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At the Nov. 11, 2022, Canadian National Remembrance Day Ceremony, a framed old flag was placed at the base of the Tomb of the Canadian Unknown Solider in Ottawa. The media had referred to the flag as a “national treasure” and “a historic military treasure.”
Watching the ceremony on my computer in Lexington I felt a lot of emotions but mostly a sense of pride in knowing my dad and, to a lesser degree, me, were responsible for the flag being there. The “national treasure” almost ended up in a Nebraska garbage can over 50 years ago.
The old Canadian flag was carried by one of the nearly 5,000 Canadian troops who, along with a thousand British and lesser number of Americans, took part in Operation Jubilee, a raid in force at Dieppe in Nazioccupied France on Aug. 19, 1942.
Organizers hoped the large raid would damage German shipping and the port and cause the Germans to have to move more forces to the French coast and away from the battles in Russia. It was also a mission to learn more about the defenses the Germans were establishing along the coast of France and a secret plan to capture an Enigma machine, used by the Germans for coded messages.
But from the start, things went wrong. The first force, instead of being a surprise, came ashore as a German convoy was passing and the initial force took heavy casualties. The second force arrived late to find the Germans on full alert and more heavy casualties ensued.
By the end of the battle, the Allied losses were high. A total of 114 allied planes were shot down by German forces and the Canadian forces suffered 916 dead, about 1,950 soldiers captured, and only about 2,000 of the 5,000 sent returned alive to England, many of them badly wounded. T he r aid was a d isaster but it did give Allies information that would make the D-Day invasion some two years later a success. While this was an unknown battle to most Americans, the Dieppe raid hit the nation of Canada hard.
In 1965, my father happened to stop at a garage sale in Nebraska and ended up talking with the homeowner who was also cleaning out his garage. One of the things he looked at and tossed into a garbage can was an old flag. M y dad asked about it and the man explained that at the end of World War II he was assigned to guard some German prisoners and he saw one trying to hide something red and he thought it might be a Nazi flag. H e demanded the German to surrender it to him. It was a red flag with a Union Jack in one corner and at the bottom opposite was a shield.
The nervous German said he had taken it from a dead Canadian soldier that he had been assigned to bury. H e said he was not involved in the battle and only helped bury the dead Canadians.
The American soldier took the flag and planned to pass it on to the next group of Canadians he ran into but he didn’t see any Canadians and ended up taking the flag home with him.
My father, Charles E. Lowry, during World War II worked on the Al-Can Highway with Canadians and told the man that he traveled to Canada nearly every summer and would be glad to take it with him and see that it got to some Canadian unit.
Dad came home and I saw for the first time this old faded and worn flag. The blue in the Union Jack was nearly gone and much of the flag colors were faded. I noticed the shield was different than I remembered on the Canadian flag and a look at my World Book showed the shield was indeed very different. We assumed it must have been a flag of one of the Canadian providences but a check of each one shown this was not the case. Dad, the next day, had me go to the local library and check out a book of world flags. He spent a lot of time checking to see if it could be the flag of one of the British Empire countries without success.
When I went off to college the next year, he had me check out the college library’s books on flags and continued the search without success.
That was the last I saw or heard of the flag until 2001 when my dad passed away. In sorting things, I ran across the flag and it ended up in a box with other things of dad’s for future sorting.
The future sorting never happened and I rediscovered the flag when my mom passed way in 2009 and it again went into a box for future sorting as I was working overseas at the time.
Several years later when we moved to Virginia and got stuff out of storage, I ran across the old flag and thought with the internet I could at last solve the mystery but with no luck. I finally took a picture of the flag and sent it to the Imperial War Museum in London and asked if they would provide me with any information. They replied it was a Canadian flag but an old Canadian flag from before World War I.
This seemed strange. How did a pre-World War I Canadian flag end up in a World War II battle? I was to learn it was a common practice in World War II for families to send American or state flags with troops going overseas for luck and a reminder of home with farewell wishes for them to hang the flag in Berlin or Tokyo when they won the war! I l ater l earned t his p ractice was true also in Canada.
