When the war ended

Heroes Remember

When the war ended

I guess the, the day the war was over, more or less, we had enemy officers come through our line. They came in blindfolded and later on that day, they went back out, passed through our lines going the other way, no blindfolds. And there's a guy beside me, I can't remember who it was, I said, "The war's over." He said, "How do you know?" And I said, "You wouldn't let those guys back out of our area with, without blindfolds if it wasn't." So that was it. A couple of days later, I got a call that I'm to report to B.H.Q. I went to B.H.Q., they gave me a ticket. They said, "Go to England." So I went to Gent and I boarded an LCT there and went across to... anyway we landed there on the 8th of May. We had to tie our own boat up because everybody was away celebrating. Yeah. And I had been, I had been picked out of the group, out of our, well, the Canadian army and I was sent to a place called Aldershot, to Wellington barracks and I was in charge of Major, no, Sergeant Major, company Sergeant Major in charge of administration company, the 7th repatri, the 7th repatriation depot. And that's where I stayed until the end and came back in February and I landed back in New York on the 26th of February 1946.

Mr. Parker talks about being in NW Europe when the war ended and enemy officers coming blindfolded through their line and then leaving again a short time later without blindfolds. This told him the end was finally here. He was sent to England for some repatriation duties, and then returned to New York in February 1946.

Richard Allen Parker

Richard Allen Parker was born in Vernon, BC on May 27, 1917 to a First Nations family. He talks about his early years, the prejudice that he faced, and the meaning of being First Nations. He left home at an early age to work in the mines. He talks about joining the PPCLI in 1942, fighting the SS and Hitler Youth and his time in Algiers and Italy.