Off to Iceland

It was the 17th of July, 1940. And, of course the boat turned around, it was going south, and we said, “Oh good, they are going to Jamaica.” We had heard the rumour that we were going to Jamaica. And by getting on a ship that was already with everything that was still in there, waiters and everything, and heading south, “Gees we’re, we’re going there.” But when we woke up the next morning we were in different temperatures and everything and the ship was going north. So, we found out the second day or third day whatever it was, that they didn’t want to tell us where were going incase something happened, well you know the old system. We heard that we were going to Iceland. I said, “Iceland, holy gees. I barely ever heard of Iceland.” So that’s where we ended up.
Well they wanted a machine gun regiment, to a, to set their guns around the island between, the northern part actually touched the arctic circle. We had groups up there and we were concerned about the Germans being in Norway and the purpose was that we would be in Iceland if they decided to invade Iceland.