'We could hear the burning': Canada's top soldier remembers the Battle of Medak Pocket

It is sometimes called Canada's"forgotten battle."

Thirtyyears ago this week, Canadian soldiers on a peacekeeping missionfought a pitched battle against Croatian forces near the village of Medak in the former Yugoslavia. Today, military membersmarked the anniversary of the Battle of Medak Pocketwith a low-key ceremony at the national peacekeeping memorial in Ottawa, a commemoration not attended by any government ministers.

The vicious battle in September 1993 fought against Croatian forces in the former Yugoslavia on a peacekeeping mission where there was precious little peace to keep has hada major legacy for Canadian soldiers and for the country's top military commander.

Gen. Wayne Eyre, chief of the defence staff,led the reconnaissance unit that uncovered and documented the massacre of civilians and the horrors of ethnic cleansing in the region. Themission forever changed the face of Canadian peacekeeping and shapes Eyre's decisions to this day.

The battle, which raged over eight days, saw four Canadian soldiers wounded a remarkable result given its scale. Historians say the 16-hour firefight between Croatian troopsand Charlie Company of the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI)was, at that point, the biggest engagement fought by Canadians since the Korean War.

A number of Croatian troops were reportedly killed.

Before he sat down with CBC News, Eyre hadnever spoken publicly about the experience. He gave an interview a number of years ago for the PPCLI regimental history.

He and his reconnaissance platoon were on the edges of the firefight as it unfolded. They later led the way into the village of Liki itluk, which had been razed to the ground and where as many as 16 mutilated corpses of civilians were discovered.

"It was surreal, I guess is probably the best term," said Eyre, adding the scenes of death and devastation had a profound impact on him as a young captain just beginning his career.

"I was too busy to be angry [at the time]. I was too worried about everything that was going on, you know."

Under Croatian artillery fire, Canadian troopsattempted to construct a fortified position in a spot that had been occupied by Serbians who were attempting to form a breakaway republic in the area. The Canadian and French UN forcesreturned fire.

The smoke, the flames is something I will never forget. - Gen. Wayne Eyre

The Croatian commander, Brig.-Gen. Rahim Ademi, agreed to a ceasefire and pledged to withdraw when his troops were unable to dislodge the peacekeepers.

The next day Sept. 16, 1993 was cloudy and grey as Canadian troops, including Eyre,moved in to enforce the ceasefire. They were held up at a heavily fortified roadblock outside Medak.

"We had moved forward to a Croatian roadblock, and we could hear the shooting. We could hear the burning," said Eyre. "We reported back that we believed that ethnic cleansing was happening."

In an impromptu news conference, Canadian commander Lt.-Col. Jim Calvin accused the Croatsof having something to hide.

"Finally about 1800 [6:00 pm] that night we got the word and we moved through the roadblock. I tell you it was a pretty scary time," said Eyre, who was standing just out of camera range when Calvin was speaking to reporters.

The short drive down the leafy country road delivered the Canadians into a merciless cauldron.

"I will tell you, every building in that village was on fire," said Eyre.

"The smoke, the flames is something I will never forget. Littered on the ground were hundreds of pairs of surgical gloves that had been used as [the Croats] got rid of the evidence of the dead bodies."

WATCH | Gen. Wayne Eyre on the Battle of Medak Pocket:

Canada's top military commander on Battle of Medak Pocket

11 months ago

Duration 2:12

Gen. Wayne Eyre reflects on the vicious September 1993 battle Canadian troops fought against Croatian forces in the former Yugoslavia. Eyre led the reconnaissance unit which uncovered and documented the massacre of civilians and the horrors of ethnic cleansing in the region.

But the Canadians had arrived before all of the cleanup was done. Alongside the road, roughly 70 Croatian soldiers watched their arrival. Eyre remembers them laughing at the Canadians.

