Training and Witnessing
Heroes Remember
Training and Witnessing
They were short, I think reinforcements, so there was thirty of
us I think left the Cape Breton Highlanders because they were
going overseas and our, the Cape Breton Highlanders weren't
going over that, that fast so I guess we were in kind of a rush
to get into war. So we, we joined the West Nova Scotia Regiment
which is a great regiment, one of the better regiments that went
overseas. They were, they were I suppose fishermen and lumbermen
from the Lunenburg area down through there, and they were the
finest men you ever met. You could certainly lay your body at
their feet, they were, they, they'd backed you all the way. Oh
they, they loved the Cape Bretoners. They were a little scared
of us at first because our reputation preceeded us. The Cape
Bretoners are known as, you know, their pockets were full of
fists. So, I think they've calmed down a bit now. We trained in
Aldershot, we trained in Aldershot and we trained all winter in
Aldershot and on the 12th of May we sailed for overseas. It was
rough that time of year, and it, no it wasn't, I think it took
us eight days going across. We were unloaded off of the ship and
went right to our barracks which was a couple of miles away. And
from there on in we watched the, people coming back from
Dunkirk, the, the British Army and it wasn't a very good sight.
Our division, the 1st Canadian Division, was the only equipped
division in England at that time when the, when the people, the
soldiers, British soldiers came back from across the channel.
And they were a pretty sad looking sight.
We were doing a lot of deceiving the Germans because we'd drive
posts in the sand and put a cape over them and they, they looked
like, a gun if you had a cape over them but they were really
three pieces of wood. So we, we weren't the best equipped
division either eh. We didn't have too much gear but... The
Battle of Britain we were, we had a ring side seat for the
Battle of Britain we were, we had a Canadian fighter base, it
was big, it was called Biggin Hill, the fighter base. And we had
Croughton was the big airport it was the bomber airport, and
then we had Gatwick in London, so we were in the centre of them
and we, we, we watched the... For weeks we watched the Battle of
Britain, the whole summer, the whole year we watched it.
In London, a lot of times when the city was being bombed you
spent, you spent most of your time, if you had a leave, you
spent it in an air raid shelter. ‘Cause there was, they were
continuously bombing London. I met a lot of English people the
years I was there and they were really, really fine race of
people. There's not much they could do, there was no place for
them to go, they had to stay and, and take what was coming, you
know, the bombing of, of London and there was no place they
could go. They, they took a, they took a terrible beating, but
they came out of it. They, you'd meet them
in the morning, they were smiling.
They took it but I don't know how much longer they would have,
could have held out because they were, London was devastated. I
don't think we realized how tough it really was. I don't think
we realized even through Sicily, it wasn't too bad. But once you
got on the mainland you got into the fighting,
then you knew there was something on eh?
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