I Never Saw One Canadian . . . it Really Burnt my Butt.

Heroes Remember

I Never Saw One Canadian . . . it Really Burnt my Butt.

Transcript

I was happy but I never seen one Canadian till I got onto Victoria Island. That burnt my backside. In San Francisco we were given $50 apiece, by the Americans, never one Canadian. Never seen a Canadian until we got on the ferry to go to Victoria, and that’s, I held that against the Canadian people too. And, well we spent, oh pretty near another week on the island there in the army hospital there and got deloused and needles and medical so we didn’t carry any diseases. And then they took us back to Vancouver and loaded on a train for home. I just remember getting, like we landed in the station in Winnipeg and we come up and I guess my parents had been notified because they were at the station. Well, I was reported missing. Instead of my brother it was me that was, when I came off the train, they were surprised it was me and not my brother Tiger.

Description

Mr. Agerbak describes his disappointment upon reaching American soil and seeing no Canadians. He talks about his trip home and seeing his parents.

Knud Agerbak

Knud Agerbak was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1918. His family of seven emigrated to Canada in 1927, settling in Manitoba where his father worked as a farm labourer. Mr. Agerbak started working on a farm at the age of 13. He then loaded freight for the railroad, and finally worked in a pulp mill. His sense of patriotism led him to enlist the day that war was declared in 1939. He tried to enlist in the PPCLI, but not having reached the age of 21 didn’t have naturalized Canadian status and was turned down. The Winnipeg Grenadiers did , however, accept him. He performed garrison duty in both Bermuda and Jamaica before his deployment to Hong Kong. Hong Kong quickly surrendered, and Mr. Agerbak spent time on labour gangs at KaiTak airport in Hong Kong, and the Yokohama shipyards and northern iron mines in Japan.

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