From Enlistment to England

Heroes Remember

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From Enlistment to England

Transcript

Interviewer: You're heading to Halifax, did your men have any idea where you were really going or the enormity of what you were getting yourselves into? Not a bit, we knew we were going to England. We were looking forward to it, we didn't know where we were going to land and we eventually landed in Gourock in Scotland. And they loaded us on trains and took us down to Aldershot and that's where we were for the first 11 months. Interviewer: What do you recall about the situation in England during that time? Well, in Aldershot the first thing I recall was getting tattooed. And the next thing I recall was you couldn't get a meal like you could, say in Canada. Most of the restaurants was egg and chips, fish and chips, sausage and chips, beans and chips, bacon and chips and that's what the waitress would tell you which used to give us quite a bang you know cause that's all you got, but it was good and the girls were exceptional. Interviewer: What was the attitude of the British people toward you Canadian soldiers? The attitude of the British people was fantastic. I mean most of them I can remember going on leave and they're coming up, going into sort of a cafeteria, they're coming up to my tray and putting money on it for to buy something. The British people were fantastic. And gosh it was just something, it was great, it was a great feeling. Interviewer: You were there during, when was it you arrived in England? We landed in ‘40. Interviewer: Was this July ‘40? This would be July ‘40, yes. Interviewer: During that time the situation had deteriorated greatly in Europe. France had all but fallen... Yes it was just after Dunkirk. In fact we got to Aldershot when they were just, you know, they were still cleaning up and bringing some of them in that they were picking up from Dunkirk. Interviewer: Was there an invasion scare at the time, was it that When I was at Aldershot, there was an invasion scare and I can remember that happened one night. We were down on Aldershot and all of a sudden they loaded us, they didn't load us, they ushered us all back to our barracks right away, the MP's; "Get back to your barracks immediately". And they loaded us on trucks and they took us to Brighton. And we were in the Brighton Downs for, oh, quite some time and that was the invasion scare, which we never found out till years later that it was an actual invasion scare. In fact, I think it was called operation Sea Lion, that was a German name for it and I do have some of the paraphernalia on it. But they never got into the, they didn't actually land. I think the, a lot of the ships were burned, they're flotilla was burned by our navy.

Description

Following basic training, Mr. Curry along with other members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, were ready to proceed overseas. They boarded a train and headed to the East Coast. Mr. Curry speaks of arriving in England.

Kenneth Curry

Mr. Curry was born in England in 1922. He was the youngest of two brothers and emigrated to Canada with his family at the age of one. The family settled in Stoney Creek, Ontario where Mr. Curry went to school and also served in the Army reserve. Mr. Curry falsified his age by one year in order to enlist with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. His war service included participation in the Dieppe Raid where he was taken prisoner of war.

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