So having identified the flag, I contacted the Canadian Embassy in Washington and ended up talking to an aide to the military attaché who was anything but thrilled about the offered flag and said send it to her and she would see if she could find some museum that might want it.
Picturing it ending up in a drawer of some small museum, I decided not to send it to her. Instead, I contacted the Canadian Legion which is much like the American Legion, thinking they might be a bit more receptive to having the old Dieppe flag.
The official I talked to was definitely interested and told me the Canadian Legion would be honored to have it and would try to see if they could identify the soldier it belong to or at least his unit. Feeling glad to at last have the flag going home, I promised to mail it. I had just hung up when the phone rang; it was the man I had been talking to. He asked where I was located in Virginia as he was planning to go to Virginia to see his brother who lived In Richmond and offered to stop and pick up the flag.
He did stop by and thanked me and assured me if they could not find out anything, the flag would go into their Hall of Honor at Canadian Legion headquarters. I asked him to let me know if they found out anything about the flag or its owner.
A few weeks later, I got a call from him and he informed me the flag was actually pre–World War I and from a time before British Columbia became a part of Canada in the late 1870s. He said tests had been done and found the flag had been in salt water and had traces of blood on it. The edging had been put on the flag later, probably in the 1920s, which indicated the old flag must have had special meaning to someone. He promised to keep me informed and invited me to visit the headquarters if I was ever in Ottawa.
In the meantime, my daughter graduated from college and was in the Army at Fort Drum, N.Y. The wife and I decided after seeing her, to go on up to Ottawa for a vacation and a stop at the Canadian Legion.
When we visited the headquarters, we were made very welcome. We were taken to the conference room and the flag was brought into the room by officials of the Canadian Legion. The flag was now framed. A researcher told me more about the flag and their efforts to trace it. They also indicated they were quite sure the flag might have gone to Europe with a Canadian soldier or unit in World War I. The fact the edging material dated to the 1920s, indicated the old flag was important to someone in the era just after WWI. They believe that someone had sent the flag with a soldier for good luck going off to Europe in World War II.
The Canadian Legion gave us a lot of nice items and over and over thanked us for the flag they were truly proud to have. I said, “I just wish dad could be here to hear all this.”
My wife said with tears in her eyes, “He is here.”
We had a nice visit to Ottawa and the Canadian military museum there had a lot of special meaning as a result. While in it I learned the first time Canadian forces had left Canada to fight somewhere else was during the Boar War when Canadian troops joined British forces fighting in the Union of South Africa. That war lasted from 1899 until 1902. I found myself wondering could it be the flag that had also gone to the Boar War?
We returned home and the Canadian flag was out of our thoughts until got a call from the Canadian Legion informing us that for the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, the flag was taken back to Europe and featured in events in Dieppe. They also told me the flag would be a part of the annual Remembrance Day in Ottawa and they would be happy to have us attend.
My wife was part of the committee for the Woman’s Club annual Lexington Veterans Day event and I felt a commitment to be here. I figured the flag would just be on display and not a big deal but the phone began to ring and I was getting calls from Canadian TV networks, radio stations and newspapers wanting interviews and I was amazed at the attention the story of t he D ieppe fl ag w as g etting.
I helped my wife with set-up for Veterans Day here but skipped the ceremony to watch the Canadian event on the internet. The flag was a major part of the event and every mention of the flag included a mention of the how the flag came back to Canada.
One announcer noted the flag went from Canada to England to Germany to Nebraska to Virginia and back to Canada and this year made a return trip to Dieppe. He said, “Thanks to our American friends this national treasure is home in Canada.”
An interview with a Canadian Legion official said the flag still holds a lot of secrets and they will continue to see what the DNA from the blood on the flag might be able to tell them. The national publicity, he hoped, would give them more information and further research may indicate whether it might have been taken to the Boar War or involved in some other event in Canadian history prior to going to Dieppe.
I know I am anxious to hear any new details they may find. I am also proud my dad took the time to rescue what seemed to be just an old flag that turned out to be such a meaningful piece of Canadian military history.
