55 watered, he was bandaged all over and his face terribly burned….”4 The nun’s recollection of Ed Bennett was as clear as Bennett’s memory of her voice. Almost forty years later, his eyes now healed, Bennett could finally see the face of Sister Marie-Agnès Valois, Sister Agnes, one of the nuns who cared for him during that terrible period. Many other Canadian Dieppe Raid veterans also fondly recalled Sister Agnes over the years. The French Augustin nun became known as ‘the Angel of Dieppe’ for her care of numerous soldiers following the Raid. One wounded Canadian asked Sister Agnes to kiss him the same way his mother would have done. She granted his request just before the young Canadian died. She became a fixture at commemorative ceremonies in Dieppe for years after. She was there in 2012 at the age of ninety-six at the 70th anniversary of the Raid and reunited with the old Canadian soldiers once again. Time however had taken its toll; sadly, there were so few of the them left at this occasion. Sister Agnes outlived most of the “boys” she treated including Ed Bennett who died in 2010, fittingly on November 11th. Too ill to attend the 75th commemorations five years ago in August 2017, Sister Agnes’ absence and the mere handful of Dieppe veterans there in attendance truly revealed the long passage of time since that fateful day. She would never get to attend another commemoration. On 19 April 2018 Sister Agnes, the Angel of Dieppe, died. She was 103. Sister Agnes at the 70th Anniversary Reception. Ed Bennett in 2010. 1. Mark Zuehlke, Tragedy at Dieppe (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2012), 300. 2. Ibid.,300. 3. Mark Zuehlke, Tragedy at Dieppe (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2012), 357. 4. CBC Documentary, Dieppe 1942, 1979.
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