![]() And the people flooded the streets and ticker tape was coming out of every window everywhere. Cases were just flying. We were deprived. We could throw nothing out. On VJ Day, I was lucky enough, the phone from Ottawa to Washington was posted at our, our headquarters and I was lucky enough to man it for an hour or so, which is historical for me, and then Mackenzie King came in and received the news from Washington, talked to Washington, and the Prime Minister, Mackenzie King came in and received the news that, that, not from me but from Washington, that the, that the war was over. Then, the ticker tape flew out the windows. The Americans had devastated Japan but still they wouldn't surrender until the bomb was dropped. And we knew they wouldn't surrender. They had never surrendered anywhere else. But the bomb saved us. And it saved millions of Japanese civilians as well. We could stand outside on the deck, and we saw the excitement of a city relieved after the war, after a terrible time. We went right into Oslo, the piper on the bridge, the skirling, and the men lined up and we were there. It was a great feeling. They broke out a little bottle of something or other and passed it around, I believe, used to call it rations. That was passed around and we had a singsong and we had a pretty nice time. I, of course, had a guitar with me and it was a great night, a great night. There was no loud cheering. Interviewer: But it was over, you survived. I survived and, thank God, but then you sit back and remember, a lot of guys that didn’t.įirst thing you know they told us the war was ended. Holy whiskers, and me and a guy another guy, his name was Gerald Frank Harrow, he and I were buddies. He was my co-driver. We were on duty, in fact, at the petrol dump. They used to issue us cigars. Those little short plump cigars so him and I was, we would smoke one of those and talking and then when we heard the war was ended, oh jee whiz we thought that was something. So we had all the liquor so we said, "Let's go celebrate!" So we took off up to the Regina Rifles, the Winnipegs and then we had a few words with them up there. Got up and had breakfast and walked around talked to him. We didn’t get up. Nobody said nothing, just laid there. “Cease fire, empty guns.” The war was over. Interviewer: It meant a lot to you then and it still means something to you now. Yep, we sat there and laid there in bed. God save the King.Īnd the order we heard on the guns, we’d never heard since D-Day. It just seemed to go on and on and on. Interviewer: Tell me about that, war took over your lives, in what way? Well you didn't make any plans for the future. War took over everything in our lives, everything was on hold until the war was over. ![]() I was playing at Royal Athletic Park one Saturday afternoon and a man came up to me after the game and he said, “How would you like to join the army?” Of course, that was 1935, the hungry thirties and there was no work, of course, and people just lazed around or looked for, if they could paint boats for a day and that would be about it. So I was sixteen at the time and he said, “Well, you have to be eighteen. Never mind, we’ll get around that.” So as it turned out by the time they got the wheels in motion I was seventeen years and three days when I joined the Patricia’s. I don’t know why and we thought we could go over to Germany and finish that war off on the first day, you know, so we joined the army. It was a school picnic on the 28th of June and four of us, or three of us really, decided we would join the army. ![]() This Veterans’ Week, we honour the countless ordinary Canadians who stepped forward to do their part during the Second World War and did extraordinary things. More than one million Canadian men and women would serve in uniform during this bitter conflict that raged on land, at sea and in the air from September 1939 to August 1945.įrom fighting on the battlefields to supporting the war effort on the home front, Canada stood strong alongside our allies to help defend peace and freedom. The Second World War was a pivotal chapter in our country’s history. ![]()
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