More good times than bad

Heroes Remember

More good times than bad

Transcript

Very definitely. There are many more good times than bad. The bad times you soon forget. The good times, apart from the length of time we were in the line without getting out, and that wasn't all bad. During training, and we had a lot of it, there was a lot of good times. You go around to dances and meet the girls. How I met my wife was a very funny story, at Salisbury Plains, Lark Hill, at the artillery depot there. I had been on guard all night, the sergeant of the guard. We mounted guard at five o'clock in the afternoon. Well now when we were on guard, we had our anklets, great coats, our webbing equipment, gas mask on your chest, steel helmet, and your rifle. Now for me, when I came off a guard to go back to my quarters, change and go to the sergeant's mess, was a hell of a lot of work, not worth it. A family of Griffith's had a restaurant just across the parade ground. So I walked over to the restaurant just as I was, gas mask on me chest rifle in my hand, steel helmet. And these two girls in the ATS were sitting at a table and I looked up and I started to laugh. The one that I married she had an eye shield on and I looked at her and said, "Oh Jesus, a one eyed gunner." So they invited me to sit down with them, so I sat down. In a big movie barracks, in those days there was no television, as you know, but there was one movie house in town, there was no pub, sergeant's mess I could have gone and had a few beers but. So I asked her if she would like to go to the movies and, "yes" and we started going to the movies. It was 1998 when she died, we were still together. But that's how I met my wife.

Description

Mr. Baggs is asked if he would volunteer again and describes how he met his wife.

Eric Thomson Baggs

Eric Thomson Baggs was born in St. John's, Newfoundland on March 3rd, 1918. He grew up in a fishing family and worked with his father at Royal Stores in St. John's filling fixtures and looking after wholesales. He joined the boy scouts when he was twelve. Mr. Baggs was accepted into the Royal Air Force in 1937 at seventeen but his father wouldn't let him go. He then tried for the Royal Navy but was refused because he was too young. When he was twenty-one he enlisted in the Army's Heavy Artillery Branch. He was trained in St. John's and then escorted to Liverpool in 1940. At first, Mr. Baggs was primarily on costal defense. Later his battalion became the 166th Field Artillery which became known as the best artillery regiment in all of the Allied Forces. When Mr. Baggs returned home to Newfoundland, he went on with life as usual, continuing work at his fathers store.

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