German POW`s

Heroes Remember

German POW`s

Transcript

Interviewer: Tell me Mr. Cromwell, during that period of time did you see German prisoners of war? Oh yah when we would go up there they had captured a bunch of prisoners then and when we were going back to the base with the empty truck, we'd load, we'd take a load of prisoners back. Interviewer: What was your impression of those German POW's? Well, the ordinary soldiers were, you know, you know a lot of them could speak English and talk to them like that and so on. Most of the officers were kind of stubborn, you know, they were, they didn't like riding on the back of a truck. You know, we were kind of mean too because we would load as many on the truck as we could get and they were all standing up and you'd squeeze the tailgate and close it and we'd be driving along and then you'd jam on the brakes and all that stuff, kind of mean. But that's what we had to do, you know, taking prisoners back and load them off. The Provost, the military police, they had the authority to stop you and now we were a supply column, we had priority. On the front of our truck was Supply Column, and you didn't drive over forty miles an hour, most of the time you were only driving thirty miles an hour because the roads and stuff were, everything was messy and you're dumping in the holes and banging. They come up and say, "Where are you going?" and they see a supply truck, they'd just make signs for you to go, and you know they stop all traffic

Description

Mr. Cromwell shares his impression of the German POW`s and what was encountered when transporting them by truck.

Everett Sylvester Cromwell

Everett Cromwell was born on December 12, 1921 in Weymouth Falls, Digby Co., Nova Scotia. He was the fifth of ten children. At age twelve, he left school to work in the woods because his father, also a forestry worker, had fallen ill. Both of his parents were soon deceased, and the ten children stayed in the family home supporting one another. Mr.Cromwell supported the family by working for a local farmer and then in the local lumberyard. He enlisted in June, 1941 in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. After basic training in Halifax, Sherbrooke, and Camp Borden, he sailed aboard the Louis Pasteur to England, arriving on December 23, 1941. Two weeks after the D-day raid, Mr. Cromwell arrived in France with the 2nd Division, Motor Transport. For the duration of the war, his unit was responsible for transporting fuel, food and ammunition to the Front in support of the Allied advance on Germany. After being discharged from the army and returning home, Mr. Cromwell, recently married, reenlisted because it was ‘steady work’. He and his family were to experience institutionalized racism in Halifax, being denied accommodations because of their black heritage. This in contrast to the fact that he felt equal in all respects as a member of the Army. Mr. Cromwell and his wife, Elizabeth, currently reside in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.

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