By Michel Rossignol
On November 3, 1918, a few days before the end of the First World War, William (Billy) Bishop, the famous Canadian fighter pilot, flew a small biplane over Lowertown and other parts of Ottawa. This was a publicity stunt designed to encourage people to buy Victory Bonds. The Ottawa Citizen reported the next day that the large crowd in Major’s Hill Park gasped when Bishop made a few low passes over the Interprovincial (Alexandra) Bridge. After four years of war, Bishop’s flight helped Ottawa residents briefly take their minds off the grim news of casualties on the battlefields of Europe.
The need to lift everyone’s spirits was recognized by the Ottawa Horticultural Society, which quickly started planting beautiful flowers again after concentrating on vegetables for most of the war. The first area in the city to benefit from the switch to flowers was the land around the Ottawa Protestant Hospital (now Wallis House) at the corner of Rideau and Charlotte Streets.[1] Most of the soldiers who returned to Ottawa after the First World War arrived by train at Union Station across from the Chateau Laurier.
Union Station would once more be the site of many tearful departures and happy reunions during the Second World War. Many Lowertown residents were among those who left Ottawa between 1939 and 1945 for battles in foreign lands. Not all of them returned home.
A family on St. Patrick Street received news that their son was killed during the battle for Hong Kong in December 1941 while a family on York Street learned a few days after the Dieppe Raid on August 19, 1942, that their son was missing in action. Three families on one block of Heney Street, between Cobourg and Charlotte, lost a son during the war.
While many Lowertown families received bad news during the war, others had cause to celebrate when the war ended in 1945 because they knew that their loved ones would soon return from the combat zones.
Since those sacrifices made during two world wars, Canadian military personnel have been involved in many conflicts and peacekeeping missions. The peacekeeping monument at the corner of Sussex and Murray Street and other monuments remind us of those who were injured and those who never returned home.
[1] See history section on the Ottawa Horticultural Society website (www.ottawahort.org).