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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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