'Wait for Me, Daddy'

'Wait for Me, Daddy' – Story behind one of the most famous photos to come out of Canada during World War II

It's October 1, 1940 and Province photographer Claude P. Dettloff is standing on Columbia Street at 8th Street in New Westminster, his press camera up to his eye, preparing to take a shot. He's focusing on a line of hundreds of men of the B.C. Regiment marching down 8th to a waiting train. Soldiers of the Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles are marching past. Suddenly, in the view-finder, Detloff sees a little white-haired boy tugging away from his mother's grasp and rushing up to his father in the marching line ... click.

'Wait For Me, Daddy' has become one of the most famous photographs in Canadian history. It was printed in Life magazine and was hung in every classroom across B.C. during the war years. (Claude Dettloff)

'Wait For Me, Daddy' becomes the most famous Canadian picture of the Second World War, and one of the most famous of all war pictures. And it was a fluke, a one-in-a-million shot.

The Royal Canadian Mint is issuing a general-circulation $2 coin with an engraved rendition of the famous image; Canada Post is putting out a postage stamp replicating the photo; and a stylized bronze sculpture has been crafted in Spain.

Whitey's dad came home in October 1945 and Claude Dettloff-now the Province's chief photographer-took a photograph of their reunion at the CNR station.

Father and son reunited, 1945. (Vancouver Province Newspaper)

Not long after Whitey and Ruby Johnson married in 1964, he got involved in local politics. He was elected alderman, was mayor for several years in the 1980s and then went back as councillor. Today, he's retired. His son Steven runs the business that Whitey started long ago, a small marina, marine hardware and fuel station.

(via History of Vancouver)