They Made Miners out of Us

Heroes Remember

They Made Miners out of Us

Transcript

They made miners out of us. Now I worked down in the mines. We were put in sections, and we were about 50 men to a section, maybe less, maybe 40. But they’d line you up and they’d count you 25 times. And you had to count in Japanese, like (inaudible), you know. They would count you and then they would take you, walk you to the mines, and before going down into the mine, they’d count you again. Then they’d put you in a car, in a steel box, was about eight feet by about four feet wide. You’d get in there about six in a car and on a long cable and then we’d go down the mines, and we’d go down into, about, they said it was one kilometre, but I don’t think, maybe not that long, but anyway, it was a long ride. And you would be only about that far from the roof. And then you would start going down the mine and on a rainy day the cable would start to slip on the winch and the first thing, you’d go so fast that they’d jump the track and then you’d be prisoner there maybe for two or three hours before they’d come down and they’d start railing the cars. They’d get you all up and then put you back in the car and send you back down again. I never worked at a coal face. I was a hard rock miner. I was in a section that drilled, drilled through rock, granite rock, soft rock, and blue rock, and red rock, and all the rock you could get. And we drilled the surface about the size of that window there, about ten feet and about eight feet high, and we’d drill a Y in, a V into the surface, then we’d drill holes that way. Then we’d drill maybe about eight, ten feet deep. Then we’d, this Japanese fellow would come with this dynamite, and he’d give us the dynamite and we’d put it in the holes, and then we’d insert the fuse in, in the cap, and then when everything, there was me and a fellow by the name of Paul LaFlamme, the rest of the fellows would all go up the shaft. Now, me and Paul would set up all the rigging, you know, because you’d only blow the front out first, then you’d blow the sides out and the top, you know, you’d blow the... And we’d set all that up and then we’d walk back about a hundred feet, and we’d get behind a bunch of boulders or something like and we’d blast with our blaster, and some of the rocks would go by us at a hundred miles an hour. They’d go up the shaft. After that blast was done, we’d go down and I’d go and scale the roof, all the loose rocks that was hanging. I’d go with a pick and scale all the roof and have everything fall. When it was safe enough, we’d go up and tell the guys, “Okay, come on down,” and they would do the mucking, you know. And you’d have cars, fill the cars, and as you go ahead we had sections of track, maybe ten feet long. Put that down, muck, put another. Oh, it was some kind of a job. But then we worked 12, 15 hours a day, but we had two meals a day there. We had breakfast and we had supper. (Inaudible), a little can about that long, that deep, that wide. That was rice, pieces of turnip and seaweed, not seaweed but kelp and pickles. But some guys eat grasshoppers and different things but I never did.

Description

Mr. Murphy provides an excellent description of his duties as a hard rock miner.

Leo Murphy

Leo Murphy was born September 3, 1919 in New Richmond, Quebec, where he grew up and completed his elementary education by 1931. He was one of nine children. Before enlistment he was a day labourer working in a sawmill, construction, excavation, farming, and a lumber camp. Mr. Murphy enlisted with the Royal Rifles on Nov 25, 1940, and took his basic training in Newfoundland and Val Cartier, Quebec. He was overseas for four years, spending all but the first three months as a POW in Hong Kong and Japan. The emotional impact of the Hong Kong deployment started early for Mr. Murphy, when on the same day his brother was killed beside him and he took the life of a Japanese soldier. During his captivity, he suffered from beri-beri, dysentry, pellagra, had his foot crushed in a mining accident, and developed liver problems. At the time of his liberation, he was a mining coal in Omini, Japan, as a slave labourer. Mr. Murphy arrived back in Canada in October, 1945 and was discharged February 5, 1946. From 1947 to 1960, he was employed as a brakeman with the Canadian National Railroad. Mr. Murphy was married on Sept 1, 1947, to Yvette Savoie. He died March 26, 2001.

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