Barrels of German Whisky
Heroes Remember
Transcript
I was close to one town, and I forgot the name already. It was
pouring rain, cats and dogs. There was a little house and they
were wanting to see who it was in that house and it was a
German. He was a manager of the liquor store next town, the
little town aways from there.
So I asked if there's any liqour in here. "Nicht verstehen." Come on with me.
And out behind the house there was, I gave him a rod, he started poking it, sound
steel you know. Gave him a shovel, just take it off. Took dirt
off, lift a piece of tin up, there's 40 gallons of whiskey in there.
He was the manager of the liquor store in that town.
German whiskey. So we all were already out with that pouring
rain, had to put some rubber clothes on and we sat on that hole
there, everybody got a gallon, having a drink, the war is over.
They just phoned in, the war is over, you know. And we had one
Frenchman from Medicine Hat, he went to town and got a horse,
there was a horse in there. And he sat on that horse, took one
gallon in this hand and one in this over the shoulder, drinking,
running to town with that horse, hollering, the war is over.
Have a drink, have a drink. Never seen that the likes of it and
we celebrated, we drink everything and fall in that pit where
the whiskey was. They got drunk and about two hours later
everybody was up, nothing wrong. Nobody was sick or anything.
It was such good stuff. Just to perk you up, the war was over.
We still didn't believe it.
That was the happiest day of my life,
cause it was getting a little too much, couldn't take it no more.
Description
Mr. Zayachkowski describes breaking open a cache of German whisky to celebrate the end of the war.
Michael Zayachkowski
Michael Zayachkowski was born in St. Julien, Saskatchewan on September 10, 1923. He was one of ten children. As a youth growing up in the Depression, Mr. Zayachkowski attended school, worked on the farm and helped in the woods. He enlisted in late 1941, and after a stint as a physical training instructor at Shilo, was deployed overseas. During his years abroad, Mr. Zayachkowski served in North Africa, Italy and D-Day through to Holland as a front line medical technician. Following the war, and after farming for a while, he joined the RCMP, where he served twenty-five years.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 2:11
- Person Interviewed:
- Michael Zayachkowski
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Royal Canadian Artillery
- Rank:
- Sergeant-Major
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