Shaun Newman Podcast - #18 - WWII - Si Campbell

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Si was born in Zealandia SK in 1924. He lived through the Great Depression, fought in WWII and worked on the railroad for 38 years. We talk in depth about life in the Depression, his time in the war and the life lessons he’s experienced. You don’t want to miss this one.

Welcome to the podcast. First off, I want to say thanks to Harlan Lessig and the weekly bean. They continue to put a little blutterbin each week about the podcast. So thanks, Harland. You guys can find it in Kinnersley, Moosejaw, and Lloyd Minster. So pick up a copy and take a look. Some shoutouts this week. It has been a busy week.

A lot of people reaching out, and I really appreciate all your feedback. So first off, Kyle Tap had messed me and said you have real skill and a radio voice. And I had to laugh because I thought for sure he was going to say face for radio, which I most certainly do. But thanks, Kyle. I appreciate the kind words. Next, Lenora Winebender. I have loved listening into your podcast. It makes my morning walks seem a lot shorter.

Well, I appreciate your listening to this as you walk. That's pretty cool. Thanks, Laura. Thanks for the feedback. And hopefully you keep tuning in. Next, Spencer Du Poix. Apologize if I'm torturing the name. I just know you as Spencer McDonald's.

So Spencer said, I just spent the last hour and a half laughing. I've already got a couple more picked out to listen to. Nicely done. She was talking about the last episode with Skip Crick. It's nice to have you aboard Spencer, so hopefully you enjoy the ones that are yet to come. Sean Hill, it's a great podcast and I love listening. Thanks, Sean. I hope you continue to tune in as well.

We got some cool guests coming up. Laura Harbin Dobson had a guest suggestion. She said, hi, Sean, thanks for posting your podcast. It's been a lot of fun to follow. I know you've done at least one non-hockey athlete. I wonder if you feature Amber Leroux, who is about to become the first ever female pro truck wagon driver. Well, I reached out to Amber, and she's going to come on in June.

So I wanted to say huge thanks to Laura for giving me the idea, right? If you guys got somebody you're thinking of that you think it would be a lot of fun, the interview sit across from me, just let me know and I can look into it. I've been getting asked a lot of questions lately on basically how I pick my guests or even more so on what the podcast is going to be about. And so I thought I would try and explain my mindset here before we get into some. sigh that there's three things that I've really looked into or want to look into with the podcast.

Obviously, if you've been listening, I am a hockey guy through and through. My entire life has been hockey. I've traveled to world playing hockey. So I really enjoy hearing other hockey stories. But I also bike Canada in 2006, so I have a little love for adventure and adventure. and cool other stories that aren't hockey, whether they be sports-related or just being active and seeing the world. So I'm going to definitely try and line up a few of those.

And then finally, I graduated from college with a degree in history. And so that's where a guy like Cy and some of my older hockey player guys that talk about the old days, that's where my love for that stuff comes in. I studied history. I fell in love with it. and I look forward to interviewing some people that know things from years ago that have been long forgotten. So that brings me to Cy Campbell, who is a 94-year-old. He is the first guest on the podcast that was not an athlete.

I mean, he did play sports growing up, but his feature on this podcast is not sports-focused. Like I said, he's 94. He turns 95 here in August. He fought in World War II. He grew up in the Great Depression. I worked on the railroad for 38 years. And so I just sat across from him and listened to his life story and some life lessons and asked him. I reached out to a lot of the listeners and got a bunch of good questions for him at the end that he could discuss.

And so I hope you guys enjoy. And without further ado. Welcome to the John Newman podcast. I am sitting across from Mr. Cy Campbell. I've had this one marked on the old calendar now for a few months. I've been talking with a few of the young boys, as you put it, who you golf with. They've approached me. And so we're just going to go down memory lane with you and have a little fun today.

Okay? Okay. Yep. So you were born in 1924. Yeah. In Zalandia, Saskatchewan, out on a farm. Yeah. born in a raging lightning storm and a rainstorm and a doctor of the name of Thomas H. Cuddy

came all the way out there on a horse and buggy in that storm to bring me into the world. No kidding. Yeah. So what happens if he doesn't arrive? I don't know. They just figure a way of getting you out. I guess, yeah. So it must, yeah, it mustn't have been the easiest.

My mom had been down to Mayo Clinic twice, and she passed away a year and a half after I was born. Holy crap. With cancer, yeah. I was the youngest of five. So you had no mom then grown up? No, my grandmother, my dad's mom and dad came up from Rolo, Saskatchewan, up to Roethstown in Zalandia. and she raised us kids. She was 68 years old, and my granddad was 75 when they came up.

And she looked after us kids. Otherwise, Dad would have probably had to put us up for adoption, and that's the reason she came up. My granddad and my grandmother, they farmed down in Iowa, and so they sold out down there and they bought land right across the railroad track at the little town of Rolo, Saskatchewan, and lost it to an unscrupulous land dealer, so they didn't have any money either. And when my dad got back the second time, my mom was down in Mayo Clinic, he didn't have five cents. left to the bank and no land either. They lost this farm to pay for that my mom being down in

Mayo Clinic. So your grandparents then originally come from the United States? Oh yeah. Yeah. My dad's side of the family came for the states. My mom, she came from Bowmanville, Ontario, like and they moved out west to farm. Yeah. So I was, I was, We've got a couple thoughts rolling through my brain already. So let's go back to the night you're born. So what was the closest hospital to you guys this farm then? Be Roastown. Would be Roastown.

