War Nears End...in Germany

The different regiments were coming in from all directions and the Germans were retreating as fast as they could go, and they were all heading back to their homeland. The first thing to remember is that some of these were kids. Toward the end, these young cadets, they call them cadets, they would be fourteen, fifteen years old, and they had to learn a trade. And most of them were going into communications. Learning about how to run the submarine radios and the depth finders and depth charges and all that stuff they were learning. And so, we reached a place called Oldenburg, and that was the last stop in Germany before the war ended. Now Oldenburg was an educational centre it had a lot of schools in it. And so, we reached a place there, oh a nice, it had been built during the war. All bricks, nice red bricks. And it was a school and that was the place where they were sleeping was those nice rooms there, all nicely decorated and everything else. And then, they had a large auditorium where they had all their parts and equipment that they were using for teaching the, the kids. So anyway, we arrive there and one of our guys could speak German. And so he says, he lined them all up using German expression mind you, words. And he lined them all up and in plain words he says “I’m Hitler now and you take orders from me.” That was his opinion, his expression. So he says “Now”, he says “you’re not soldiers for Hitler anymore. You are soldiers now for the liberation army. And that’s us. Now,” he says “first of all you can do it if you like, if you don’t, if you don’t like it its up to you. But if you like it we will assign each one of you to a sergeant or a WO for a batman. And so, you’re going to get a job to press his uniform and polish his shoes and all that sort of stuff.” Well, I kind of felt embarrassed about that but nevertheless. Well, it was better than what they had before. So, I didn’t smoke but I’d always leave a package of cigarettes in my pants pocket or my jacket and every time it came back it was nicely pressed but no cigarettes. They were gone. But there was some humorous parts too, even in wartime. And I felt sorry for these poor kids anyway, but after about a week they had located their homes where they were going and they were finding transportations for them and they were going back home. Where they belong.

The war in Europe was nearing an end and Mr. Grand’s regiment is now inside Germany, moving slowly toward Berlin.

John Grand

Mr. Grand was born in 1909 in, as he described it, “a small hamlet in the wilderness of southern Manitoba.” His father homesteaded in Manitoba and then Saskatchewan. John Grand described his growing up during the Depression as poor and tough.

Mr. Grand was very interested in electronics as a teenager and held an amateur radio licence. He tried to join the Signal Corps in the 1930's, but was rejected for being “too flat-chested”. He remembers being so poor that he often joined the soup line to get something to eat. His first job was on the assembly line at Canadian Marconi for eleven cents an hour.

He joined the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals when war was declared in 1939. He was first assigned as a radio operator, but when his superiors saw his mechanical skills he was quickly re-assigned as a radio technician. His overseas service included landing at Dieppe, participating in the Normandy Campaign and in the liberation of Holland.