Description
Mr. Mason expresses his strong feelings on the Canadian contribution to winning the First World War.
Alfred Mason
Alfred Mason was born in Tangier, Nova Scotia on January 4, 1895. After completing his schooling, he worked in the Tangier gold mines before moving to a job at the car works in Trenton, Nova Scotia when he was 17 years old. He would also spend some time at the steel works there and in the coal mines of northern Nova Scotia before going to Halifax in 1915 to enlist. He joined the 66th Battalion and then transferred to the 40th. He spent some time in Quebec in basic training and was then sent to England and, almost immediately, on to France. He arrived there in the Spring of 1916 as reinforcement for the 3rd Division, 8th Brigade of the 5th Battalion of the Canadian Mounted Rifles.
Transcript
Interviewer: How would you describe what Canada did in World War One? Oh well Canada, Canada done a lot. If it wasn't for Canada they'd, they'd it just been nip and tuck with them I'm telling ya right now, cause we were into everything. There was nothing that we, we, we were into the worst places and everything. You just take, you just take a Vimy Ridge for instance. The French, French couldn't take it. The British couldn't take it. So what the hell they couldn't take it, well we went and took it and we wasn't as strong as, as they were.Interviewer: Why do you think then that Canadian divisions could take it? Well I don't know I think, I think they, they thought more about it and, and figured it out. Lots of ways that, that we could take it. So we moved in the artillery they coulda, they shoulda moved in more than what they did, that's all. They moved in the artillery and got them. German's new we were going to war. They new but they didn't expect us over that day, because it, it was snowing and raining that morning, ya see, but we fooled them. We didn't stop for anything. We tell, we tell, I told, I told one fella one time I saw him, this German ya know, one time, I said the Canadians don't stop for anything. And one time we took, we took on the way we made I was telling you about we took a German, I didn't, but somebody got him, a German that'd been all over Canada, he knew more of Canada than we did ourselves. Yeah, yeah.