Yeah, would be, oh, probably, um, let me think. Probably 15 miles. Yeah. By horse and buggy. Probably, yeah. That's about it. Holy man, yeah, that's, it comes to mind because I was just saying you up there. expecting our third here in October, and a guy seems to forget how easy it is to

drive the two minutes in a vehicle, warm, no matter if it's nice cold outside, rain and thunder, and it don't matter. The hospital's sitting right there for you. Yeah. It was an amazing thing that he did that, you know, really. Boy, something. That's almost risk in your life. Yeah, that's for sure. That's for darn sure. Yeah. And he was. He was retired when I got a whole of them. He was retired and living in Winnipeg when I got a whole of them and when I got on the railroad in 1940, there, had to prove my age. I had what they called a delayed birth certificate.

I was being as their mom was sick, you know, that time. Well, they never thought of having me baptized or even registering me. for a birth certificate, yeah, in those days. So, yeah, I went overseas with that. It was all right, that birth certificate, but it wasn't okay for the railroad when I got on. It was okay to fight in a war, but it wasn't okay to work on the railroad.

Because I have a delayed birth certificate, they called it, hey. So, yeah, so I had to find, I got a roll of paper to choke a cow there trying to prove my age for the railroad. I'm finding that Dr. Cuddy, I traced him down through the file newspaper in Celandia file newspaper put out in 1924. And he wrote the CNA letter. Of course, he didn't know what I was named, but he knew there was a boy.

So they even sent that letter back And I wrote to them again And he wrote the CNR a scathing letter And that's when they accepted it Yeah Crazy Absolutely crazy What was being raised by your grandmother like

A woman that's 68 and has seen Even for your time different things And she had nine children and lost five of them. She lost two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Either with the epitherea or the flu, I'm not sure. She lost the two teenagers in one week. And then she lost another boy and a girl. that were just little, little ones.

Holy cry. She lost those two in the same week, not the same as the teenagers, no, there was quite a two years difference. And then she lost another one at birth. So then she come up and raised us. Yeah. She was a mom to me, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'd given you a questionnaire, and you'd said she was the most influential person you ever had in your life was your grandmother. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

She always told me if there's a job worth doing, it's worth doing well. Isn't that the truth? Yeah. That's a lot of loss. You think... Yeah, that's right. I mean, in today's standard, like, it must just be... Yeah, then, of course, then my brother was killed when she was.

still there. So that was another one, you know, another. Yeah. He was just a young man at the time. So she put up with a lot, especially putting up with us five kids. Yeah. Did you, I guess I'm almost at a loss for words

because it just, you know, my grandmother lost a son at a young age as well. and it just seems like the further you go back, the more commonplace that was. Yeah. And yet, I never see bitterness or anything like that in the age groups or the generations before. There was a lot of children died at birth, and a lot of women passed away at birth, you know, during those early, early days. you used to look in the newspaper even after

when I was reading a newspaper you know passed away causes unknown you know something like that well they didn't know the things for the doctors in those days that they do like nowadays

you know no I lost just after I joined up I got into the Air Force that was in Brown Brandon. And that was, I think, on the 9th of June, I went to Brandon, and on the 26th I was got word that my brother was missing overseas. And that was in June. And then in first part of December, my grandfather passed away. And then I went overseas the next year. And while I was

overseas, my grandmother passed away. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Last all three. I've been one year. Let's talk about the Great Depression. I was saying before we got on here that I got my degree in history, and I've read a lot on it and a lot of different things from back in your days. But I thought maybe you could give us a glimpse into going back to then and what it was like and maybe the struggles you guys faced or what you saw.

Well, my dad, because he was a jacking, of all trades and a master of none really but he made a living well you know he had a tough go of it they're trying to make a living for eight of us you know in the family my you know five kids and him and my grandpa and grandma yeah uh when i think back uh things were not all rosy with him either boy There was some times there when things were, the old coal bin was pretty, pretty, you were burning some very fine coal dust, you know, because he didn't have money to buy a load of coal, you know. But scraped it through. Yeah, there was, he had things that he should have done, but then I think back of, you know, things that he probably wasn't able to do. But, yeah, in the 30s, we lived down in that Roastown area.

When we moved up around Zalandia, well, it was, well, 1937 was really the worst year, the driest year of all. In 1937, there was no rain in that country. And a wind would get up and there'd be a dust cloud. I can remember my granddad and my grandmother's on July the 1st. I think that was in 1937. And they all went to the lake, Harris Lake, which was quite a few miles. miles from us. They all went in the back of an old model T Ford truck. And on about three o'clock

in the afternoon, we were living in an old house, a two-story house, two rooms up and two down, you know. And we looked out in the west and there was just a cloud. You maybe saw it on TV there. It was just a rolling cloud of dirt coming. And it was just a rolling cloud of And then the wind hit and that. And you couldn't see the barn from the house for dust. It was just unbelievable. And then about, oh, probably 4.30, 5 o'clock in the afternoon, all of a sudden it blew up a rain.

