Eric Brunt and the late Reg Harrison, Pilot (431 Squadron RCAF) © Courtesy of Eric Brunt Collection
By Raye Mocioiu
Our lives are a collection of stories, full of experiences gained over a lifetime that make us who we are. Some live on for generations, others as cheerful or heart-pulling anecdotes, and others still are all but forgotten.
The stories of Canada’s Second World War veterans are among the most consequential in our nation’s history, but the average age of a Second World War veteran is 100 years old—soon, there will be none left to tell their stories firsthand, only medals tucked away in drawers and black-and-white photographs with fading edges. It is in this narrowing window of time that filmmaker Eric Brunt has dedicated himself to listening, recording, and preserving the voices of Canada’s last remaining veterans before they are lost forever.
What you are doing, I think, is wonderful, taking the time and effort to capture some of these images and stories. Otherwise, they would be lost. They would be gone.
History Through Stories
Canada entered the Second World War on September 10, 1939, and did not return to peace until August 15, 1945. In those six years, more than 1.1 million Canadians served. Statistics tell part of that story, but the rest lives in memory. Over 45,000 were killed, 55,000 were wounded, and countless others returned home with scars and haunting memories, both of which would last a lifetime—or longer, if someone cared to document them.
Over the past seven years, Brunt has interviewed and filmed more than 500 Canadian Second World War veterans, capturing over 700 hours of firsthand testimony. It began when his grandfather passed away while Brunt was studying film in university. Only afterward did Brunt realize that he had no record of his grandfather’s wartime experiences. How many other stories had been lost the same way?
That question became the foundation of what is now known as The Eric Brunt Collection, a landmark oral history archive produced by MELKI Films, and preserved as part of the Canadian War Museum oral history collections.
Hundreds of these interviews are already publicly accessible through the Museum’s collections database, with more being transcribed and catalogued so they can serve as a permanent resource for students, scholars, and future generations.
There’s more to war than battles and dates. When our veterans pass, the statistics won’t tell us their stories. To that end, Brunt’s interviews aren’t retellings of official reports—those already exist in textbook summaries. These interviews are intimate, like sitting down with a relative to hear a story from their youth. In between moments of humility and reflection, and alongside voices that crack when recalling lost friends, Brunt finds stories of fear and resilience in the lived experiences of those who were there.
From The Eric Brunt Collection: Voices of the Unheard
Many of the veterans Brunt interviews live quietly, far from public attention. Few had ever been filmed before, and some had never spoken openly about their wartime experiences at all. These interviews are a final opportunity to bear witness, to say the names of friends who never came home, and to share memories long carried alone.
As Brunt often tells his interviewees, remembering names matters. Saying them aloud preserves them in history; forgetting them risks erasing their sacrifice.
Madeline Shavalier: Courage Beyond the Front Lines
The late Lieutenant Nursing Sister Madeline Shavalier was the only woman Brunt met who survived the sinking of a ship. In 1943, Maddy and her fellow nurses were en route to Italy when German forces attacked their vessel. Forced into lifeboats in the darkness of the Mediterranean, they waited in silence for hours, unsure whether rescue or capture would come first.
“It was pitch dark,” Maddy remembered. “You never heard such a quiet group of nurses in your life. We were too scared to speak.”
Eventually, a light appeared on the horizon—an American ship. The rescue that followed became the largest at-sea rescue operation of the war, saving 1,675 nurses and soldiers. Maddy went on to serve in mosquito-ridden regions of Italy, where malaria posed a constant threat. She treated Allied soldiers and, on one occasion, a wounded German patient, whom she cared for with the same professionalism as her own men, despite threats from others.
“There were hardships,” she said, “but they were valuable years. I learned a lot about life.”
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Noel Butcher: The Forgotten Battle
The late Noel Butcher was just 25 years old when Victory in Europe was declared. His war took him to the Italian Campaign and into one of the deadliest and least-remembered battles in Canadian history: the Battle of Ortona.
On Christmas Day, 1943, his unit was sent to stop a German patrol attempting to encircle another regiment’s headquarters. What Noel wryly referred to as a “Christmas party” ended when shrapnel from a potato masher grenade tore into his leg.
Three days later, Ortona was liberated, Canada’s first major stand-alone victory of the war. Yet it came at an enormous cost, one largely forgotten by Canadian history. Today, just five kilometres from Ortona, the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery still remembers, and holds 1,375 Canadian graves, one for each young life cut short in December 1943.
Educational and Theatrical Distribution of The Eric Brunt Collection is available both nationally and internationally through Melki Distribution. Brunt is currently developing a feature-length documentary titled Under Fire, drawing from some of his most powerful discoveries. As long as there are stories left untold, he intends to keep listening.
