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Description
Joseph Anatole Côté hid for 80 days in Holland. He recounts a funny culinary anecdote and his meeting with a German deserter.
Joseph Anatole Côté
M. Côté est né à Québec le 7 octobre 1917. Il fit ses études en génie forestier à l’Université Laval. La guerre éclate et il s’enrôle dans l’Aviation royale du Canada afin de devenir pilote. Il débuta sa formation à Trois-Rivières, puis à Trenton. Envoyé en Angleterre, il débuta sa carrière comme contrôleur de terrain d’aviation, puis il fût affecté comme pilote sur plusieurs missions, notamment à la fameuse opération Market Garden ainsi qu’une autre mission au-dessus Allemagne qui mena à 80 jours d’exil…
Transcription
ANECDOTES ABOUT HOLLANDAt one point, before going to the farm where there were German soldiers, we were in a wooded area nearby for a couple of days. There was an underground shelter there that someone had dug and we lived in it and . . . a deer came along. . . I followed it with my revolver, damn, I wanted to shoot it. But I said, if the Germans hear the sound, they’ll come running.WE LEFT OUR HIDEOUT TO GO LIVE WITH A FARMER’S WIFEWhen we got to the farm, the Germans killed the deer and brought it to the farmer’s wife, Mrs. [Osterink] and I think she served the best parts to us [laughter]. It was funny.I MET A GERMAN DESERTERWhen we were hidden in the woods once . . . when I was watching the deer, there were Germans, deserters, in the same woods as we were. And there was one . . . I smoked a pipe myself at the time? he had tobacco. So we paid him a visit from time to time. We called him der Führer . . . for a joke, you know. He laughed, too. He told us he was an insurance agent, before the war. He was ordered to serve . . . do his military service in 1937, and he said, “I was fed up with military life, and the war . . .” so he deserted. He wrote to me after the war. I had given him my address, and he wrote to me. He wanted to come to Canada. I looked into it in Ottawa. But he was in communist territory . . . They didn’t want to hear about him coming here. They said, “Impossible . . . Impossible . . .” So I don’t know if he succeeded in coming to Canada later, but I never heard about him again . . .