Not the movie. Not the awards. The beach. (France, not Florida) Maybe you’ve seen the movie, maybe you’ll watch the awards next week, but the Juno you should really care about is the beach.
A beach in Normandy which Canadian boys stormed on June 6, 1944 as a part of D-Day.
I’m not a war guy, I don’t stay up late watching cgi recreations of WW2 naval battles on History Channel. I couldnt tell you the difference between guns and planes and battalions and such. I just know I hate war. I think it’s stupid, it’s ignorant and pointless.
But go to Juno Beach, and you get an idea of why the boys came here. The depression was knocking the stink out of the Canadian economy. Incomes had dropped by more than 50%, unemployment had doubled.
When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Canada declared war on Germany within months and thousands of Canadians saw a way out of the hell at home, by going to a hell overseas with the chance to be a hero.
The beach is tiny. Maybe 20 yards before the first row of German bunkers. Those were backed by tunnels, trenches and barbed wire. The troop transports would land, the doors would drop open and the boys had orders to “run like a bat out of hell and shoot anything that moved.”
The most impressive part of the centre, is the sculpture outside. It has waves of motion to remind you of the sea, all of the soldiers are linked together, supporting each other, each leaning into the action in eager defense and aggression.
It wasn’t as sad as I thought it would be. But the Juno Beach Centre is there to explain what and why, and a ilttle bit of the who. One small section features a wall with the scrolling names of the more than 15 000 who lost their lives. It takes more than 12 hours to scroll through each and every one of them.
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