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Description
John Joseph Weicker
John Joseph Weicker was born on November 17, 1920, in Duncan, British Columbia. Mr. Weicker attended Duncan High School and completed his first year of university there as well. He attended Gonzaga University for his second year and returned to Victoria, BC, in 1941 to work at St. Joseph's Hospital as an apprentice pharmacist. Mr. Weicker got a call to join the army, however, was given an exemption because there was a requirement of four years apprenticeship before he could write the pharmacist exam. The Pharmacy Association allowed him to do one year apprenticeship and the other three years would be served while he was in the army. He was exempted until August. From there he did basic training in Vernon and at the Camp Borden Medical Training Centre. He was then sent to Chilliwack Military Hospital. While there he volunteered to go overseas. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Weicker was sent to Vancouver to Hastings Park where a unit was forming, 12th Field Dressing Station. In May 1942 his unit was sent overseas to Northern Scotland, and was eventually assigned to the 4th Armoured Division. There was no call for an apprentice pharmacist so Mr. Weicker was listed as a nursing orderly. On D-Day he crossed the Strait of Dover and made his way to Juno Beach. From there he went on to Falaise, Normandy. After the war ended he crossed the Rhine to Wilhelmshaven, Germany. After leaving the Army, Mr. Weicker completed pharmacy school and passed his pharmacy exams in 1947.
Transcript
This, we were just in Antwerp and we had complete control of Antwerp, the Canadian Army,
and they had a cinema on this corner, and I can remember this, you know, it's funny you remember certain things you know, and they had a, a movie on which the Canadians were gonna watch and it was Rita Hayworth in "Cover Girl". And the, this cinema was full of Canadian soldiers, and this V2 rocket which you, if you know anything about the V2 rocket, you hear two explosions. Yeah, you hear two explosions, and the first one is the, the, the, the V2 rocket exploding that it hits. The second noise is the sound of it coming. And you had no warning, no warning because it, it was coming so fast, see. And this shell hit right on this intersection right beside the theatre and blew half of the theatre out and there were a lot of Canadian casualties from that. And the MP that was on the corner directing traffic, they never found him.