Digging Graves

Heroes Remember

Digging Graves

Transcript

They marched us across the bridge and up into the hills which was away up, oh it was about a mile walk I guess and... and put us in a barn with just hay on the bottom and told us that; I believe they told us that they were going to kill us the next day. Whether they did or not that was the intention. So we didn't have much of a sleep and of course the fella, the other fellas, the other 39, they didn't know who I was. They were all civilians and they were curious to know why I wouldn't talk to them too much, you see. Although I might have said, you know, a little bit of French because they, Liège is French. So the next morning we got up and they gave us these shovels and told us to start digging, two to a hole in the farm yard. So everybody got busy, at that point I think they told us they were going to you know shoot us all because they still hadn't found the two soldiers that had gone missing. So then we started digging and I thought, well now if I get digging with a, an older man maybe I can convince him that he won't give me away or won't do anything that he'd be a loyal Belgian and so he kept talking to me, you know, and I tried to answer in my French and everything and so finally he said in English, no he said in French, he said, "You're not English, you're not Belgian, what are you?" you see. I said, "Well I'm a Canadian airman in hiding." Well that about, that of course put him through the roof, you see.

Description

Mr. Gouinlock talks about how he and the other 39 hostages had to sleep in a barn and in the morning were handed shovels and told to start digging.

Jack Gouinlock

Mr. Gouinlock was serving as a navigator with the Canadian Air Force when the plane he was in was shot down over Holland. He ended up spending about two months in Belgium, hiding from the Germans, staying with different people and moving around within Belgium. He was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans but was let go the next day as they did not know he was a Canadian soldier. Two Belgians that had been captured with him were not so lucky as they were shot right in front of the rest of the prisoners.

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