'I'm still breathing' — Windsor soldier, 101, returning to D-Day battle scene, 80 years later

Published May 31, 2024 • Last updated 11 hours ago • 4 minute read

Second World War veteran Charles Davis of Windsor is shown in this May 15, 2019 file photo at age 96 on the eve of departing to attend the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy in France. Here, he holds a photo of himself when he was 22 and a serving soldier. Photo by Dan Janisse /Windsor Star

Windsor veteran Charles Davis, who participated in the largest seaborne military invasion in the history of the world, figures this might be the last time he travels to France to attend D-Day anniversary ceremonies.

But he’s said that before. And while the Second World War combat veteran is 101 years old, he remains mentally sharp and physically tough, a true member of the Greatest Generation.

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Asked why he’s making the trip now — to participate in battlefield commemorations on June 6 on the beaches of Normandy marking the 80th anniversary of the mass assault on Nazi-occupied French soil — he acts like the answer is self-evident.

“I’m still breathing,” said Davis, who turns 102 in September.

“My corporal is buried there,” he told the Windsor Star. “If you’re capable, I think it’s a good thing for an old soldier to go back.”

Joining Davis as guests of Veterans Affairs Canada will be 13 other elderly Second World War veterans. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will head up Canada’s delegation, and Prince William will join them on June 6 at Juno Beach.

A war-time photo of Charles Davis, who landed in Normandy, France, and fought in the Normandy campaign, and his soldier’s log book are shown May 15, 2019. DAN JANISSE/Windsor Star Photo by Dan Janisse /Windsor Star

Signing up with an artillery regiment in 1941 at age 18, Pte. Davis later transferred to the Royal Canadian Service Corps and would drive ashore at Normandy four days after D-Day, behind the wheel of a Mack truck loaded with 10 tons of ammunition.

“The idea was to get on that beach and get the hell off it as quickly as possible — you went as fast as you could,” he once told a Windsor Star reporter in an earlier profile.

About 360 Canadian soldiers would die on D-Day, and more than 5,000 Canadians would be killed during the two-and-a-half month Normandy campaign, with more than 13,000 wounded. But it was a key turning point in the deadliest war in human history, and it initiated the endgame for Adolf Hitler.

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Davis, who would find a young war bride in London during the war and then raise four daughters in Windsor, doesn’t glorify battle — “war is a terrible bloody thing” — but he wants Canadians, and especially younger generations, to know the sacrifices made.

“This is a great country,” he said. Eighty years later, Davis still mourns the young comrades who didn’t make it home, and he will visit some of them during two cemetery visits on this trip.

Davis was last in Normandy five years ago on D-Day’s 75th anniversary. He recalls French children enthusiastically honouring grizzled old soldiers from overseas who helped liberate the country of their grandparents.

He remembers one elderly woman who grabbed both his hands in hers, kissed him on both cheeks and then spontaneously belted out ‘O Canada’ sung in French.

“I hope younger Canadian people get to know what happened in the Second World War, and in the First World War,” Davis said ahead of his Friday departure from Windsor.

Charles Davis of Windsor holds his dog tags at his daughter’s home on May 15, 2019. Photo by Dan Janisse /Windsor Star

“It’s going to be a very emotional trip,” said daughter Terri Davis-Fitzpatrick, who is accompanying her father with her husband. “He feels it’s very important to pay his respects to his fallen comrades.”

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There aren’t many Canadian Second World War veterans left. Only a third as many are taking part on this trip compared to the last official trip five years ago, and they range in age from 98 to 104.

This incredible, lethal theatre of death

Three of those on the current trip participated in the D-Day landings, while two others were in the Royal Canadian Navy and part of the vast invasion armada of 7,000 ships that crossed the English Channel with about 155,000 Allied troops.

Ships disgorge Canadian soldiers, vehicles and material onto Juno Beach in Normandy on the French coast shortly after Allied forces took control from German forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Photo by Archives photo /Windsor Star

Joining Davis is another veteran with strong Windsor ties. Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Richard Rohmer, who is 100, once wrote about flying over “this incredible, lethal theatre of death.”

Hamilton-born Rohmer was a 20-year-old Mustang pilot tasked with aerial reconnaissance on D-Day and assisting naval artillery to target enemy positions. One of the most decorated soldiers of the war, he trained to become a fighter pilot in Windsor and would become a commanding officer at HMCS Hunter in Windsor after the war, and much later a two-term University of Windsor chancellor.

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One of Rohmer’s claims to fame was spotting an open-topped German staff car on one of his reconnaissance missions on July 17, 1944, and noting a high-ranking officer in the passenger seat. He reported it and a Spitfire piloted by a fellow Canadian strafed the vehicle, seriously injuring Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and taking out of the war the infamous ‘Desert Fox,’ Hitler’s pick to command the forces defending the Third Reich’s ‘Fortress Europe.’

Windsor Second World War veteran Charles Davis, 101, was an honoured guest at a luncheon on Nov. 14, 2023, hosted by Tecumseh’s Beach Grove Golf & Country Club for local veterans. Photo by Dan Janisse /Windsor Star

Davis-Fitzpatrick said she had to remind her dad of his age when he first broached the idea of attending the 80th anniversary ceremonies in France. Davis heard just a few months ago that an official Canadian delegation would be flying overseas, and he was on the phone.

“Are you kidding me? He’s the one who called Veterans Affairs and said, ‘I wanna go,’” Davis-Fitzpatrick recalls.

“This’ll be his last time, for sure — but we keep saying that.”

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Windsor’s Charles Davis is shown attending the Remembrance Day ceremony in downtown Windsor, on Nov. 11, 2021. He’s made it a point over many years to honour his fallen comrades and to educate future generations about their sacrifices. Photo by Dax Melmer /Windsor Star Canadian soldiers are shown wading ashore on Juno Beach at Saint Aubin sur Mer, France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, during Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in military history. Photo by Peter Macdiarmid /Getty Images