The Final Days

Heroes Remember

The Final Days

Transcript

And then the big drive in the spring started in February, March I think it was and we captured, the first town we captured was Kleve, Germany, across the border, North Shore captured Kleve and all the different battalions had different places to capture and then we fought right through, right through France and back into Holland. We fought into Germany, Kleve and back into Holland and we were fighting up around across the Zuiderzee in Holland in Driebergen. No not Driebergen, Makkum, Holland. We captured Makkum, Holland, we captured Leeuwarden, the Canadians and we were fighting in Germany just across the border from Leeuwarden when the war ended. Five o’clock in the morning the colonel jumped in my slit trench and said send out this message, “Ceasefire! Don’t fire unless you are fired on!” And that was the last message that went out. And the front that we were holding there, that morning at 5:30, we saw these white flags go up and the Germans surrendered. And a colonel and another officer came over to our dug out and he said to the colonel, “We’re going to surrender!” And the colonel said, “How many men do you have?” They said, “Two hundred!” He said, “Bring them in.” He said, “No, I won’t bring them in. If I go back, you’ll shoot me in the back when I leave this place.” And the colonel said, “No, we won’t do that. The war is over!” He said, “Send two officers with me and I’ll go bring them out.” So two of our officers went with them and the two hundred men surrendered and that was the end of it, that was the end of our war. It was all over.

Description

Mr. Chiasson describes the final push and the last few hours before the war was finally over.

Havelyn Chiasson

Mr. Chiasson was born May 14, 1921 in Misquamicut Island, New Brunswick. He attended an English and French school while his father worked as a fisherman. When war was declared in 1939, Mr. Chiasson was recruited to the Carleton York Regiment in Bathurst and later with the North Shore Regiment, a regiment he would remain with until end of wartime. Mr. Chiasson held the position of wireless operator and found himself travelling overseas which would become a 5 ½ year experience. Mr. Chiasson was part of the D-Day and Battle of Normandy landings where he reached the beaches in St. Aubin-sur-Mer, Normandy. He carried on through to Holland. Mr. Chiasson remains very active about his service years, speaking to our youth about the importance of service to our country.

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