Close Relationships

Interviewer: Tell me sir, when you look back on your service, in the Canadian military, during World War II and being part of the momentous invasion of Continental Europe, when you think back on that experience, your wounding, subsequent convalescence. How would you say that experience affected you, in later life? Well, I think it definitely made a mark and I do stress that, and I am very, very conscious of this that, that the, I did not go in, in the assault wave. I came right behind the assault wave. I was there three days and I got hit and I use to say joking that the day it took, the fact it took Gerry three days to hit a fella my size, shows they weren't that great shots, but. So and I realize that there are many people who went in on the assault and worked through the whole war. So I'm not sure, but the ones that I've talked to or know their, their attitude is pretty much the same as mine (inaudible) So I don't pretend to set myself up as, as having been there throughout the whole thing and so on. I wasn't and I know that. But, I would say that what it did, in my case, is like my friend, I told you, the retired professor who said what, what he learned about the appreciation of mankind. I think that it gives you an appreciation of human nature. That is hard to get, elsewhere, and I would, I would not hesitate when I think back, you know there were, there was the odd person who maybe, might of done something a bit dishonest, if he had a chance. I don't pretend to know that, but not in my, my experience. The test was when you needed them they were there and they didn't let you down. When I think back and I think about people who talk about race and in my platoon my, my batmen was a chap, whose a coloured chap and there couldn't be a better soldier. I'll see him in Fredric, in Saint John on my way through to Fredericton for the D Day reunion. Don Alberts, you wouldn't find a better soldier anywhere. My platoon sergeant, George Coles, father won the Military Cross in the British Army in the first war and then his father moved to the States. George was born in the States, but come up to Canada because the Americans weren't at war and he was in the army here and he was my platoon sergeant D-Day. George and I still correspond and talk back and forth on the phone. My Corporal Opeact was Bob Shampoo who was a French Canadian. Again you wouldn't find a better, a better fellow. My Bren Gun carrier driver was an English chap who came out as an orphan and he had quite an accent and he was called, was called Limmy Divil, his name was Divil, Limmy with Divil. My wireless operator was an American Jew by the name of Cohen. You got all races all religions and so on and yet they were a team. They were a family and I, to answer your question it's a long answer I know, but I think that what it gives one is an appreciation of, of, of human nature and appreciation of value of a, of a, of a human nature a value of people when they're part of a team and it's what people loose out if they don't look on people as a part of a team. If people want to be an isolationist and be just for themselves they, it must be a pretty shallow life. But, but I don't know, I think maybe I told you the story about a couple years ago when I was over at Inverary unveiling that Canadian wall there at the museum for in memory of the Canadians and I was sitting in the, in the a lounge in the hotel and this chap asked me if it was my first visit to Inverary, where we did our combined ops training. And I said, no I'd been there fifty-three years before and he said, oh he said, what were you doing then. And I told him about the combined ops training and about the war and so on. And then he said, I said, is this your first visit here and he said, yes, he said, I'm a. I said where do you live, he said, I am just in Glasgow now, but my home is just a few miles outside of Berlin. So I said if I said anything about the war that offended you I apologize. He said no, he said not at all, he said every thinking German would agree with me when I say to you, thank god, you won and Hitler lost. He said we're free. If Hitler had won we would not be free, so thank god you won. And I think that's the important thing that comes out of the war, really is that we are free. And that, that is worth a great deal. Today we take it very much for granted. Interviewer: Well tell me, Mr. Thompson, is it important that young people and future generations of Canadians come to understand what you, and your generation endured? I think it is important from the point of view of the future of the country and the value of freedom. I think freedom is such an important thing and it's something that comes at a price and if we take it for granted, then we can loose it. We can loose it not always just from external forces, but you can loose it from internal conditions. And so I think it's important that they realize the price that's been paid and realize that, that they have to be willing, themselves, maybe not to pay that high a price, but to pay a price in, in conscious effort and in citizenship, in loyalty to the cause of the country and of concern for their fellow man.

Mr. Thompson speaks of the impact his wartime service had and continues to have on his life. He also shares what he feels future generations of Canadians should know about the sacrifices his generation made during the Second World War.

Donald Thompson

Mr. Thompson was born in West Saint John, New Brunswick on August 19, 1922. He was the middle child in a family of three boys. His father worked as a railway engineer and fireman with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Thompson was first introduced to military training at an early age becoming involved with the militia when he was roughly 12 years old. He received his Royal Canadian Rifles certificate as a qualified infantry machine gun sergeant in 1939 at the age of 17. He was chosen to go overseas with a company from the Saint John Fusiliers as reinforcements. He travelled overseas on a pleasure boat that was in the midst of being converted to a troop ship and arrived in Liverpool, England. From Liverpool he travelled by train to Aldershot and then on to Crookham Crossroads. There he joined the Cameron Highlanders and trained to support an infantry battalion. In 1943 - 44, while only 21 years old, he achieved the rank of captain and was in Inverary training for combined ops amphibious landings. They trained, in preparation for D-Day, in a camp that was surrounded by barb wire and no one was allowed leave. On June 6th 1944 he landed on Juno Beach as part of the second wave behind the Winnipeg Rifles. On the third day of fighting after landing on Juno Beach he was hit by shrapnel and subsequently sent back to England on a hospital ship. Although he tried to return to action his wounds proved to be too much and he was sent back to England a second time and then eventually back to Canada. After the war Mr. Thompson worked with the Canadian Legion (later to be the Royal Canadian Legion) in Saint John. He moved up the ranks with the Legion and ended up in Ottawa as the Dominion Secretary. In 1970 he was appointed Chairman of the War Veterans Allowance Board and held this position until he retired in 1987. Mr. Thompson was also named Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Cameron Highlanders.