We hadn't had a rain. And it absolutely poured, just like a monsoon. well the dirt was running down the windows and you know from the dust the dirt stuck on the side of the house and it washed all of that off and you could hardly see out the windows in the west side of the house for the dirt that was on them and by the time it got done that they were clean from the torrential rain yeah yeah And they all got stuck up at the lake. In fact, they started home. And there was a little couple.

I don't know where it was, but there was no gravel roads. And they were on this, more or less like a trail. And they got as far as this little wee house. And they pulled in there, and everybody stayed in there. And I think there was 14 of them in the truck. And they slept the night there, tried to sleep the night in this little wee house, a man and his wife. And they finally made it home the next afternoon. And we lived Eagle Creek.

It's like a riverbed north of Rostown there. Us boys, we used to run up and down those hills. In fact, I took Irene down there to show her those mountains that were used to climb, you know, the little hills and Regal Creek. And Eagle Creek was about a half, three-quarters of a mile across. And the next morning we had a few cattle that we had. I went down to see how they were doing. And there was a river, the full widths of the creek flat there was a river. And the cattle would be standing out there on a little wee.

little of islands, you know, right tight together to get out of the water, you know. There's something. It was really something. So that was the, we had a garden, I could remember, and we had a long row of trees on the west side of the buildings. And we had their garden there, just a narrow garden. And a caragana's along this outside. And we looked across, and there you can see the army worms coming. They were coming from the southwest, and he was just black behind him.

So we got busy and dug a trench along the south side of the garden and up, partway up the west side to run out of steam, and then put a little bit of straw in the bottom of it. Well, it was so dry that the worms got in there and couldn't make it up there. the other side. And the dad took care of seed and put that and touched a match to it. Well, it sure got rid of the army worms and saved the garden, most of the garden. But we couldn't stand the stink for our worms, you know. Can you imagine the stink or the smell of it would be just make you throw up? That was another experience in the dirty 30s.

Yeah. What was the things you were short on in the dirty 30s? Was meals tight? Meals were tight, yeah. You were able to grow a little bit of a garden, you know. You hauled water, pails of water, and it wasn't such a thing as hoses for those days. you hauled

carried water by the pails and put on the things that were the most important I think no we always had enough to eat I think it was pretty tough on people that lived in town more that possibly

I'm not sure on that But I would imagine that there would be a lot of people that lived in towns, you know, that didn't have a gardener or anything that would have a tough, tough time making it through the 30s. Yeah. What was the first vehicle you ever rode or your family ever owned? Oh, my dad had an old 29 Pontiac coupe. That was the first car we had. You remember thinking when he pulled that in?

on the drive like, only moly? Oh, yeah. I always, that was, yeah, we didn't get that till. Oh, cow. Yeah, we didn't have a vehicle all during pretty well the 30s. I was getting close to 1938, probably, maybe 38 when we got that first vehicle. Yeah, think about that, 1938. in that area.

Not sure, but I think so. And you used to get to go take it for rides every once in a while? Oh yeah, yeah. He used it to go to work and that, you know. What was your father doing for work at the time? Well, he worked at anything he could get his hand at to make a dollar. Yeah. He worked at anything, anything at all.

He worked on farms. He worked carpenter work. He worked on an elevator gang, building an elevator. elevator, you know, in the 30s. I can remember, yeah, he worked on building an elevator at Roestown on North Roastown in 19. Let me see, that would be a, I was just a little wee we-wee gaffer,

probably three or four, 1928 probably. He worked for part of a summer on an elevator gang. Just building an elevator elevator. elevator there at North Roastown. Yeah. Yeah. What age did you start working at, Cy? Me?

Well, I worked spring and fall there for about three years when I was going to, well, about grade 9, grade 10. Yeah. And I worked out in the spring and spring. fall there for about three years. It was probably a little more than that. I was in grade 10 and 11. Yeah, when I came to grade 11, yeah, I flunked my first year in grade 11 because I was, you know,

you work out a month in the spring and then a month or more in the fall. So you really were a long ways behind in your schoolwork. you know. And then I joined up and they sent me home. And then I broke my shoulder that fall. And so I looked like I might not get in. But so I was lucky the second year. I went back to school because of my shoulder. broke my shoulder and I went back to school as I was laying around doing nothing that winter and I was okay to work that spring again and it was a good thing I got my call up then there I'd have probably flunk my second year in grade 11 as a student I wasn't the greatest I guess let's talk about school for a few minutes did you go to a rural school or

Did you come into Rosedown? No, I went to Zalandia. Zalandia had a little one-house room school? Oh, God, no. No, it was a big brick building. Oh, okay. Two rooms up and two down. Oh, wow.

