at Courseulles-sur-Mer as part of the Canadian contingent.”

The invasion, codenamed Operation Overlord, eventually helped liberate occupied Europe. According to Staniowski, the people of Normandy remain indebted to Canadians and their allies.

“The love that you feel from the children, the grandchildren (and) the great-grandchildren in some cases of the people of France that were liberated … is absolutely heart-warming,” he said. “They appreciate that sacrifice to this day. It’s a big thing for the people here in Normandy.”

Staniowski said 2,049 Canadians are buried at the Beny-sur-Mer cemetery. The Regina Rifle Regiment, as it was known at the time, lost 458 members during the fighting in Europe.

“The regiment has the number 458 blazed into its collective memory,” retired colonel Randy Brooks said during a media event Tuesday in Regina.

Representatives of the Rifles gathered outside City Hall to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day.

“Good old farm boys from (across) Saskatchewan known as the ‘Farmer Johns’ knew how to pick up that fight and assault those beaches (and) fight inland further than any of the other Allied forces that day,” said Lt. Col. Kyle Clapperton, the Rifles’ current commanding officer.

“Today is the day that the regiment, as one of the assault battalions, landed on the beaches of Normandy known as Juno Beach in a sector called Nan Green at 8:05 local time in the morning and turned the tide on that fight against Nazi tyranny.”

For next year’s 80th anniversary of D-Day, an eight-foot-tall statue of a rifleman coming off the beach to liberate the village of Courseulles-sur-Mer will be erected.

The statue is part of Operation Calvados, a plan that includes sending currently serving Rifles overseas.

“The name Regina will live forever over in Normandy,” Clapperton said. “(Normandy will have) that statue representing this great city, this great province and the soldiers that fought through that Normandy campaign on the seawall in (Courseulles-sur-Mer).

“When Canadians go overseas, they’ll see that. When citizens of Normandy and France and other international travellers come to Juno Beach, they will see the statue of a Regina Rifle Regiment soldier. (People will) hear and read the name ‘Regina’ and be proud.”

Clapperton noted the figure in the statue “will be representative of that total effort by Canadian men and women.” The hope is that Princess Anne — the colonel-in-chief of the Royal Regina Rifles — will be able to unveil the statue on June 6, 2024.

Staniowski added it’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime event and anyone from Canada who can make it is invited to attend.

The effort to get the statue finished and shipped to France is ongoing, Staniowski said.

Clapperton said people can make donations to Operation Calvados by going to canadahelps.org and searching for the Royal Regina Rifles trust fund.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Daniel Reech