Becoming an Intelligence Officer

Heroes Remember

Becoming an Intelligence Officer

Transcript

I went straight over seas to the battalion at Carter barracks in Beaufort. Yes D-Day had happened but I was on the boat when D-Day. Right of, of course they really jumped on us because there was a training battalion and the parachute battalion, you see and they expected us to have more casualties then we actually did I guess, because the training battalion had about two men for everybody in the battalion. So the object when you got to England was to get into the battalion. At one point, I was offered my three hooks back, but I would have had to stay in the training battalion, never would have gotten across. But that's, I remember the first time we went through an assault course, a very good friend of mine, a guy named Pearson. We got to the top of this hill and collapsed and the two of us looked at each other and I said, "This can't go on, Pearson." And he said, "No, I got a friend who is an intelligence sergeant, we'll try to get into the intelligence section." And he did, he got us into the "I" section of the battalion and the guys are all dead. Natural causes, we only had one or two killed during the war. But it was a good spot to be and we made maps and we made the briefing maps for the Rhine drop and ah... I made, I made the, Pearson and I made the big battalion briefing maps for the Rhine drop. I made two mistakes, I thought it was two buildings and there was just two plots of land but other than that it was just exactly as it was when we hit the ground. They had photos taken four days before, low altitude photos and then there was the map of course and then there was the high air photos and then some air craft went in across the dropping zone, four days was the date on the photos that we got. We had, we were confined, of course confined to barracks while we were making these maps but Nickland, Colonel Nickland, he was a, he was a Winnipeg Blue Bomber, big, big football hero, between the war, yeah, and he let us, he let us out. All the other ‘I' sections were closely confined while they were working on their maps but he let us go out at night.

Description

Mr. Kelly recalls the difficulties in training and his friendship with Mr. Pearson that led him to another career in the army as an Intelligence Officer.

Jeff Kelly

Mr. Kelly was born in Lindsay, Ontario, December 16, 1923. His father was a medical officer with a field ambulance in the First World War and received a Distinguished Service Order. Mr Kelly wanted to be an infantry man as his father had a great admiration for them. He joined the army on the 22nd of May in 1942. He served overseas with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion which was part of the British 6th Airborne Division.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:30
Person Interviewed:: Jeff Kelly
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Canada

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Becoming an Intelligence Officer

Heroes Remember