U-Boat Near Gibraltar

Heroes Remember

U-Boat Near Gibraltar

Transcript

It's just before we got to Gibraltar. They had an alarm thing on the ship which went, "Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop." All the ships turned their noses together. ‘Course we were all running up the deck to see what the hell was going on. All the noses were together, a Corvette come whipping through there. It looked to us, it looked to me like the two guys at the back of the boat throwing barrels, little barrels, over the back. They were depth charges, of course, and I suppose it must be some kind of a machine, but that's what it looked like from where I was. And you could feel it on the boat. Made a funny noise, being a farm kid it sounded like if it had been a big wind and was tearing the shingles off the roof. That's what it sounded like in the ship. Anyways, I see this thing come up, looked like a big, black whale, come up, bust open and guys sprung, they blew up a submarine there. And the thing I couldn't understand was, if that damn submarine was there, he'd knock out a lot of our ships, but that damn Corvette was going around there picking all these, saving all these guys floating around on the water. Hell, they were Germans. They were trying to kill us. We were down there taught to kill them guys, you know, they're saving them. Didn't make no sense, either. Nothing in war does.

Description

Mr. Laird recalls the U-Boat alarm sounding during the voyage to Sicily, while outside Gibraltar, and seeing depth charges deployed.

Edwin George Laird

Mr. Laird was born in Verwood, Saskatchewan and attended school there until grade 4. In 1934, when Mr. Laird was 11 years old his father passed away. Mr Laird and the rest of the family moved to a homestead in the bush north of Verwood. Not having a radio until 1940, news of war was very limited. As they started to hear radio coverage, Mr. Laird began to think he should get involved. In February 1942, Mr. Laird travelled to Saskatoon to enlist, and after joining the tank corps was sent to Guelph, Ontario, for training. Soon after he was sent to England where after completing his basic training, he was made a signaller. After advance training he was assigned to the 2nd Field Regiment On June 10, 1943, Mr. Laird disembarked from Scotland, destined to invade Sicily a month later. From there Mr. Laird fought across Italy with the Vandoos and Saskatoon Light Infantry. Eventually, Mr. Laird and other Canadians in Europe were sent to join with Canadian Forces in France. From there they moved into Belgium, and Germany, remaining there until the war ended. Mr. Laird returned to Canada in early 1946, and received his discharge soon after.

Meta Data