Ignorant to Starvation

Heroes Remember

Ignorant to Starvation

Transcript

One thing I never forgot was when we landed in Naples. We were all young people. We didn’t know anything about starvation. We didn’t know anything about hunger or anything at all about that, and that vision comes back to me different times. When we got into the port at night, and the next morning when we got ready to get out, the civilians was on the docks. And it wasn’t only kids, but kids and grown ups and everything like that. And we carried a chocolate ration with us and we started breaking it up and chucking it over the side. And they were just the same as a bunch of dogs fighting, and this was the greatest fun for us. We had no idea that they were starving to death. And they were just that hungry. And I still think of that, and it was quite a little while before we realized what hunger was and what hunger was in that world over there then. I often think about the Dutch people and why is it that they are so... you know, because before we went there, the Germans was there and they took everything. And when we went, anything that was eatable, we took it and we never thought anything at all about it. We didn’t know them people, we never realized that they were hungry. We would go into a village and when we left there, there wouldn’t be a chicken or a pig or a thing left. It was all ate. It was all killed and we never thought anything at all about it, you know. We didn’t realize what we were doing that we were just taking the bite right out of their mouth. We thought we were hungry. Well, we weren’t hungry at all, we just thought we were.

Description

Mr. Enman explains how ignorant he and others were toward starvation in Europe, describing throwing chocolate to Sicilians and not understanding their reaction, and how they didn't realize at the time how much food they took from the starving Dutch population.

Murdock William Enman

Mr. Murdock Enman was born in 1922 in Victoria West, Prince Edward Island. Aware that a draft was imminent, Mr. Enman enlisted in the army in January 1943 and was sent to Nova Scotia for training. He became sick, however, and was forced to re-start his training, remained in Nova Scotia for almost a year. After training, Mr. Enman shipped overseas in support of the West Novas in England. In September 1944, Mr. Enman shipped out of England and was among the first troops to land at Naples, Italy. From there, his command fought their way up the entire country. Following the end of the Italian campaign, Mr. Enman and the rest of the Canadians fought their way through Holland and into Germany. Following the end of the war, Mr. Enman remained in Germany as part of the occupation forces. He eventually left Germany in December of 1945, and returned to Canada the following March.

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