A Very Bad Night
Heroes Remember
A Very Bad Night
Transcript
There were times when it wasn't fun.
Lots of times when it wasn't fun.
Interviewer: Tell me some of those.
Well I mentioned Burt Howard so I
could start with him because I said he,
he was donating his time to this project
because his son was in the navy.
And so it happened that in the channel
battles when we were losing so many of
our ships off the French coast usually,
we would have to, when we lost a ship,
all of us would work all night long
getting out the press releases to hometown
papers about the boys who'd been lost.
I can still see us, we, we didn't have the
machinery or modern equipment there for
copying and photocopying or doing
large numbers of releases. We used to
walk around a table one after the other and
pick up each page and collate them
to send them out. And one night we worked
all night having lost this ship and walking
around the table with us was Burt Howard,
his son had been on that ship and he just
kept on going. It was, it was a,
it was a very bad night. And he was there
the next day to keep on working.
Interviewer: Did you speak to him and
try to comfort him?
He knew how we felt, we were always
there for him and how could you not
work for a man like that,
how could you not, terrific.
And I don't think he ever got any
medals he was civilian. But that was one
of the moments I'll never forget and
nobody said much we just went on working.
And you know, to compare that with
what people were going through in Britain
or being bombed or shot at daily but that's,
that's the sort of human moment that,
that so many people went through and
you didn't really have a chance
to see them doing it.
Description
Ms. Whyard tells how a friend of hers lost his son at war and still showed up for work the following day.
Florence Whyard
Florence Whyard was born in 1917, and lived throughout Western Ontario. She comes from a military background as her father served in both the First World War and the Second World War. Ms.Whyard joined the war effort in 1943 after her two brothers joined up, one entering the air force and the other enlisting in the army. Ms.Whyard became a journalist for the Naval Information Unit and worked long hours to get the required information out to the people awaiting it.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 02:27
- Person Interviewed:
- Florence Whyard
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Canada
- Branch:
- Navy
- Units/Ship:
- Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS)
- Rank:
- Lieutenant
- Occupation:
- Journalist
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