Training on Sherman Tank

Didn’t have any money. And I thought if I join the army I am going to get paid $1.14 an hour and I sent all that home to my mom. That was what we had the choice we can do. You could sign this money, I wouldn’t take it, it would go to her. That’s how she survived and my brother joined the army again. He joined first and then I went after. First training was at New Water Barracks; left, right, left, right, left, right, blah, blah, blah, blah! The next thing I know we’re down in Camp Borden training there. That’s when I first got into a tank. I decided if I am going to be in a tank I’m going to drive it. You’re enclosed in metal with power - five Chrysler motors drove that Sherman tank and you get that thing where it goes fifty miles an hour, no problem. I had it up lots of times. Then we just, wherever there was anything going on that’s where we went. We found lots of places where we would bivouac for maybe two or three weeks and that’s when you overhaul all the stuff in the tank. Take all the old ammunition up and put new ammunition in. Check the machine guns. Check the motors, do everything like that then you go on to the next level wherever we’re gonna go. From the boot of Italy all the way up, right up to Europe. We got into France and, oh boy, now we can go to Paris. No, we’re not allowed to go to Paris, we’re Canadians, we can’t go there. US Army are going there. So they got to go to Paris and we had to stay out in the hills. Typical army thing.