Canada's Commandos

Heroes Remember

Canada's Commandos

Transcript

They sent me to Eastbourne, 2nd Field Regiment Artillery, signalman. Mind you, of course, in England all we were doing was practising Morse Code just for, to keep on top of, but, our jobs we had was telephone operators and that sort of thing. And like I say, I don't know why they pick on me all the time, but I wasn't there about... See I went there June, it must have been about September. They started, they got the idea that, hey, we had five divisions of Canadians, we have no commandos. How are we gonna invade some place? We're gonna have to have Canadian commandos. I believe they took two or three guys from each regiment and sent us up into Scotland, it was up Troon, just outside of Scot..., Glasgow, Troon, Scotland. And they called it "combined operations", which was a commando course. We're supposed to be so that whenever we did invade someplace ,that we make a bridgehead for the troops to go through. They used to take us out in the open water there in a barge about three times a week, dump us off out there a quarter of a mile offshore, make you wade ashore just soaking wet. Didn't make no sense, but, time we were up on the beach, dig a hole and lay there for half an hour or so soaking wet and then march for an hour ‘til, y'know, everything's, you know, soaking wet, and that was it for the day. We go back to camp, take our clothes off and dry them out on the heat registers, you had them. You did that about three times a week, but we were always done by four o'clock, five, four-thirty. We'd go to town, we'd go into Troon or Ayre and, that was fun, that part of it, because you got to know some civilians. Christmas Eve, they loaded us all on this truck and headed back for England. So, I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the back of a darn 1500-weight truck heading back to Eastbourne. They cancelled it. They decided... I'm sorry you guys work with government, but after all this learning and training, we're commandos by this time, we'd taken Bren gun courses and how to use a knife, all this stuff. They decided that, hey, we only got one army, one Canadian Army, why would we have a commando corps group because once we landed and made a beachhead and the army went through, there's no more landings, no more need for commandos, is there? We didn't have any more armies to land. They decided they would use British commandos if, when, whenever we went someplace, so, they disbanded us and now we're back with the 2nd, 2nd Field Regiment.

Description

Mr. Laird recalls being assigned to Canada's newly created commando unit, explaining the reasons for it's creation and disbandment.

Edwin George Laird

Mr. Laird was born in Verwood, Saskatchewan and attended school there until grade 4. In 1934, when Mr. Laird was 11 years old his father passed away. Mr Laird and the rest of the family moved to a homestead in the bush north of Verwood. Not having a radio until 1940, news of war was very limited. As they started to hear radio coverage, Mr. Laird began to think he should get involved. In February 1942, Mr. Laird travelled to Saskatoon to enlist, and after joining the tank corps was sent to Guelph, Ontario, for training. Soon after he was sent to England where after completing his basic training, he was made a signaller. After advance training he was assigned to the 2nd Field Regiment On June 10, 1943, Mr. Laird disembarked from Scotland, destined to invade Sicily a month later. From there Mr. Laird fought across Italy with the Vandoos and Saskatoon Light Infantry. Eventually, Mr. Laird and other Canadians in Europe were sent to join with Canadian Forces in France. From there they moved into Belgium, and Germany, remaining there until the war ended. Mr. Laird returned to Canada in early 1946, and received his discharge soon after.

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