Enlightening experience
First World War Audio Archive
Enlightening experience
Transcript
Horse and carriage.
and I recounted this one time when the Japs entered World War Two I heard somebody in a restaurant one morning cursing the Japs high, wide and handsome and said there never was a decent Jap born, all the rest of it. I said I was having coffee on the other side of the restaurant and when I went to pay my bill, he spied me, and he said, “Here’s Pat. He’ll tell you all about it.” He says, “He knows them and they were in the first war too.” And I said, “Yes, they were in the first war and they were on our side in the first war. The battalion next to us, the 50th battalion, had a platoon that was Japanese and they were fighting along with us in Vimy. And,” I said, “the morning that I got wounded, I was trying my best to get out to (inaudible) dragging along and I said there was lots of fellows passing me, slightly wounded. They had been wounded in the arm or some thing like that they were going right along as fast as they could. Never stopped to look. And finally,” I said, “one fellow did stop.” He said, “You’re pretty badly wounded, eh?” “Well,” I said, “I guess so.” He said, “You put your arm around my shoulder. I’ll help youTwo soldiers posing for photograph.
out." "So," I said, "I put my arm around his shoulder, across his shoulders, you know. Quite a little piece from that I felt my hand getting warm there, and then I stopped and I looked at it and," I said, "it was all covered with blood." I said, "His whole shoulder was shot off. Seemed to be." I said, "The whole thing was partly gone." "Yeah, what’s that got to do with that?” he says. “Well, that was one of your 'dirty little Japs' that you were ridiculing.” I said, “You better be careful about how you're talking about people because of their race.” And I said, “Think that one over.” Well, that was an enlightening experience right there.Description
Mr. Gleason describes being helped to a dressing station by a badly wounded Japanese-Canadian soldier from an adjacent battalion, and years later giving a neighbour a lesson in tolerance.
Patrick William Gleason
Patrick William Gleason was born in North Dakota, USA, on October 31, 1897. His family moved to Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1907. Mr. Gleason was a student in Yorkton prior to his enlistment in the 196th Regiment. He was accepted for duty on May 10, 1916, at Brandon, Manitoba, and arrived in France in early 1917 in preparation for the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Mr. Gleason was wounded in the thigh by machine gun fire at Vimy on April 12, 1917. After returning to active duty in France, he spent the remainder of the war hauling munitions to the front lines, and survived a shell explosion and two gas attacks at Amiens. Mr. Gleason was discharged, rank of private, on June 10, 1919. After the war, he farmed for a few years, then taught at several country schools until 1930 when economic and agricultural conditions left the school board with too little money to pay a teacher’s salary. Mr. Gleason then returned to farming in the Yorkton area, and was also employed as postmaster in his hometown of Tonkin from 1950 until he retired in 1973. He was instrumental in organizing sports activities in his community, as well as a Credit Union of which he was secretary treasurer for a number of years. During the 1940s and 1950s, he was also secretary treasurer of the local school board, president of the Saskatchewan Trustees Association, and president of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Mr. Gleason married Marion Cecilia Robinson in 1925 and had eight children. He died of cancer on June 21, 1978, and is buried in Yorkton.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 2:25
- Person Interviewed:
- Patrick William Gleason
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- First World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Europe
- Battle/Campaign:
- Vimy
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- 196th Saskatchewan Regiment
- Rank:
- Private
- Occupation:
- Infantryman
Attestation
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