But I went to a country school, two of them. When I first started to school, I went to one that was just north of Rostown there, by, as I say, about where we lived down at Eagle Creek, yeah, us boys. And that's what we were. where I first started to school and then I moved to a school that was out there just three miles from where I was born, a place called Dublin School. Well, then when you got to grade seven, when you finished your grade seven, then you had to go to town school. So how far of a distance

were all these schools from where you lived? Oh, it wasn't bad. When I started, school it was a mile and a half. And were you walking? Yeah. And then, yeah, winter, summer. You say it wasn't that bad, but in today's standards, that's far enough. Oh, no. Oh, God, yeah, here, we had a school bus in town, pick kids up in town to take them to school. Like that, I had to really had to laugh on that one. But the next school was, it all depends on which way we went. If I cut across the feet,

went straight north. It was two and a half miles. And then when I got into grade eight I went to Zalandia and that was six miles. So I went six miles. Well, I've walked for the first while, first year, pretty well, and then I got a bicycle and I went by bike and we lived on number seven highway and they just redid that so it was a big tall they used to do that with elevator graders and a big deep ditch you know but a high grade and so the snow pretty well stayed off of it and then when it got a little bit too much snow I had this old bike and it kept breaking down so I had a coolly dog so I taught them to pull a sled And so I thought, oh, well, come home on a Friday night, and the bike was busted.

I had to push it to town to get it welded. So I trained the dog to pull a sleigh, and so I thought, well, maybe he'd pull the bike. So I put him on a rope out in front of the bike, and I went to school two winters with him. Pulling you? Pulling me on the bike. on a bike and then we moved past the landy out three miles and he went to pull me to school for another winter there with on the bike yeah he was a fabulous dog yeah back then did you guys have school dances and festivities like that yeah the country schools had dances every now and

again. We used to have in the country you'd have Christmas concerts, you know, and put little plays on and sing and all of those little things that go on with Christmas concerts. And, oh yeah, I can remember the first Santa Claus I ever saw. And he gave me a paper bag with candy and an orange, a Jap orange in. That was something, boy I'll tell you. Yeah. That was in 1930. Yeah, 1930.

Yeah. That was something. Yeah. I really believed in Santa Claus for quite a few years. Yeah. Yeah. In 1939, Germany invades Poland

Yeah And World War II is Underway Yeah What's it like back here Like living on the On the farm I don't know

Things went along Pretty well Just carried on in Canada Like That's why I say Canada doesn't have the furthest idea what a war was all about because they've never experienced something like that. It's pretty hard to tell a person what war was like, you know? The First World War, you read, I just

finished a book here a while ago on trench warfare in the First World War. You just can't fathom how bad that would be. Like, I remember. my first wife Audrey, her dad was in the first war war. He was in the trenches and they had what they call duck boards there. That's like the, well, just a, you know, like he used on a forklift, you know, to those pallets, you know, something like that.

And he had a blanket and he's laid down to have some sleep and has been raining and those. water in the trench and he laid down on that and rolled himself in his one blanket that he had, I think. And he woke up the morning and they felt something warm against his cheek and there was a rat curled up on the side of his cheek to keep warm. Can you imagine that? And his feet were hanging over the edge and his legs were in washing and his legs were in water. in water right up to his knees. That's the only thing he ever said about in the trench warfare.

But then you read this book and it's a true story that you can't fathom. John Doe Public wouldn't. It's hard to me who fathom, you know, that it could be that bad. I think that's what's so why I'm glad you had to decide. to come on here because we can talk about your experience because I was saying

the off-air like my generation I just I have we've lived in probably the best time in the history of the world oh and especially in Canada oh my God I've said that yet time and again we've said Irene and I've talked about how fortunate we are we've gone from my age and a you know horse and buggy days to putting a man on the moon and a spacecraft that's gone by Mars you know

and they're still we're still conversing with it that was out past Pluto or something here just yeah it's a yeah and it's been going now for what is it 10 12 years that one it's gone past Pluto they had one leave in the 60s

say. Yeah. And they just lost contact with it in 2014. What is that? Like we're talking 40 some years. Yeah, right. Of going off in the space. Yeah, and being able to still communicate with it. Yeah, communicate. It's just mind-boggling.

Yeah. And that's what I say. I can remember the big, tall, black man, he lived in the Everglades down in it. in the States there.

And they said, got him one day, and they said, do you realize that we've put a man on the moon? And he said, ah, said there's been a man on the moon for years. No, no, no, we're talking about a real man. No, we put him up there with a spacecraft. And he said, ah, pshaw. And that was the end of the conversation. I thought that was so, that was really worth, to see him on TV.

Oh, pshaw, he said, yeah. Didn't believe him. Yeah. No, we've been so bloody lucky for a while that, myself. Talk about luck I've been, you know, to live till I'm 95, yeah, next month or in August. In August, yeah. And I got to say, like, you're freaking impressive. Like, this is unbelievable.

I'm sitting here, and, like, you're talking like you're 60. Your memory is better than my memory. Oh, no, it's so great. Yeah, when you're the older, you get, the further back, he can remember, but you can't remember yesterday. Yeah. Well, in 1939, the war breaks out. Yeah.

