The War Is Over!

Heroes Remember

The War Is Over!

Transcript

I almost got court-marshalled! Yes I remember that day for, very well. Well, it was in Oldenburg, and so. You know I had saved a lot of these Very shells, They call them Very shells. They’re an explosive shell that you fire in the air and you get them in different colours you know and each colour means something you see. So I had a whole bunch of them, and I said “Well when the war ends, I’m going to use them.” And I had a little revolver for them too, you put them in this little revolver you’d fire and boy that thing would go up a thousand feet or so. And then it would give you quite an impression. When it got eleven o’clock, I took those, them shells out and my revolver. Now that’s a Very revolver of course. I went out there, went out in the open and I started different colours, I just, colour didn’t make no difference. I just kept firing one... “1939"... “1940"... “1941". And I went through, right up until 1944, until the last one. And so, I threw my Very revolver away after that and I went back to the camp and sergeant major says to me, he says “Where have you been?” “Oh”, I says “it doesn’t matter.” He says “But.” he says “the colonel, wants to talk to you.” He says “You were the one that fired those Very pistol?” “Oh”, I says “I never saw anybody down there. Why, what’s the matter?” “Well he’ll ask you some questions anyway about who fired those Very pistols because they were fired after eleven o’clock. And that means signals.” Oh boy. And he says “If I were you I’d just disappear.” Mmm hmm...ok. So alright anyway they start searching the line that we were all in tents of course. And so, he starts searching the line and couldn’t find anybody that had fired those pistols. So, they come anyway to me and oh the officer was there, orderly officer was there and the orderly sergeant was there. They come to the tent anyway and poke the flashlight in there “Who’s in there?” I says “John Grand.” They says “You’re in bed?” I says “Yes.” He says “Were you the one,” he says “that fired those Very pistols?” “No,” I says “I was sleeping here.” I says “Now don’t bother me I want to sleep.” And so “Alright, alright, alright Grand. Ok no problem” they says “were just asking.” And they shut the zipper on the tent and away they went.

Description

Mr. Grand explains where he was and how he reacted when the war in Europe ended.

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.

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