It is with fond memories and regrets we share of the passing of Barry R. Bittle, March 5th, 2020, age 79.
Barry reached us through the website for the 12th Field Documentary project and was an important inspiration to our story and research for this project.
He shares, during our interview, the tragic story of his father who served with the 12th Field Regiment; Barry’s emotional connection to Walter Culhane Bittle, a soldier-father whom he never met. Gnr W. C. Bittle was killed in action on August 14, 1944.
I have lost my best friend. His name was Barry Bittle, He passed away on March 5th, age 79 from pulmonary fibrosis.
He leaves his forever-loving wife Daniele Bourdages, devoted daughters Elizabeth, Alison, Kathleen and Emilie, steadfast sons-in-laws Nilo, Steven and Matthew, beautiful grandchildren Kayla (Gaston), Nick (Venese), Graydon, Macy, Everett and enough friends and admirers to fill both floors of the Pilot Restaurant and the Monarch Tavern five times over. These places knew him well.
I first met him in 1961 when he joined the Cockfield Brown Advertising Agency’s
Radio and Television Department. He was a young kid with the street-smart of a forty-year old and John Ross of Robert Lawrence Productions spotted his potential and wooed him away from the Ad Game. That was the beginning of his long and incredible career in Canadian TV-commercial production.
It was a career that also took the two of us on assignments to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Kenya, Cuba, France and England.
Barry had a beautiful mistress he fell in love with the first time he saw her; a mistress that stayed with him until the day he left us. That mistress was Paris, the City of Light
[La Ville Lumière ]. He would sit on the sidewalk terrace of Café de la Paix, cuddling a glass of red wine, his eyes bright with happiness for just being in her company.
The last time we were together in Paris was four years ago, when we then went on to Normandy where Barry visited the grave of the soldier-father he never met.
It was a pilgrimage he had made many times before, once in the 80’s taking his beautiful mother on the Queen E across the Atlantic to visit her husband Walter Culhane Bittle’s grave for the very first time.
He also brought his whole family, 15 of them to Normandy in 2012 to share with them his family’s history and the impact of WWII on his life so they would never forget.
Walter was killed on August 14th, 1944, in the Falaise Gap attack, after surviving D-Day. He was a member of the 12th Field Regiment.
My friend will be missed by all who had the chance of ever meeting him.
Brian
best friend
We lost touch for 50 years and re-united at the Monarch Tavern.
Always looked up to Barry and I still feel like I can pick up the phone and call him.
He sure had a presence.
I will miss him
My condolences.
Wonderful statement from Brian only that this photograph was shot in Paris where I have met Barry, Daniele and Emilie for the last time. Barry was undoubtedly a larger than life character and I feelvery privileged to have shared some short period of friendship when he and his family were living on ironhill, Quebec.
I really would aprechiate if it is possible to change the photographers name
to Axel Bussmeyer, as this is one of my signature portraits