And you said you had two brothers that they both go over? Yeah. My first brother that was killed overseas, he left when I was in the hospital there with my broken shoulder. Broken shoulder? And my other brother, he left there shortly after that spring. And he left, and so they were both overseas. Do you remember what year that was? Well, you might have already said it and I just missed him.

Well, I'd be 1942 that my first brother, yeah, they were. went in 42, 1942. And they were both in the Air Force? Yeah, yeah. One as a rear gunner like yourself, then one was an electrician? Yeah, he flew, he was on a squadron of Spitfires fighter aircraft that went. They went over on the continent and they more or less, they followed the front lines up as they went, you know, the spits. Yeah. My other brother, he was in a four-motored bomber squadron, four-motored aircraft. He was in a sterling. They were not as, they were a good aircraft.

They flew the same speed, you know, whether they were loaded or empty. They were big, big aircraft. They were bigger than I flew in Lancaster's, Canadian-built Lancaster. They were a fabulous aircraft. The Sterlings were a bigger aircraft, but they weren't quite as maneuverable as the link was. So when they leave, is there like, is the only way to hear the progress of the war is just by radio?

Yeah. And so was that happening once a day, 10 times a day You could pick up news Well he used to have I can remember The national news was at 8 o'clock at the evening

I can remember my granddad used to listen to the When we got a radio When did we get a radio 1938 I think it was Give or take Yeah

It might have been before that Yeah We had a radio and my granddad, he was kind of hard to hear. He would listen to, when there'd be just three of us home, my granddad and grandmother and I, and my granddad, he'd listened on Friday nights. He used to really listen to the fights, Joe Lewis, and the Box and Natch is on Friday nights. And gang bust is over Chicago. you could pick up Chicago on the radio

in those days, you know. And he used to listen to the hockey game, Foster Hewitt. Yeah. Yeah, he used to listen to the hockey games and listen to the news at 8 o'clock in the evening. Yeah, the national news. He rarely missed that. Yeah.

So he was well-versed on how the war was doing too, you know. Yeah. He didn't last very long after it started, but well, I shouldn't say that lasted for 1943 when he passed away. Well, I just, I think, like,

I had two of my brothers go traveling the world, and by the time the second one traveled, there was just, with technology, there was just so many different ways to keep in touch with them. By that time, you could even have it where it was video calling, right? Like, you'd actually see them. So it never really felt

like they were that far away, or the mind just can't understand it when you can see them, right? The first brother used to send email. So we used to get an email once a week, so you kind of keep in touch. And I'm trying to get my brain wrapped around, having brothers go away to a war, and what you guys knew of what was going on, and were you in touch with them at all? Yeah, write letters, but that usually took from two weeks to months or more to get a letter. Yeah.

You know, he'd airmail. Airmail was a little blue envelope that folded out, you know, and then you folded it up and then glued it. And that was airmail. Otherwise, you could send a regular ladder, and you could put that in regular post for three cents, I think of us. I think that's what a stamp was. Yeah.

air mail was, well you know I'm not sure. I think it was either six, eight or twelve cents for the airmail, went by air. But you can imagine the amount of mail going back and forth with all of the guys that were in the service. Like you take the little village of Zalandia there that was probably a hundred people. Yeah, 100, maybe 100. 150 people in Zalandia. Our honor roll, there was 82 guys. 82. 82 from around the area there.

On the honor roll from the little town of Zalandia. But that covered, you know, say six, eight miles all the way around, you know. Yeah, but still 82. Yeah. That's a lot. Oh, I'll say it. That's a high percentage. Oh, yeah.

So, and you know, and we lost, I think, 10%, and that's a funny part of the, most of the, the, it was usually around 10% what we lost in deaths, you know, during the war. We lost 10% of the guys that went overseas pretty well in the Second World War, you know, so, and that was about the same around Zalandia. I think we lost eight guys out of that, out of the, to it. Was there, what was the atmosphere like of going over there? Was there like excitement to go? Oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Well, hell, it's not going to happen to me. You know, it's not going to happen to me. Like, I don't know, getting killed is only going to happen to somebody else. You know, you're that dumb about it. it that's for sure well it doesn't go all the time but there's some times where you're yeah you're a little scary but but you know normally you know in the workplace you know your dangerous job you got you're not going to get hurt i agree but you're going over to a world war where well it's same thing i don't know millions are dying yeah yeah yeah but it's you're having people

people shoot at you on a daily. I mean, in the workplace here. Yeah, but it ain't going to hit you. What did you take for training? Do you remember your training to go over there? Yeah. Of course, everybody joins up in the Air Force going to be a fighter pilot. Yeah, no.

Yeah. No, you can't be a fighter pilot. Yeah, I don't know what was the matter of it. I don't think they need pilots that day, you know. Well, okay. But I told my brother, I told my brothers, I'll see you overseas. Well, they laughed. Here's a kid laying in the hospital bed.

My one brother, when he went over, as I say, I said, I'll see you overseas. Oh, yeah, right, yes. Yeah. But I've seen my other brother, the oldest brother. Yeah. I've seen him. Must have been To it twice, three times

I think Must have been tough to watch them go I can just imagine My brother's going off Yeah Yeah Oh As I say

Yeah It was kind of lonesome Around home You know When we'd get together Yeah Yeah they're both overseas

Yeah We used to get their letters, yeah. But you didn't write home, you know, every week. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, that's for sure. So, yeah. In your training today, so they put you in a Lancaster bomber? No, you never hit four-motored aircraft till just before you went to the squadron.

