Wait for Me, Daddy. This photo was taken on October 1, 1940, by Claude P. Dettloff of The British Columbia Regiment marching down Eighth Street at the Columbia Street intersection, New Westminster, British Columbia.
When Dettloff took the photo, Warren “Whitey” Bernard ran off from his mother, going towards his father, Private Jack Bernard.
Warren “Whitey” Bernard was only five years old and in Grade 1 at the nearby General Wolfe Elementary. His dad was enlisted in the British Columbia Regiment and was posted in the city at different guard posts throughout the city. After the war was declared in 1939, the men who had been mounting these guard posts after a long time of waiting had been informed that they were being posted.
While the soldiers advanced to the train waiting to convey them to their next destination, photographer Claude P. Dettloff of The Province newspaper readied himself to capture the whole squad moving down the hill; while preparing to take the picture, he saw a young boy run out onto the road from his mother’s hand to his father.
His father smiling, turned and gave his hand to his son for a moment before joining the advancing soldiers. Dettloff captured this image. They were headed to the secret location in Nanaimo, only three hours from there. They spent time repelling the Japanese and German attacks from the coast.
In August 1942, most of the regiments sailed for England; however, they were not in action until July 23 1944, when they arrived at the accepted beachhead and joined up in operation Totalize, which was one of the first attempts to close the Falaise Gap.
After the Allied forces had squashed the German Army groups deployed in France, the rest of the Allies stressed the withdrawing Germans to Holland. There the battalion took part in several operations in Holland and Northern Germany.
On April 17, 1945, they had their last battle after they crossed the Kusten Canal, and a month later, Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day) was declared on May 5, 1945. Throughout the war, the Regiment had 122 Officers and men killed and 213 wounded.
Whitey’s dad was among those who pulled through the European theatre and returned home in October 1945. However, the marriage was a victim of the war as they eventually divorced. Whitey, grown up, moved to Tofino, where he met and married his wife Ruby in 1964. His wife Ruby often recalls that she had known her husband for years. His photo “was hung in every school in British Columbia during the war”, she said. “I saw him years and years before we met”. He ran a small marina that sold hardware and gas before he got involved in local politics.
The City of New Westminster commissioned a bronze statue in honour of the photo to be placed at the bottom of 8th Street in Hyack Square. The city displayed the figure on October 4, 2014.
