Vice-Regal Saint: PRO PATRIA
Captain Matthew Jonathan Dawe
3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry*
Sword of Honour, Royal Military College of Canada, 1999
KIA, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, July 4, 2007
'A leader among leaders'. One of the best from my alma mater, and a shining example of the best men Canada has to offer. Up to 2000 people are expected to attend his funeral tomorrow in Kingston, Ontario. Captain Dawe comes from a proud military family and was a rising star in the Canadian Army. Although I didn't know him personally, this one hits very near to home for me as a fellow ex-cadet. It also drives home the point that this war is starting to eat some damned fine people, and one can only hope that it will all be over before our sons and daughters grow up and reach the age of military service. Let us hope that Captain Dawe fought and died so that they don't have to fight. God bless him for his sacrifice.
God Save the Queen
*Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry: This regiment's ultimate battle honours were won at Bellewaarde during the 2nd Battle of Ypres the night of June 22-23rd, 1915. The regiment manned part of the south-eastern flank of the Ypres Salient the night following the first German gas attack in the north-west, which threatened to collapse the Allied position in the salient and produce a German break-through to the Channel coast. As their brethren from the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions stemmed this attack - the first gas attack in history; a feat which they accomplished by pissing on their handkerchiefs to hold over their noses as a defence against the chlorine gas and as the French colonials holding the extreme north-west of the salient broke and fled - the Princess Pats repulsed 20+ German assaults against their trench on the Bellewaarde Ridge, fighting hand-to-hand through the night in combat that decimated the original membership of the battalion. This battalion went on to form part of the Canadian Corps' shock troops, which - along with the Australian and New Zealand Corps, various units of the British Army, and United States Army and United States Marine Corps units which saw action in the Verdun-Argonne area of the line - smashed the Germans in every Battle of the Victory in 1918 up and down the Front: Amiens (the "Black Day of the German Army") as well as the crossing of the Canal du Nord, the breaching of the Hindenburg Line and the pursuit to Mons - in addition to the Canadian Corps' capture of Vimy Ridge and the village of Passchendaele (3rd Ypres) in 1917.
The Dawe Brothers: Such a connatural, close knit military family is rare in this day and age.
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3 comments:
"No one has greater love than this,
to lay down his life for his friends." (John 15: 13)
What a tribute...to them and most especially from them.
I have reflected on these words from the Book of Wisdom, the 3rd Chapter,
1 But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.
2 In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery,
3 And their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.
4 For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality.
5 And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.
6 As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.
7 And in the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble.
8 They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever.
My deepest condoleances to the family.
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