You started out on a little single aircraft, single-motored aircraft, like gunners did. Well, you had a cockpit up in the back of it there with a machine gun in it. And I went to, when I first went in, I took my basic training. That's learned to March and all of that sort of garbage, you know, in Brandon, Manitoba. And then we went to ground school. Went to Winnipeg from there and you learnt the Morris Code then. And, you know, through other basic things about it. And then we went from there to, we went out to Rivers, Manitoba.

And that was an aerodrome there. And you did Joe jobs there. It's just like a holding area to wait for you to get into a school where you take the other stuff that you need to. And you had to learn to do those jobs because you might flunk out in the air crew, so then you'd be stuck in a ground crew, you know, and you might be doing Joe jobs for the old war.

Lots of guys did that, you know. You call it Joe Jobs. I'm talking about cleaning vass. bathrooms and that sort of car, but did that too. And then we went to Quebec City. And again, we did, learnt the Morse Code, and you do aircraft recognition, you know, and learnt what an aircraft, like the different,

you learned what all the aircraft wear, when they're coming street at you, you know, or the outline of them, you know, You had to know whether it was a Spitfire coming, going to fly behind you, or if it was a Master Schmidt-109 or a Falk Wolf 190, a German aircraft. So you had to know all of those aircraft. Otherwise, you'd shoot your own aircraft down, you know. So that's, you did, spend a lot of time learning aircraft recognition.

And it did that in Quebec City. and then they sent us back to I came back to MacDonald Manitoba that was just north of Portage to Prairie you know this side of Winnipeg yeah okay we went to McDonnell Manitoba and then you that's when you learn to fire your machine guns from air to ground or air to air

you'd learn to fire at a drogue that another aircraft was pulling be on a cable you know a way out behind about, you know, so you learned all those things and how to do it. So in total, how many months were you in training then before you got into pilot? Yeah, that's why when I couldn't be a pilot, well, in a navigator, well, I said, well, you can be a navigator. How long does that take? Well, a year and a half.

Oh, well, what else you got to buy me? I mean, well, about the same. No, I don't want that. Yeah. A wireless operator, how long is that? Over a year now, what's the least an air gunner? How long does that take? Six months, I'm going to be an air gunner.

So you just were eager to get over there. Yep, that's right. Yeah, I wanted to see, I wanted to be over there to see my brothers. Yeah. So what was the biggest shock then when you finally got over there? My biggest shock? Yeah, like, I mean, now you, where do you get stationed when you leave Canada? Well, we left on a troop ship, and there was 12,000 of us on it.

We went over to the New Amsterdam, and there was 12,000 of us on it. We landed at just at Gourick, Scotland, just west of Glasgow. And then they took us way down to the south coast of Bournemouth, and we were in a holding unit. there until we got to go to a flying training school and we finally got out of there and we went to a place where there was two-motored aircraft, a bomber-type aircraft, flew Wellington's. And that's where we crewed up, where you got your crew. And there was six of us got together. Just everybody didn't have anybody to fly with.

And he just, that guy, he looked okay. And we're lucky we had a fabulous aircraft crew. My pilot, he was from just out of Galt, Ontario. My bomb maimer was just out of the suburb of Toronto. My navigator was out of Toronto. My mid-upor gunner was from Toronto. My wireless operator, he was from Vanguard, Saskatchewan, that's down by east of swift current, and then myself.

And then so we finished a training on two-motored aircraft, and then they sent us to a training unit on four-motored aircraft. and then you needed an engineer, so that's when we picked up our engineer. He'd been overseas, he joined up in the Army, and he went overseas in the fall of 1939, just when the war broke out, but then he remonstured into air crew and he became an engineer. So he was from down east someplace, but he married over there. He was married by the time we got over there, you know. And so if he had some time off, like he'd get a 48-hour pass, you know,

well, he'd always go to where his wife was, you know. So, yeah. So then there was seven of us then on a crew with, and then when we got proficient with that, being as a crew and everything then they sent us to our squadron so they sent us to the squadron in 1944 in August in

1944 yeah and started flying operational trips in around the first of September what was that like in 1944 exciting that was yeah

Yeah, yeah, that was their first few trips. Well, we were very fortunate in that we went. Our first trip was the Cap Grenet, which was just across the channel. They said that, yeah, they said that the rear gunner, he shouldn't even have got, he shouldn't even have got credit for being over-enemy territory because it was right on the coast. Yeah, so then, and so we really got broke in easy. Our fourth trip, we went to Bergen, Norway, and on the bombing run, all across the North Sea. We flew right down along the water there, so they wouldn't pick us up on radar, you know, going across the North Sea.

