Repatriation
Heroes Remember
Repatriation
As I had been already overseas five years,
they were sending somebody back to
Canada after, you know, and I was on the
first draft because I had five years already.
So they sent me, we, they sent us back to
England first in an old Sterling bomber at
Farmborough, I never forget that.
Farmborough, England is a,
there was an airport there.
And then I sat, we sat, there was no seat
on that thing and we were sitting on the floor
with all our full marching orders kit and guy
pressed the button to get the wheels down.
They wouldn't come down so we
had to circle the thing.
Boy, they better get those wheels down.
It was my first time on a plane.
They took a big thing and he started to
hit the wheels and they finally came down
so we landed and then we landed there
in a camp and we got, we exchanged our money
there for, you know, before we go to Canada
and they gave us Canadian money and
things like this. Then we, they sent us
another week on vacation before we left.
We landed at the old Bonaventure Station.
I don't know if you know that, in Montreal.
Anyway, I was at St. James Street and Peel,
that's where Bonaventure Station was.
And there was people with cars there to take
soldiers home and most of them were Jewish,
you know, I never forgot that.
It's a Jewish man that drove me home.
Me and my family that were,
that met me there at the station.
I arrived here on the 25th of June, 1945
and my wife arrived in Montreal
the 25th of June, 1946, exactly one year.
There was so many British war brides that
they couldn't send them all at the same time
so they had to send them periodically by ship.
There was not so many planes then so
I had to wait a whole year.
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