8. Mai 2001
On the 8th of May, 2001, the village of Maizieres dedicated a street to the memory of the Canadian army officer Major E. G. Styffe. At the moment when the whole of France commemorated the anniversary of the Victory on Tuesday, the inhabitants of Maizières welcomed the family of a Canadian war hero of the battle of Laizon, who died in combat on the 14th of August 1944. The village wanted to name the main street after him. From then on the street would be called: “Rue du Major E.G. Styffe”.
Eleven thirty, Tuesday the 8th of May 2001. With applause from the population and the attending officials, Ingrid Blanchet(sister of Major Styffe), Lieutenant-Colonel Archie Bell and Marcel Levernieux unveiled the plaque on which appears the name of Major Edward Grieg Styffe, most likely the only officer to die in combat on August 1944 during the battle of Laizon, in the village of Maiziéres, canton of Bretteville-sur-Laize.
It is a solemn moment. The village has been waiting and preparing for the event for nearly eight months. The local elected officials were the first to begin the wait as they decided to name the main street after the major. Then there was family Levernieux, who knew the local history more than fifty years after the incident.
They and others undertook the task, so that the 56th anniversary of France’s liberation should be a celebration that keeps the liberation in memory, enhanced by the presence of the family of this real hero of the Second World War, cut down by the enemy at the age of 26. The final point “of a long, very long journey to make the link between the village and his liberators, between Canada and Normandy. To tie again the thread of memory and restore the forgotten”.
Gathered on the sides of the crossroad which leads to Argences, the crowd formed by the principal local authorities, representatives of the community, veterans and inhabitants, is omnipresent at every important moment of the day, which began with placing a bouquet of flowers at the memorial of the cote, followed by a church service, another placing of a bouquet of flowers at the village war memorial, and found its epilogue along the main street, in the presence of a Canadian commission consisting of fourteen persons who had arrived a few days earlier.
Among these people, Ingrid Blanchet-Styffe, from Vancouver, Major Styffe’s youngest sister, who also was enlisted in the Canadian army in 1943, several of her nephews and nieces, lieutenant-colonel Archie Bell representing the Lake Superior Regiment, wounded at Bretteville-Ie-Rabet and a friend of the major, and Roy Lamore, president of the veterans of Thunder Bay (Ontario). As for Mary Agnew, the wife of E. G. Styffe, “her health did not allowed her to undertake the trip, but she feels very close to us” explains Marc Alexis, “pleased to welcome the
Commission on this date, as a symbol of the victory of Allied forces over Nazism in Europe. With more than a million enlisted over eleven millions inhabitants to fight oppression on all continents, more than 45,000 Canadians sacrificed their lives for freedom, many of them on Normandy soil and among them young soldiers like Major Styffe of the Lake Superior Regiment who crossed Maiziéres under enemy fire “.
Therefore it is an homage to the sacrifice of his life for peace and liberty that “Eddie”, as his nearest relatives called him, has become a permanent resident of Maiziéres “.
In order to understand major Styffe’s personality one has only to refer to the testimonies of those who knew him well. Beginning with Lieutenant-Colonel Archie Bell who, was “very moved to be present at this special event”, speaks in the name of “the Lake Superior Regiment, which was privileged to liberate your beautiful town in August 1944″. Of “this close friend”, he says he was brave and generous. “We are grateful that you honor him this way. Eddie, himself, regarded his mission as a privilege. I am sure he would tell you that he is grateful that he did not die in vain; grateful, too, that you have chosen to keep his memory alive, so that we all may know that we are brothers and sisters, called to love and serve our fellows … Major Styffe believed in such sentiments and gave his life for it. May the memory of his supreme sacrifice inspire all of us to live out the same language of love and understanding to all our fellows”.
Wounded at Bretteville-Ie-Rabet six days before E. G. Styffe’s death, Lieutenant-Colonel Bell would say “How pleased I am to see again this part of France, now from “a vertical perspective”; it is much more attractive to me today than it was in August 1944″.
To “her new friends”, Mary Agnew, represented by her niece, would say, “A man much loved, of convictions, scrupulous and highly principled, concerned about the well-being of his men”.
At last Edward Styffe, another nephew speaks of “A young man very open-minded, well loved, gentle, honest, very lively who had a great future ahead of him. Even though his death caused a great loss, the story of this new place will be very often told”.
A collective story, which changed into a duty to commemorate Major Styffe’s memory, when it was decided to give a name to the main street of Maiziéres in 1999, which therefore allowed the “creation of a link between two nations and a knot tying again the thread of memory”, as told by the Committee Major Styffe “and the team of “L’Echo du Laizon”, who contributed to the success of this day which, we are sure, will stand out in local history. G.L.