Vancouver's Remembrance Day past: 23 historic photos from the World Wars

In 1914, soldiers, family and friends crowded outside the C.P.R. Station at West Cordova and Seymour as the first troops left for Europe. Remembrance Day events this Wednesday mark the 108th anniversary of the end of the First World War, and a new Daily Hive Ottawa feature of 23 historic photographs from the Vancouver City Archives shows how both wars reached the city.

No fighting took place on Vancouver soil, but thousands of British Columbian men and women signed up to fight or serve abroad. A 1916 sign at the 131st Battalion C.E.F. Recruiting Office at 205 Carrall St. advertised "a free round trip to Berlin" for military service.

On November 11, 1918, soldiers on a truck celebrated the Armistice, waving the Royal Union Flag, Canada's official flag at the time. Armistice Day crowds filled Granville Street, looking north from Georgia Street. In 1919 First World War veterans of the Returned Soldiers Club posed at the Elysium Hotel at 1142 West Pender Street, where the Shorehill Building now stands. Many of the men show war amputations and wounds.

The most famous Canadian image of the Second World War is "Wait for me, Daddy!" Taken October 1, 1940, it shows five-year-old Warren Bernard chasing his father, Private Jack Bernard, down Eighth Street in New Westminster as the British Columbia Regiment marched to a train. Jack came home safely at the end of the war. The photo was used in war-bonds campaigns and ran in Life magazine.

Other wartime images include Nakoda First Nations people in traditional dress buying War Savings Stamps in 1940, and troops saying goodbye to their families at the train on April 14, 1942. In 1942 troops also waited to board a ship at the now-demolished Pier B-C, where Canada Place stands today.