End of War Reaction

Interviewer: Eventually the war ended, May of 1945. Do you remember your reaction and that of your family?

Oh sure! Of course! By this time I was married. I had gotten married in the forces, while I was in Suffield as a matter of fact, we got married. And so I was really happy, my husband would be coming home sometime, my brother would be coming home and yeah it was, it was like a great big relief, saying, "Oh our brother will be home", you know. Cause he had gotten through, cause he went through all the theatres of war. He went through Africa, Italy, you name it; Germany, Holland and all that. You know he started in England and ended up in Holland so we were glad to have him home and all in one piece. But he wasn't really. Well, his body was in was one piece, his physical being was not. Like he had contacted malaria and he was under fire so much he's had a bit of a, not a mental problem per say, but very, very tense person. I remember the first time we, he was home just for a few days, we decided to go out and celebrate a little bit and we only had outdoor bathrooms at where we were and we were standing outside just talking, you know and stuff. He was on his way to the bathroom, there was a plane flew over, you could hear this plane coming and flying over and he's looking around, looking around and I'm wondering why is it he's looking around. And when the plane came quite loud over the top of us, he just dove right into the dirt. I mean just reaction from the... cause he hadn't been home that long and your just... It was scary, it was frightening to us to see his reaction like that. He never talked about his, I shouldn't say he never, he would start to tell you something about it, he'd just get into whatever it was he was gonna talk about and he wouldn't... he'd just stop, he wouldn't tell ya anymore. It was just too difficult for him to live through it again.