Lost so Many Friends so Quickly

The Dieppe Raid

Lost so Many Friends so Quickly

Transcript

As I said things quietened down by now, it’s getting about, must be around noon, we’re tired, you know, we’ve been on since three in the morning we have been on the water and then all the strain on all my buddies. I landed there with 36 signallers, only nine of us survived and only two out of the nine that weren’t wounded. So that’s my own platoon. Now these were guys that I spent nearly three years with day and night and they’re gone like that, you know. I’ve spoken to school kids and I’ve said we’ve got a whole classroom, two classes here, maybe you got about one hundred people here. I said, “Just look at your buddy next to you, you’re going to school with all the time and as I said that just in a matter of two minutes all of you are dead except one and you look around, what would you feel like?” And I said that’s the feeling you get when it’s all over and you just look at all those, your buddies, laying there, they’re not going to get up again.

Description

Mr. Ryan makes the comparison of landing on Dieppe to being surrounded by 100 of your buddies only to be left standing alone 2 minutes later.

Joseph Anthony Ryan

Joseph Anthony Ryan was born in Montreal in 1920. The circumstances during the depression era saw him and his family moving to Thunder Bay, Ontario in search of a better life. Like many during this time, applying to Canada’s military was a way to find work, adventure and purpose, so in the late 30’s he joined the Lake Superior Regiment and began his training alongside the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians). From participating in operations from Iceland to Dieppe to his time as a prisoner of war in Germany, Joseph Ryan’s stories bring us a unique perspective on the price paid for our freedom.

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