"Over the course of the next number of hours, we discovered a number of bodies," said Eyre. "But I tell you, the smell. The smell is something that it took me years to move away from. Every time I would smell ... a wood fire, a campfire, it would take me back immediately to that moment."

No Serbian residents were found alive in the village and surrounding area.

The Canadians went about cataloging the horrors they discovered evidence that would later be handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Ademi, the overall Croatian commander in the region, was indicted in 2001 and charged with crimes against humanity. He was acquitted.

The Croatian soldiershave a different version of the battle and insist to this day that they only fired after being fired upon. They also denied using heavy weapons, such as artillery and tanks.

Eyre said he has spoken to Croatian soldiersover the years; Croatia is now part of NATO. He said they've agreed to disagree.

"How did I come to terms with it personally?" Eyre said, pausing for a moment.

"It was a lot of reflection, a lot of thinking deeply about it. And you could argue that, you know ...I'm still in the process of coming to terms with it."

It's seared into your existence. It's seared into your memory.- Gen. Wayne Eyre

Turning a traumatic event into a growth experience was Eyre's objective as the years went by. He said he recognizes how deeply service in the Balkans affected many of his fellow soldiers. For some Eyre included the atrocities they witnessed in the former Yugoslavia outstripped what they saw during service in Afghanistan.

"It's seared into your existence. It's seared into your memory, and so you will continue to think about it for the rest of your life," he said.

He readily admits the battle in and around Medak shapes the advice he gives the federal government today whenever there's a question of putting troops in harm's way.

"The lessons of Medak had been formative for me," said Eyre.

He said he insists on worst-case scenario planning and works to ensure the shortcomings he saw in Croatia (lack of artillery,lack of casualty support and troop mobility) are not repeated in current and future missions.

Eyre saidthe experience also made him keenly aware of what a dangerous place the world can be especially today.

"One of the lessons is that civilization is a very thin veneer that can be readily ripped away and in this case, we saw neighbours killing neighbours. It was very, very sad to see," he said.

"But it speaks to the naivety that we have here in our country. We should be thankful for what we have. Canada is so secure and insular."

Many of the war crimes he witnessed in the Balkans are being repeated today in Ukraine by Russian forces, he added.

The Battle of Medak Pocket also represented the death knell of "blue beret" UN peacekeeping, a concept that still resonates deeply with Canadians, especially in the political class.

Retired major-general Lew MacKenzie, who commanded UN forces in Sarajevo prior to the battle at Medak, said what happened 30 years ago this week was under-reported at the time and remains an uncomfortable topic for the Canadian government.

"It was never duly reported in Canada because they just couldn't understand from the government on down why are peacekeeperskilling people," said MacKenzie. "And it was very, very madding for me in particular because I knew what they'd gone through and the area that they fought."

He said it took a CBC News investigation years later to fully expose what happened; what went wrong; what went right and the valour of the soldiers involved.

"It was a heroic day for Canadian soldiers," MacKenzie, who attended Sunday's commemoration, said.

Eyre said he sees the battle as a turning point in modern Canadian military and political history, coming as it did after the disastrous peacekeeping deployment in Somalia and just before the genocide in Rwanda.

Historian Andrew Burtch of the Canadian War Museum said he believes Medak Pocket was a significant moment that helped to shape,both organizationally and ethically,the Canadian Army that went on to fight less than a decade later in Afghanistan.

Medak Pocket was "not Vimy Ridge. It's not, you know, Battle of Hill 355,it's not Normandy," he said. "But the demand of the United Nations of that moment [in Croatia] was not to buckle, and it didn't, and that was largely due to the service and sacrifice of those people who served in that role."

Canadians were sentto the former Yugoslavia "in the name of Canadian foreign policy, in the name of Canadian values, to enforce" the ceasefire and keep the peace in general, he said.

"And I think we'd be ill served if we forgot about those chapters of our historythat are smaller chapters, but are very formative to the ways in which the military conducted itself."