Topic: Remembrance
Colour is Trooped as Vimy Memorial
Guards Recall Heroic Dead Who Helped Capture Ridge
Ceremony at Armoury
Young Officer Whose Father Died in Battle Receives Standard—Unit is Reviewed
Montreal Gazette, 10 April 1935
Eighteen years ago yesterday an army in khaki, with "Canada" on its war-worn buttons, carved its name in the rock of immortality at a spot in France that will live forever in the history of the ages—Vimy Ridge. Last night, to the beat of drums, the memory of those men who died at the Battle of Vimy was honoured by the Canadian Grenadier Guards in the stately and magnificent ceremony of the Trooping of the Colour.
On April 9, 1917, the 87th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (the Canadian Grenadier Guards) went into action with the Canadian Forces at Vimy Ridge. The death toll of officers and men was terrible. A price beyond recompense was paid on that spot, and to the sacrifice made in 1917 the regiment last night gave homage.
A splash of scarlet across the drill hall, the flash of naked swords and the slow, penetrating beat of the drums saw the battalion perform the intricate measures of that most impressive of all military ceremonies, the Trooping of the Colour.
A tall young officer in scarlet and black "busby" stepped smartly across the floor as the armoury was hushed into silence, clicked his heels in salute and received from the hands of a fellow officer the wreath-topped Colour. He was Lieutenant P.F.L. Sare. Eighteen years ago his father, Major H.F. Sare, died at the Battle of Vimy in the conflict that was being commemorated last night.
The magnificent ceremony was carried through with impressive precision. Long lines of scarlet-tunicked men, with rifles sloped, moved slowly through the measures of the ceremony to the music of the scarlet and gold band. The drums, scrolled with the battle honours of the regiment, beat out sharp, staccato orders. Medals gleamed on the breasts of men who were, last night, remembering friends and comrades of Vimy Ridge. Side by side with them marched youths who had only a vague recollection of 1917.
Stately and impressively the regiment marched past Brigadier W.W.P. Gibsone, C.M.G., D.S.O., O.B.E., officer commanding military district No. 4, who took the salute, and Rene Turek, Consul-General of France, who represented the mother of Vimy Ridge at the ceremony. The battalion was reviewed by Brig. Gibsone, Mr. Turek, and Lieut.-Colonel B.W. Browne, A.A. and Q.M.G.
Lieut. P.F.L. Sare was Ensign of the Colour. The escort was under the command of Lieut. J.G. Stewart. The band, at the close of the ceremony, played the national anthems of the British Empire and France. The regiment was commanded by Lieut.-Colonel F.R. Phalen, D.S.O., M.C., V.D., the officer commanding the Canadian Grenadier Guards.
The gallery of the drill hall was packed with visitors who had come to witness the magnificent ceremony. Never before had the Guards conducted the Trooping of the Colour with such precision as they did last night.
Following the ceremony, regimental cups and medals were presented by Brigadier Gibsone to a number of officers and men.
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