Article content continued

Photo by Philippe Huguen/Pool Photo via AP / file photo

Seniors were pushed and shoved against metal gates by overcrowding. Some students gave up waiting and walked across the battlefield still containing some unexploded shells. Families were separated as darkness fell.

Many later wrote to Veterans Affairs Canada. While those in front of the monument agreed it had been a moving ceremony, thousands at the back could not see or hear and the logistics of handling 25,000 people broke down badly.

We stood in a solid uncontrolled mass of people, crushed and pushed for over 3 hours. A person near me fainted but did not slump over due to the close mass of people

The visitors’ letters — 397 pages of them — tell of heat exhaustion, thirst, full bladders and fear. Here are some excerpts, with the senders’ names removed by Veterans Affairs.

• One woman wrote in simple detail of the danger to seniors caught in the exit crowd, waiting for buses to the hotel. “When the ceremony ended at 6 p.m., we stood in a solid uncontrolled mass of people, crushed and pushed for over 3 hours until a shuttle bus would be available for a small number to charge ahead. A person near me fainted but did not slump over due to the close mass of people …

“After being pushed, shoved and crushed against a metal gate, I was separated from my husband and friends, on the opposite side of the gate, in the dark, with no one immediately nearby who could speak my language to offer help. It has been described by most as cattle being herded onto cattle trains.

“By the time we reached our hotel at 11:30 p.m., we were so tired, injured and upset that eating a meal was impossible for most of us.”

Many in her group had to get up the following day at 3 a.m. to go to the airport. “A few of us seniors required wheelchairs at the airport due to the unfortunate incidents at the Vimy site.” Her letter is calm right to the end, when she concludes: “SHAME SHAME ON YOU!”