WWII Helmet Returned to Veteran's Family After 80 Years

On August 31, 2023, over 80 years after my grandfather, John Paley Parrish, wore it as he landed on Blue Beach for the raid on Dieppe, his helmet will be back in Canada. Let me start at the beginning. My maternal grandfather, John Paley Parrish, was a member of the Royal Regiment of Canada and fought in Operation Jubilee. On August 19, 1942, he, along with nearly five hundred other Canadians, landed on Blue Beach in the town of Puys. John was quickly taken prisoner (when he landed on the beach there was a German solider with a gun and my grandfather 'went quietly') and spent 971 days as a prisoner of war. That information took some time to verify and as a result my grandmother, Catherine, was advised that he was missing and presumed dead (not any surprise given the number of casualties that day) and spent six months thinking he had not survived before receiving word from the Red Cross that he had been taken prisoner. We knew from what he did share after the war, papers that we still have, and what we can surmise that he:o never ate turnip again as that was a staple in the POW camp, o worked on a farm so was fortunate to be outside, o had been in the "Dieppe March" and "Hunger March", o was shackled according to the letter from the War Claims Commission for 120 days, o was given $397.80 in 1954 as restitution for this and the other suffering he endured as a POW, o he was made to stack the dead bodies of his comrades and the German soldiers who were killed on Blue Beach, o saw his brother, Edward Parrish, only twice during his time as a POW even though they were imprisoned at the same camp (his brother was a Corporal so was housed in a different camp), and o suffered from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that resulted in alcoholism that contributed to his early death at 54 in 1968.Through a connection with the non-profit research project, Dieppe Blue Beach - Every Man Remembered (https://www.dieppebluebeach.ca), honouring the soldiers of The Royal Regiment of Canada who participated in the Dieppe Raid and its champion leader Jayne Poolton-Turvey, we learned so much more. John was one of a group that made a daring escape on the way from the beaches of Dieppe. They were recaptured and sent to the prisoner of war camp. This explained a second, rather foreboding photo that we had and a second 'dog tag'. The photo was John's POW photo, and the rectangular tag and number was his POW identification. From that number, Jayne was able to identify that my grandfather had been one of the escapees, which we did not know, but in fact did not surprise my mother. We then learned the stunning information that a collector in Holland had my grandfather's helmet and was willing to trade it to the Royal Regiment of Canada's Museum for another collectible item (the collector didn't want to sell the helmet, even to the owner's descendants). We were able to get a photo of the helmet and that was just amazing to see, and to wonder at the journey the helmet had taken from that day in August on the beach at Puys to end up in Holland. At the end of August, my mom, John's daughter, will be there to receive the helmet her father once wore.

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