Taken Hostage
Heroes Remember
Transcript
They must have received funds from the underground for me to
have such good food there because I, in all these places I ate
so well that it was, it was almost disgusting, you see. Yeah,
and so they uh, I stayed with them until, until I was taken and
the last three days by the Germans which is my final escapade.
So the last, last two days I heard, we heard a big kafuffle out
on the street and it turned out that the Germans had, they were
retiring from Liège. This is a big, the is a big city, Liège.
It's as big as, it's about the second biggest town in Belgium.
They decided, well I mean the war was going so well that they
wanted to get out, you see but this one group for some well for
reasons that I understand were that they, two of their men had
been, had disappeared, two of their soldiers, so they decided
that they would take some hostages to try and force the Belgian
civilians to let them know where they'd be, you see. They went,
what they did, house-to-house search. They just ran right,
right into a house. If they saw anybody that they wanted to be
as a hostage, they'd just pull them out, line them up out on the
street and they did that about, for about 40 men, no women,
just 40 men and they lined us all up on the street.
Description
While still in Liège, Mr. Gouinlock describes how some of the Germans took 40 men, including himself, hostage.
Jack Gouinlock
Mr. Gouinlock was serving as a navigator with the Canadian Air Force when the plane he was in was shot down over Holland. He ended up spending about two months in Belgium, hiding from the Germans, staying with different people and moving around within Belgium. He was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans but was let go the next day as they did not know he was a Canadian soldier. Two Belgians that had been captured with him were not so lucky as they were shot right in front of the rest of the prisoners.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 02:18
- Person Interviewed:
- Jack Gouinlock
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Europe
- Branch:
- Air Force
- Occupation:
- Navigator
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