Description
Mr. Hyde talks about his knowledge of the PPCLI when he enlisted and how much more did he learned in his early days with the regiment.
Gilbert John Hyde
Mr. Hyde's father was an electrician with the Moose Jaw Power Company and also a Veteran of the First World War. Mr. Hyde was an only child. He enlisted on 18 October 1938, two weeks after his 18th birthday with the PPCLI. Basic training was taken in Winnipeg before sailing from Halifax to Scotland in December 1939. On arrival, Mr. Hyde went directly to Aldershot in England where he spent several months in further training. Mr. Hyde then moved from being a military police officer to the job of dispatch rider - to a signaller assigned to a signals battalion with the Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. That was followed by a 3 ½ year stint on a Bren Gun carrier. The squadron was eventually posted to Scotland and eventually sailed for Sicily where Mr. Hyde participated in the landing there and went on to a number of battles in Italy before returning to Sicily, where his troop, the PLDG, received several awards, including a battle honour and a commendation from the Divisional Commander and the British 8th Army Commander.
Transcript
Interviewer: What did you know about the PPCLI at that time?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing until I got to be recruited and they taught us the history and all that.
Interviewer: And what did you learn about the history then?
Well, I learned that we'd been formed by, in Montreal in 1914 and was composed mainly of students from McGill University with a leavening of old Vets to show the newcomers what to do. And its first Colonel, Brigadier Hamilton Gault, and Lady Patricia Ramsay, of course, donated our colours she made them, with, by herself, and donated our colours, and they became known as the "Ric-a-Dam-Doo" colours. And they fought in World War I, of course, and had a number of battles, battle honours, and then they were chosen to be one of the three infantry regiments that formed Canada's permanent forces after the war, the RCR's, the Van Doos, and the Pat's. And they were a pretty famous regiment.
Interviewer: So you knew very shortly that you were joining a storied regiment.
An elite regiment, oh yes, didn't take long to find out.