A recent episode on the show Ancestors in the Attic, follwed a student, taking part in the "Lest We forget Project", researching a name, Melville Madden, found on the cenotaph in his hometown Lacombe Alberta
I thought the show was extremely well done. You have to look past some of the goofiness of the host, such as saluting an MWO, and see the heartfelt earnestness with which he and the student are trying to find out this soldier's story.
Madden was a bespectacled gangly younger brother trying to follow in the footsteps of his older (and from the looks of him much tougher) big brother Cecil, and joined the Seaforth Highlanders shortly after WW II began. They both ended up in the fighting in Italy, but were in different units. They promised to try and meet on Christmas day in the church where they hoped the younger brother's unit would try to hold a church service and maybe a Christmas dinner. Cecil, a sapper, managed to finagle himself away on Christmas day, and by small miracle made his way to his younger brother's unit, who, as some will know, famously did indeed manage to put on a decent meal in the bombed out church right in the middle of Ortona.
Sub units one at a time went to the church, all the while the battle raged outside, and the older brother hopefully waited and watched the church entrance, but his brother never showed. Unbeknownst to the older brother, Pte Melville Madden had been killed just the day before, only in the confusion that is war, no one knew to tell the surviving brother.
The show really hits the point home, with incredibly poignant images and editing, in particular the use of of the older bothers eyes, fixed in a stern and yet somehow hopefull gaze, against the images of soldiers enjoying that Xmas meal
Almost heartbraking to watch
You can watch the show on line at the link Ancestors in the Attic, season 4, episode 44
http://www.history.ca/video/default.aspx
I thought the show was extremely well done. You have to look past some of the goofiness of the host, such as saluting an MWO, and see the heartfelt earnestness with which he and the student are trying to find out this soldier's story.
Madden was a bespectacled gangly younger brother trying to follow in the footsteps of his older (and from the looks of him much tougher) big brother Cecil, and joined the Seaforth Highlanders shortly after WW II began. They both ended up in the fighting in Italy, but were in different units. They promised to try and meet on Christmas day in the church where they hoped the younger brother's unit would try to hold a church service and maybe a Christmas dinner. Cecil, a sapper, managed to finagle himself away on Christmas day, and by small miracle made his way to his younger brother's unit, who, as some will know, famously did indeed manage to put on a decent meal in the bombed out church right in the middle of Ortona.
Sub units one at a time went to the church, all the while the battle raged outside, and the older brother hopefully waited and watched the church entrance, but his brother never showed. Unbeknownst to the older brother, Pte Melville Madden had been killed just the day before, only in the confusion that is war, no one knew to tell the surviving brother.
The show really hits the point home, with incredibly poignant images and editing, in particular the use of of the older bothers eyes, fixed in a stern and yet somehow hopefull gaze, against the images of soldiers enjoying that Xmas meal
Almost heartbraking to watch
You can watch the show on line at the link Ancestors in the Attic, season 4, episode 44
http://www.history.ca/video/default.aspx
