It’s Easy At The Time, But It's Not Easy

Heroes Remember

It’s Easy At The Time, But It's Not Easy

Transcript

And then, when the shooting starts and somebody starts shooting at you, you're naturally trained to shoot back or throw grenades, or what you have to do. So all soldiers had a stint at that, more or less. There isn't a soldier that probably run into moaning minnies, shelling and everything else that was over there. Some of them did actually kill other soldiers. I had an opportunity once, and I done what I had to. Interviewer: Was it difficult? Easy. It happens so quick. Not easy. You don't take time to know what you're doing, or you're not there. If you've ever hunted, and you have a hair trigger or trigger, we... With the Sten gun it had the over your shoulder, and the trigger, you always cocked it when you went into a building. And if you went in, you held your hand on the Bren gun and you looked around. And all you done is touch the trigger and it's pointed right and, and it's not easy to have anything to do with killing people, that is not easy, but it happens so fast you didn't know what happened. Unless you're a sniper, then a sniper takes speed and he sees what he does, but the average soldier just running out in the field or where he was going, into what town, around buildings, or what city and whatever. And the Germans, some German soldiers come out on him, and he just open up fire, he hit one of them or killed one of them, or three or four soldiers were shooting, and they killed some of them, so that's the way it happens. Once it starts, it's hard to stop it. Interviewer: Do you feel for the other soldier? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's things that come to your mind, that I have to kind of get yelling and mad to get away from that, right. Things that come to your mind, you see that young fellow and you often wonder "Did he have a mother?" "Did he have a wife and two children?" He's the same as us. Did you eliminate their chance of life? Yes, it's hard, but you must do the job. That's it. The one thing that helped me, and I think most of them was that they were warned, all they had to do was surrender. A very easy thing and it wouldn't have happened. So therefore I think all we have to do is, is make wars like this flu that they got now that we have to have vaccination against it It's too bad, but that soldiers have to kill other soldiers and soldiers have to be killed and so on, so forth, but it happens. And when a person says it's easy, or asks you if it's easy, it's... I don't think anything like that is easy, I can't see how it can be. But it's easy when it happens, because you're trained to do that. And when they give you the machine gun or a rifle, you're trained to pull the trigger and shoot, you're trained to shoot at a target, which is a, a soldier. You're trained to stick a bayonet into a soldier that's hung on a... You're trained to do that, so... probably, that training as a young person... you do what you're told. And, as I say, I have to say again that I don't think there wasn't a time when I wasn't scared. I, I can't think of it. Even on the ship, I can't think of it. But I knew that... I can't say, "Here, I'm going home." We're here to do a job, and that's what I signed up to do. And that's what I had to do.

Description

Mr. McNiven explains how the intense training made the physical task of killing easy, but not easy to deal with.

John Percy McNiven

Mr. McNiven was working as a truck driver in Regina, Saskatchewan, before the Second World War began. As propaganda increasingly encouraged young men to join the service, one weekend evening Mr. McNiven and a friend worked up the courage to join. After basic training as a truck driver and mechanic, Mr. McNiven rejected the opportunity to serve in Canada and instead entered the Signal Corps. in order to make it overseas. After completing signaller training, Mr. McNiven was sent overseas to northern England to reinforce 2nd Division. Eventually the division shipped out, destined for Juno Beach. Since 2nd Division was part of the 3rd wave behind 1st and 3rd Divisions, the fighting at the beach had finished by the time Mr. McNiven reached shore. From there Mr. McNiven served in a special force of signallers, working with three others in the division. As the War progressed the division worked its way across France and Holland, and eventually into Germany where they were when the War ended.

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