OTTAWA—Legend has that when Canadian troops stormed ashore under a hail of German gunfire at the French port of Dieppe in August 1942, one of the hundreds who eventually died in the attack was carrying an old flag.
Exactly how that red and white flag ended up at the Nazi−held French port—and even whether it was definitively there—remains a mystery.
But more than 80 years later, that flag will play a central role in commemorating the doomed raid on Dieppe during this year’s national Remembrance Day ceremony—thanks to three Americans.
What is known about the now−150−year−old flag begins at a garage sale in Columbus, Neb., in 1965. That was where Charles Lowry found the old Red Ensign in the hands of an American veteran….