And then we climbed up and bombed the submarine pans in a fjord at Bergen, Norway. Yeah, it was just on TV the other night, Bergen, Norway. Yeah, it was quite interesting. Yeah, you saw, and it showed a picture of it from above, you know. It was, oh, oh, I said, I read, whoops. So then we went, then we started going to Germany after that. Pretty well all my trips after that were all to Germany. What was it like, I don't even know if I can ask,

properly, but bear with me, you come up, you're under the radar, so nobody can pick you up. Yeah. Are your hair standing on end? No, not really, no. There was sometimes there, when I flew, we had pretty well control of the skies, you know, really. When my brother flew, no, it was the Germans had control of the skies with fighter aircraft. When I went over, we still, there was, guys got shot down, but not to the amount that there was when my brother did. My brother lasted only seven trips when he got shot down.

Those lots of guys got shot down on the very first trip, you know. And how many trips did you take, Cy? I was 36. 36? Yeah. Yeah, that was 32 was classed as a tour of ops for bomber squadron. And we did 36. Well, the Germans put a big push to their.

D'Eardands, we were winning a war, and we weren't losing aircraft in numbers like they were, like say when my brother did, so they were, he'd be training a lot of guys, so they'd cut back on the training, and then the Germans put a big push on, so they had aircraft in the sky, they gathered up everything they had and made a last push, and so we were losing aircraft, an air crew quite strongly and so they just up the amount of trips we had before they called a screen this they might say they called screening you know that was your last trip so we did four extra trips and it just classed as a tour see after you got 32 trips in or finished a tour of ops then you had a rest period and sometimes you were able to come home for a while

But if you only had one tour, the guys that finished a tour of ops, say, at my brother's time, if they finished a tour of ops at 32 trips, they'd get some time off, and then they'd be back and fly another tour. Some of guys flew three and four tours, like fellas that were over there early, you know, in the 39 and 40, you know. Yeah, flew the goddamnest aircraft you could ever see. where we flew pretty good aircraft. Like a Lancaster was a fabulous aircraft.

Yeah. And the Halifax, yeah. I'll just show you what a Lancaster looks like. While I'm looking at a picture of the Lancaster bomber, I was, if people haven't seen it, they miles ago looked it up online because it's something. But your view from the tail must have been something else. Well, you get to see where you've been.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But the worst of it is when you're up in front and then you're looking at the, you know, when they were shooting at you, putting up flak, they call it. It's exploding, exploding shells, eh? And that brought down a lot of aircraft. And the sky would be just black, he'd look up ahead because they had, you know, some cities were really, really, what do you call it?

had a pile of guns around them, you know, to keep aircraft from shooting down, especially cities that had a lot of manufacturing, I like wartime manufacturing. They would have a lot of guns around it, you know, to keep you from bombing them, you know. So they'd pick up at what height you wear, and then they would set their exploding shells to explode at that height. they see so. So, yeah, we flew it around 20,000 feet. Yeah, that was about the average for Lancaster and Halley. Americans, you're flying for it. They flew higher. They were able to flew. But they didn't seem to be, they seem to be flying about the same height as we were, you know. And how many, how many bombs would you carry on you at a time? Well, it all depends. You could carry a difference.

You carried 500-pounders. We'd carry 14,000 pounds. 14,000 pounds of bombs. Yeah, but that's if you're only going, say, say, six hours, you know, flying time. Like three hours over there and three hours. Three back, eh? But the further went, the further you went, well, the less bombs you had because you needed more petrol. That's right, to get you there and back.

without running out of fuel. They gave you a little extra time of fuel to get you there. Could you feel the shock from up that high or it was just an image of explosions below you? Like with a 500 pounder with that? No, you'd feel, say a 4,000 pounder, a bomb, you'd feel about 4,000 feet. She'd feel a little bit of a thump, you know, when she dropped, when she exploded. Of course, then they had the big ones there near the end of the war. They were huge, yeah.

Yeah, then you'd feel them way up there. Yeah. Most of the time you didn't, yeah. If you were flying it down there, say, you had 500-pound bombs, you know, when you were dropping them, well, it's... If you're flying at 500 feet, you weren't doing much bombing, I'll tell you. Yeah. That's when that was scary because those guys down there, you were looking at light and aircraft.

You're looking at machine guns and everything, you know, for, it was if you're, but we never, we never flew low, that low. You fly with the same seven guys every time you flew that? Mm-hmm. I'm assuming that created a bond like no other. Yeah, it did, yes. My mid-upor gunner, we had wound up with different ones. Yeah, we won't go into that. I had about four different mid-upper gunners,

but we won't touch that. Sure. The first one is, yeah. The guy that we first got rid of, he finally, he was with the crew. He just went spare, you know, and flew with any crews. He flew with a crew. The pilot was on his third tour of operations, and some of them were on their second. And they got shot down and he was the only one that lived. Apparently, he was, my pilot met him on the streets of Toronto.

Two or three years after he had taken prisoner at the last. Of course, the phone has to ring and interrupt us. No, that's quite all right. That's not a big deal at all. Okay. I was wondering, so we were talking about the seven guys you were in a crew with. obviously you weren't flying missions every single day. No, no, no, no.

