大象传媒

My family was in the Canadian Army as there was no work in Canada. Canada had joined the allies at the beginning of the war.

When I joined I was too young to be sent to the allies. I first joined when I was 15 and when they found out I was kicked out so I joined again when I was 16.

Travelled across Canada by train to British Columbia - 900 of us. We rounded up Japanese civilian fishermen and interned them. There were hundreds of Japanese fishing boats in Canada. They were put in Prisoner of War camps, whole families. The Japanese also had huge farms, mainly fruit farms, and we rounded up whole families.

We were there three months and went back to Newfoundland. Took seven days on the troop train. Newfoundland was then a British colony. We did guard duty at Gander airport where they were sending bombers from.

There the rum cost ninety cents a quart and it was called Screech.

We used to go down to the harbour to help Merchant seamen off boats which had been torpedoed, not a nice job. We had to take off the wounded.

Ships were so badly damaged that they had to be repaired.

All Canadian armed forces were volunteers. We were sent to the UK.

Landed in Scotland and went to Hunstanton in Norfolk, where we were put up in a buautiful hotel.

We scrubbed the floors with caustic soda and ruined the floors! We were all fined, cost us a fortune.

We marched halfway to Crowborough and were picked up halfway in lorries and taken to Crowborough Camp.

We did training in the area for weeks and weeks. We were part of 4th Armoured Division. We were to be used after D Day to break out but it didn't work.

Left for France in July 1944 and spent a week going up and down the English Channel because we couldn't get into a French port because of the weather. Eventually we landed in France.

Went into action - Tilly (short name!) where the Germans were still very active.

Six days we lost 75% causalities. We lost one thousand men by the end of the war.

We were in trenches and I could dig faster than a worm. If you went into a farmhouse that would get shelled.

When we were fighting we would aim to take a village but we would never stay there long because we were vulnerable to shelling. However it was useful to go into the local restaurant and collect the menus which we used for writing letters back home. They were good quality paper and survived in our packs for a few days. Eventually someone would come and collect our letters and send them home.

We abandoned all of our kit - food and water were too heavy to carry. We lived off the land, taking what we could. We often got some good wine. We didn't often wash or shower. We were often hungry and thirsty.

The farmers had often fled and the hen houses were bursting with eggs. We had shells bursting all round us and when it all went quiet you sort of know it was all over.

We ended up in Oldenburg, East of the Rhine.

When I first joined the army in Canada the economy was in a very poor state. I never remember my father having a job. My first uniform was 1st World War with brass buttons and puttees.

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