Pick Up No Prisoners

Heroes Remember

Pick Up No Prisoners

Transcript

We weren't allowed to pick up, we never picked up any prisoners because they couldn't, they wouldn't come near you, they swam away from you all the time, so. And then we were told not to. We had a, happened to have a marine officer with us on patrol, and had showed us why we shouldn't pick up prisoners. When we were trying to do it, he pulled us aside, says "No" and he, we pulled him. He was dead mind you, but we thought get him onboard for his paperwork or whatever it is, and he opened him up and he was just covered in hand grenades. He says, "This is what would've happened if you'd have pulled him aboard, he'd of just So, that was it. So, from then onwards we just let them swim ashore because the Jap-, the native Burmese people would have got them, or the crocodiles would have gotten them, so they got our choice. So we just, we didn't bother picking up, rescuing any of them, we just let them swim ashore.

Description

Mr. Guthrie explains why they would not pick up enemy mariners from the water.

Peter Guthrie

Mr. Guthrie was born in 1925, in Scotland to a family of eleven children, five of which were in the army, as was his father who served in the First World War. After trying to get into the air force, Mr. Guthrie enlisted in the navy where he was designated a cook, but also took on other jobs, such as steering, manning the guns, and radio. His first ship was a minesweeper, which swept the mines laid in the English Channel and the North Sea by the Germans. The second ship he was on travelled to Burma patrolling the rivers for Japanese. They also picked up and dropped off special service troops in the Burmese jungles. It was a dangerous route, as sometimes the boat would travel within 20 miles behind enemy lines. After the war, Mr. Guthrie worked North of Scotland recovering torpedoes for the air force and looked after air force rescue crafts for four months. Soon after, Mr. Guthrie was married, and he and his wife moved to Canada in 1951 where they settled in Regina, Saskatchewan. Mr. Guthrie has been a vital member of the Royal Canadian Legion for 47 years, serving as chairman of the War Graves Committee, and doing his part to help others in need.

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