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First Encounter With Death

Heroes Remember

First Encounter With Death

Transcript
The first thing they sent me to was to work with the Padre of the unit and what he was doing is, was working with what they call a grave unit and what we did at that time was go looking through the woods and turning over the brush looking for casualties. And my first one was pretty stiff because... it was the first time I had seen a person who had been shot or wounded or anything and I was looking at this chap in front of me and he had a hole right in the... at the centre of his head. And at the same time his eyes were open and I was talking to him and asked him, “Are you alright?” you know and realized that he wasn’t and now came to a point where the Padre said, when I reported it to the Padre he said, “try to pull him out,” you see. So he was quite stiff and I had to get a rope to try to put it around him and this was my first, my first experience.
Description

Mr. Jones describes his first assignment in France which was accompanying the padre to the battlefield to retrieve the dead.

Bud Jones

Bud Jones was born in Montreal, Quebec. He was a good boxer and very athletic, becoming a PT instructor before his deployment to Europe in the Second World War. He was assigned to the Royal Canadian Regiment, whose responsibility it was to eliminate German V2 rocket launching sites along the European side of the English Channel. He would see service in France, Belgium and Holland. Following his war service, Mr. Jones enlisted in the regular forces, becoming a career soldier. During that time, he served in Germany and Japan in addition to his service in Canada.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
1:32
Person Interviewed:
Bud Jones
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Branch:
Army
Units/Ship:
Royal Canadian Regiment
Rank:
Sergeant
Occupation:
Platoon Sergeant

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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