Billy Bishop Museum invites you to visit our onsite exhibit “Liberation Spring: 75 Years of Peace”. Featuring the original Cease Fire Telex received by Signals Officer Harold Van Wyck on May 4th, 1945, in the Netherlands. Van Wyck hailed from Owen Sound and his family donated the historical document to the Billy Bishop Museum, there are thought to be only three of these documents in existence.

War front and home front depictions were designed to give our patrons a better impression of the conditions under which peace had been achieved. The historical perspectives of servicemen, Dutch civilians and Canadians at home are portrayed in the exhibit. OSDSS Grade 10 history students researched the local war dead associated with this closing phase of the Second World War to convey the cost of peace. Their tributes were used to develop a scrolling PowerPoint and mural. An adjoining viewing room is devoted to the Liberation Spring Peace Project and its accompanying video.

A final component of Liberation Spring is the ongoing effort to create the Charles Fisher Fonds. Fisher is a 105-year-old veteran of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps who served in the Netherlands during the Second World War. He was an avid letter writer and keen photographer who kept an extensive diary and collected numerous mementos during his service. Charles Fisher’s Great Coat, Jerkin, Service Jacket, Medals and photos are featured in the exhibit and he introduces the Liberation Spring Peace Project Video with firsthand memories of the Liberation of the Netherlands.

You can view the Liberation Spring Peace Project Video as well as learn more about the exhibit by visiting its website here: https://www.liberationspring75.com/

This exhibit will be open to the public until June 2021.

source: media release, Billy Bishop Museum