Our first march was thirty-two miles.

Heroes Remember

Our first march was thirty-two miles.

Transcript

I joined as a shoemaker and they knew it too. And they kept me in the shop all the time, fixing. Fixing shoes. Making, making shoes for people that had flat feet and bunions and fallen arches. Make shoes to fit their feet so they can march. Those days we didn’t have any vehicles to go anywhere. It was all transporting, walked quite a distance. Our first march was thirty-two miles carrying seventy-two pounds on my back. We left the camp there with 12,000 men and we came back from the march, there was 600 of them. They all fell out. One big guy told me I wouldn’t last ten miles. I said, “I’ll be here when you’re on your back, mister.” And I proved I was a better man than he was. I went out all the way and went home all the way, too. That was our first real march we had over there. I didn’t get as far as Belgium or France. They kept me in the shop there, fixing shoes, yeah. They taught me how to kill a man but they didn’t let me do any killing.

Description

Mr. Perdue describes his basic training, and being withheld from active duty because of his skill as a bootmaker.

Percy George Perdue

Percy Perdue was born in London, England on March 28, 1900. He moved to Canada at the age of five, when his father took a job as a miner in Coleman, Alberta. Prior to the war, Percy was apprenticing to become both a tinsmith and a shoemaker. He was 16 when he joined the army. After training in Calgary, Alberta, Mr. Purdue eventually crossed the Atlantic (he recalls experiencing dreadful seasickness) and in the fall of 1916, he landed in Liverpool, England, where he was stationed at a camp in Shorncliffe. Despite his accurate aim as a marksman, Mr. Purdue saw limited action during his service in the army. Three times he was kept behind when his cohorts were sent to France. His ability as a shoemaker was of greater value to the Allies. He was very good at repairing boots and designing special footwear for the troops. He remembers with pride the boots that he made for himself: "I wore them for seven years and couldn't wear them out!" In 1917, Percy was discovered to be underage and was sent home. Mr. Perdue has some grim memories of the war. "I remember people coming back all shot to heck." His own father, who had enlisted just before he did, was a victim of a mustard gas attack and was sent home very ill. He states that, while his father lived to the age of 89, he never fully recovered and "always had trouble keeping food down". When the Second World War broke out, Percy again wanted to enlist, but was turned down because by that time he had five children. Mr. Perdue died on September 29, 2000.

Meta Data