ILLUSTRATIONS: SHARIF TARABAY
Clockwise from top left: Victoria Cross recipients David Vivian Currie, Aubrey Cosens, Frederick Albert Tilston and Frederick George Topham.
During the World War II campaign in Northwest Europe, which lasted from D-Day, June 6, 1944, until the German surrender in May 1945, four Canadian soldiers--David Vivian Currie, Aubrey Cosens, Frederick Albert Tilston and Frederick George Topham--earned Victoria Crosses.
There is a photograph taken in August 1944 at St-Lambert-sur-Dives, France, that shows Currie with pistol in hand, accepting the surrender of a German officer. Tanks and buildings are smouldering in the background. The noted Canadian military historian, C.P. Stacey, described the scene "as close as we are likely to come to a photograph of a man win...