Description
Mr. Walsh describes locating a cellar full of cider while on leave, and being so thirsty that he and his fellow soldiers drank cider to the point of illness.
Graham Walsh
Graham Walsh was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on January 22, 1925. He was the third of seven children. His father worked in a steel mill, and made a bit extra selling coke, a smelting byproduct. His father died when he was seven, and Mr. Walsh and his brother worked odd jobs to help the family. He joined the local reserves when he was fifteen and two years later, at the age of seventeen, enlisted for overseas service. Once in England, he was overlooked for Italian deployment and immediately volunteered for Normandy. Mr. Walsh served from France to post-war Germany, via the liberation of Holland, all with the Royal Regiment of Canada. He was fortunate to survive three wounds while in action.
Transcript
We had two days rest, a chance to wash and get cleaned up. We found a building in the chateau, on the grounds of the chateau. It was half buried in the ground. A big long building. We went in and there was casks, from one end to the other. They were about nine feet high laying on their side, they were about nine feet high. How big, how much they held I don’t know. Of course someone had to put a hole in one of them to find out what was in there, apple cider. We drank until we threw up. We drank until we, well we hadn’t had any water for two solid days then, hadn’t had any food for three days then and you just drank, threw it up, drank it again. Until you quenched your thirst. We weren’t allowed to use the water. We were warned not to touch the water cause they could have very well poisoned the wells that were around. It was in the country. It wasn’t in the town and we had two days of real rest, not a sound going on around us or anything else. That was wonderful.