Every year Tofino’s Warren ‘Whitey’ Bernard is “absolutely astounded” by the number of people that turn out, for Remembrance Day ceremonies.
“People do have to think back, certainly in the situation that’s out there today in the larger world away from our little towns. We’ve got to think about what’s happening in the real world and what it would be if this was 1939-1940 and you saw some of your young people joining up and going off to war,” he said.
“There were consequences for families that have gone on for the last 80 to 100 years and we should remember the sacrifices those guys made for the freedoms that we’ve got today.”
Bernard himself became synonymous with World War II when he was just five years old.
His father was marching down Vancouver’s Eighth Street on Oct. 1, 1940, along with about 800 other soldiers headed board a waiting ship, the SS Princess Joan to a training facility and, ultimately, the front lines in Europe. Bernard and his mom were watching at the Columbia Street intersection when the young Bernard escaped his mother clutches and chased after his father in a moment immortalized by Claude P. Dettloff, a photographer for The Province.
Widely considered one of Canada’s most famous photographs, ‘Wait for me Daddy’ has been reproduced in a myriad of ways, including a postage stamp and commemorative coin. A bronze statue of the moment was erected in New Westminster in 2014.
“I’m 90 now and people are still getting in touch with me for crying out loud, you included,? Bernard laughed. “I’ve had a pretty good life and a rather entertaining one in some people’s minds. I’ve had a pretty successful kick at the cat.”
Bernard recently celebrated his 90th birthday, surrounded by loved ones at Tofino’s Schooner Restaurant.
“I had cards from all the folks that are still surviving from my past and we had a lovely day down here with family and friends. It was just great,” he said, adding he also received letters from Canada’s Prime Minister as well as the Governor General. “I had a great birthday.”
While the photograph gave Bernard one of the most recognizable faces of the time, he was quick to note that it’s the emotion and reality of the image that resonated in the hearts of so many.
“I don’t know so much that it’s me that’s famous…It’s the picture that’s famous. It’s the picture that everybody’s in love with, not me. I just happened to be a attractive little white-haired kid in the middle of it,” he said.
“There’s nothing fake about that picture. My mom and my dad and me were real people. My dad was going off to war and, no kidding, this was no phoney baloney mission, this was a world war.
“The picture shows the emotion of the parting and a little boy who obviously realized there was something going on…The whole story is there.”
Bernard’s grandfather was killed in WWI’s infamous Battle of the Somme, his step-grandfather lost an arm and his uncle and cousin came home from their war efforts with one missing an arm and one a leg.
He said his father joined up in 1940 and was in Europe in 1941, serving as a senior non commissioned officer in a three-tank squadron alongside his brother who carried the same title with a different regiment.
His dad survived the war, but wasn’t the same man who had left Bernard’s home.
“He came home once during the war years on what they call compassionate leave. I saw him once in five years and, when he came home, he was not in good shape. He was diagnosed with battle fatigue,” Bernard said, adding he also saw the impact battle fatigue had on other soldiers and their families.
When he looks at Dettloff’s photo, he thinks about the impacts families like his felt, noting his parents divorced after the war.
Bernard said his mom was put in a tough spot raising him on her own when his father went to war and recalled her moving with him from the Okanagan to Vancouver, taking care of him while living in a storefront on 8th and Burrard in Vancouver.
“She was tough and hardworking and I learned my manners,” he said. “It had all its effects on the family and how the family was dispersed after the war and all this stuff; long effects…My mom was mad at my father for joining up because he didn’t have to. He was 33 years old, he had a child, my mom had just lost a child. When he joined up she was mad at him for joining up.”
Conscription did not occur in Canada until 1944 and just 2,400 conscripts wound up fighting overseas with the vast majority of Canada’s soldiers on the front lines being volunteers.
“You’ve got to remember what happened and why,” he said. “One of the things you’ve always got to remember about the men who actually went over there and did the fighting, they were all volunteers.”
Bernard, who was recently featured in a YouTube video by Len Wagg about the Wait for Me Daddy photograph, has been a fixture as the Master of Ceremonies for Tofino’s Remembrance Day services and said he’s been proud to see his grandson Riley becoming an integral part of the local Legion.
He added Riley is 24 and he imagines what it would be like if Canada were to repeat its history.
“Do I want to see him marching down Columbia street in New Westminster or climbing on a ship down in Esquimalt? You’ve got to think about this. How would you feel?”