The War Begins - Too Young To Enlist
Heroes Remember
The War Begins - Too Young To Enlist
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Well I think it made me at that time, it made me feel sorry that
I wasn't older because my father and my grandfather had been in
the military and I felt that I wanted to do something for our
country. And so I was real anxious to get into
the service of some sort.
Interviewer: You indicated that your father joined the
Seaforth Highlanders regiment here in Vancouver.
Yes.
Interviewer: How old a man would he have been roughly then?
Thirty-eight...he would be about thirty-eight. Yeah.
Interviewer: Do you remember your reaction when you realized
that your father was going to join the army?
No, it wasn't, I didn't have much of a reaction because I didn't
see him that much. You know, and we didn't have the close
father-son relationship that families today enjoy.
They were too busy trying to eke out an existence. Yeah.
Interviewer: Eventually you turned sixteen and you had decided
that you were going to lie about your age and join the service.
That's exactly right. Yeah.
Interviewer: Why were you so determined to enter?
I just had that strong loyalty to the country and I felt that,
you know, I wanted to do my part. You know, I just, it was
almost a fever, yeah that I wanted to get in there
and do my part. Yeah.
Interviewer: Mr. McLean, why did you choose
the Royal Canadian Navy?
Well I'd seen the, with limited observations what the army were
doing and I can recall my father coming back from Vernon, having
been up there two months in that heat completely exhausted from
pounding the square and I thought, well that's not for me. And I
knew nothing about airplanes but I had gone one summer, when I
was a boy I had gone one summer on a tugboat, and I enjoyed
that. Yeah, I was on the Commodore, motor vessel Commodore owned
by Preston Man. We were hauling logs from the north, just for
the summer. So I felt that was the life for me. Yeah.
Interviewer: You were aware at that time
of the terrible losses in the North Atlantic?
Oh yes. Yeah. I certainly was. I had a friend, older friend who
was in the North Atlantic at that time and I was aware of the
dangers, but you always figure that it isn't
going to happen to you.
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