Patrolling the English coast

Heroes Remember

Patrolling the English coast

Transcript

When we got over there, we start patrolling that coast on combination motor bikes. Yeah, the sergeant major used to say, “Just pretend you got a tank and mow them down if they come across there.” I don't know why, we were just observing the waterfront, that's all, all the way along there. That was the first, the first winter there. After that we had something else, a better vehicle. So we had those Bren gun carriers and like a lot. They claim there was 22 miles of water between France and England there. The guns were right at the shore and main highway come down along the beach, just off, there was a beach there and back and that's where we patrolled a lot of the time. They had all kinds of tank traps and so on and all those beaches was mined. When we were patrolling the coast down there, Hastings and so on, those big guns from over in France, I seen them shell there. They used to like to pick a Saturday afternoon when all the troops, we got Saturday afternoons off and we weren't far from there and we go down there to go to a show and they liked to, that way they not only got a few civilians, they might get part of the Canadian Army too. That was their idea of bombing there on a Saturday afternoon, just about show time.

Description

Mr. Smith recalls arriving in England and his first posting.

Raymond Smith

Raymond Smith was born on July 31st 1920 near Niagara-on-the-Lake. Mr Smith lost his mother as a young boy and during the Depression he worked raising hogs and cattle. When war broke out he decided to join the army, which gave him a much needed raise from five dollars a month breaking horses, to a dollar thirty a day. He got the call for training camp in Regina where he became a driving instructor. He recalls arriving from training camp to England on July 31st 1941. Mr. Smith was an army tank sergeant during the war when he met his wife and they married in 1943 while he was on leave in Manchester, England. After the war, Mr Smith returned home on April 2nd 1946 and worked as a truck driver and later at O'Keefe Brewery.

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