Realizing What They Went Through (Part 2 of 2).

Heroes Remember

Realizing What They Went Through (Part 2 of 2).

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Transcript

And it, but it was really scary for them. And they were dropped in, you know having to, oh yeah one of the fellows told me too that, they were up in the North Atlantic and they had, equipped some of these, coastal vessels or cruise ships or whatever, with equipment you know, what do they call them, the D.E.M.S., you know, defence equipped merchant or whatever, anyhow, and he, they were up there and he just looked out, I think he was on the Aztec, the anti submarine and the thing dropped off, you know. I mean, they, things didn’t work a lot of the time you know. And Fred Seeley, he was one, he probably told you, he was on the Guysborough and he was one of about thirty two, he was out there in the Atlantic there and they picked him up and I’ve heard the fellas tell me too about how they were covered with oil, and they used to, if they did rescue them they would give them a, give them some rum to get them to throw up the oil, you know. I mean, I think the only reason they survived was because they were young, you know. And I think some of them probably can barely talk about it. And I can barely talk about it and I wasn’t even there, you know, but I just remember that it was not easy for them. But we were, you know we had a, I think they had a terrific sense of dedication. We were in a war, you’re in a war. Well, it was, it was wartime but it’s amazing you know at the end of the war as, these, these men will tell you, we were the third biggest navy. When you think, you know, how we came up, but everybody pitched in. But I, sometimes I see things that have been written up, and there’s a lot of criticism of different strategies that some of the, you know, the military or navy whatever did during the war, and you know you gotta stop and think that, you gotta put it in context that those fellas had to make decisions, not knowing too much. It was almost, you know, a strike in the dark, you know, the hope that this is right on what they knew. And, you cannot compare it to nowadays where you know where everything is and exactly how it is.

Description

Ms. Duncan talks about some of the people she treated, and the types of things they had been through.

Barbara Duncan

Barbara Duncan was born August 27, 1926 in Barrie, Ontario. Her father had participated in the First World War and when she decided to enlist, he figured it was the natural thing for her to do. She had tried to enlist when she was seventeen and a half but was told to finish school and try again when she was of age. When she finished school and turned eighteen she enlisted immediately. In September 1944, she was sent for training at HMCS Conastoga and from there was sent to the base in Sydney, Nova Scotia. From Nova Scotia she was off to HMCS Peregrine for five months and then off to Vancouver where she worked in the sick bay of the HMCS Discovery. After the war, she received her diploma in physiotherapy and upon graduation, gave birth to her first of five children.

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