april 08, 2009 12:32am
August 8, 2008 It's got to get Better
Fri. August 8, 2008.
It's got to get Better...and does.
Today started with plugging in the donated computer and trying it out on the Internet and to check my email's. I still can't get over the generosity of the Pioneers, what a great group. I got cleaned up and set out across the street to the Veterans Heath Centre here in Moncton. I was met at the front door by the entertainment director for the centre named Andre Duguay. During our meeting yesterday Andre and I made arrangements to have the veterans that I was to interview, sign consent forms. This is standard procedure with most government installations.
Andre led the way down the halls in the centre to Bill Hubley room. Bill is a veteran of WW2. He served in a recon unit with the Duke of York Hussars, signing up in Moncton in 1943. Bill is an energetic man with a good sense of humor. We hit it off straight away. I got set up right away because Bill started telling me stories as soon as I got into the room. Andre made sure that Bill had his coffee heated up and we got started. Bill told me that the fun stared as soon as he got overseas. As the troop ship he was on entered the harbor in Scotland, all the men on board ran to one side of the ship because there was two Scottish ladies walking on the dock. After the ships captain pleaded for the men to level the load of the ship by not gathering on one side because the ship was listing badly. Bill is a big practical joker, as he told me and he thought that was funny, he laughed as he told me of the ship almost turning over in the harbor.
He told me of digging his slip trench in the dark one night and then realizing in the morning that he had
lots of leg room. After investigating further he found that he had dug his trench in a grave yard and as he put it, he had unexpected company.
On a more serious note Bill told me of a friendly fire incident that almost cost him his life. He was on a re con mission in France after landing on D+10. When a RAF Spitfire strafed their potion. He told me something that I didn't know, he said that they had a yellow banner with them that was a signal to the pilot of the plane, to tell them that they were friendly. We talked about how many times that our troops were involved in friendly fire accidents, he called them Boo-Boo's.
He signed up for the occupation army after Germany surrendered. He married a Dutch girl but it didn't work out. Bill worked as a bus driver for 37 years and had a good life, so far. We met later that day and had a beer together and I took some stills.
My second interview of the day was a man named Ivan Killam. Ivan was very open and we started talking about his service and when we started he told me that he was in Canada until 1944 and he thought that he didn't have much to tell me, boy was he wrong. Ivan was an infantry replacement, that ended up with he North Shore Regiment. For those of you who don't know, the North Shore Regiment was a tough bunch or fighters who where one the first regiments to land at Juno beach.
Ivan joined them later and he told me of being close to the place that the infamous Kurt Myer was being held. Ivan had some good stories about his time during the occupation. He was ordered to run the post office for his area. The post office was a very important thing to our army. In those day's a letter or especially a package from home was a special thing to the troops.
After our interview Ivan and I walked to the dinning room together and I think I made his day. We later that day took a couple of stills and said good-bye.
I would like to let everyone know out there that people like Andre and people like him make the last years of the lives of our veterans meaningful. Good show Andre.
I made the walk back across the street to the Blue Bomber to start the task of replacing all of the entries of my log from July 27 to August 8th because when my old computer gave up the ghost I lost everything from my log to a record of my e-mails for the last two years. This is a lesson learned, back up everything.