So what did you do in the barracks in between? In between? Was it cart games? Was it training? Yeah, you had pool tables and ping pong tables and you play Penny Ante or crap game or something if you wanted to go along that line. Or, yeah, there was lots of stuff to do on the station,

you know, on most of those stations. Like it could play softball, a hardball, or soccer, you know. So there was lots to do. You didn't really have to sit in the barracks and look at two walls, you know. No. I used to play pool and play ping pong. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

There was lots of stuff to do. This one I was on the squadron. Well, all the stations were pretty, some stations were way better. The station our squadron was on, it used to be a permanent station, like it was an Air Force station, REF, like Royal Air Force.

They used that before the war, you know. When they first started to fly an aircraft really during the first World War. So there's a lot of the, of course the population of it wouldn't have been as many before the war, you know. So their sleeping quarters weren't as much. So when they started using it during the war, well then they built a lot of Nissen huts, you know, and they had 12 beds in them. each one of them on the squadron, yeah. And then they made mess tents there where you went on our squadron there.

We used to go outside the main gate to go to the mess hall, yeah. So yeah, we were very fortunate, fortunate all the way along, really. The aircraft that in training were wore right out like, man, like the old when I got my wings up at McDonnell, Manitoba, north of there, when I got my wings as an air gunner, the old ferry battles. They first came out, they were supposed to be a fighter aircraft. The damn things, wait a ton of wherever. They lost those aircraft when they first started use them as a fighter. They just lost as fast as they put them in the air. They lost them. and crews, you know.

So they put them into training. Well, then they had the old Anson's and the old two-motored aircraft for guys that were going to be pilots and bomber pilots or whatever, you know. And then they had the Harvard's. They were a single. They were a good aircraft. But as I say, man, you take the, they had a, in a, you know, they had a, in a, number three, I think it was the SFTS in Saskatoon, they flew Harvard's out of there.

And they were a good aircraft, yeah. And the guys had come clear out as far as Rochstown on cross-countrys, you know. And they used to like, well, in fact, we used to, we'd get in this little open turret. all it was something in front of you, but the rest was all open, you know, and you'd be in the wintertime, you know, Christ, it was 20 below or 30 below. And we'd be out, and we would shoot at the air to ground, like out in Lake Winnipeg. They'd put spruce trees in the ice, and you practice shooting that way. Or then they'd be shooting at a drogue that another aircraft. Well, anyway, this day, the pilot, he said that's what he did.

Instead of going overseas, a lot of guys had stuck with flying that sort of crap, you know. Joined up to be a fighter pilot. Oh, I'd say, oh, you're a fighter pilot? No, it flew that damn the air gunners there. But anyway, this day, I probably said, are you all done? And I said, yep, well, I'll settle down. We'll go out a little cross-country.

So I'm hunkered away down in there, and I was just looking out like this. And all of a sudden, I looked at, holy cow, they're going west. They got a high line, you know, those big tall steel towers with power lines. We went underneath them. And then I really got in there. And there's the local telephone line right there, right there. And the snow was swirling out behind us, so then I really get interested. I'd get up and look up straight ahead.

And there was a little black dot up there, and he's getting closer. And here's a farmer up there in a big old buffalo coat. And he's up on a three-deck wagon box, all hunched over going down a trail with a team of horses. And there was a black coley dog run along behind. And we went over top of him. And you buzzed the tower on it. We went right over top of him. Oh, what a dirty thing to do.

Those horses turned around right in the harness front near. And his two feet was out, and I'm sure that dog came out from underneath the sleet and took off across country. Oh, yeah, I thought to the guy. He said, what do you think of that? I said, well, I kind of, I'm a country boy. I don't think that was a very nice thing to do. you know, he could have ruined a team of horses.

But you take those guys that were flying out of Saskatchew, those Harvard young guys, you know, flying under bridges, and there'd be more than one guy lost his life for going under a bridge or one fellow up, the North Saskatchewan, I think it was, one of the other. He decided to shoot up a ferry going across there, but he forgot about the ferry only runs from, cable and he hit the cable and killed himself and the ferry they hit floated away down

river before they got it back they cost them hundreds and hundreds of dollars yeah yeah killed himself hit the cable yeah but those fellows you know they were always chasing cattle and yeah farmers around in the fields that sort of thing and they weren't supposed to some guys would get washed out you know grounded for the rest of the war. Yeah. I'm wondering in the war, there's a couple big moments that always get talked about

Pearl Harbor in 1941. Yeah, yeah, I was at home when that happened, yeah. Yeah. My brothers were still home, too, at that time. Well, you know what, really? You shouldn't say it, but I don't know how long the United States would have stayed up.

out of the war. They might have stayed out of the war long enough that the Allies would have, oh, Hitler and to beat us, you know, because then they entered the war. They had to enter the war. And they started helping out over. Otherwise, before that, no. All they did was sit back and sell arms and machines. machinery, and ammo and everything else. Yeah. We had a lot of guys, Americans, join up with the Canadian forces, came up from there. We had a fellow on our squadron.

Mackie was his name. Mackie was quite a guy. He was our squadron and he was a sergeant pilot. And of course, they always thought that, you know, Canadians are a pilot. If he's the boss, maybe he should be an officer. He should at least be one stroke above the rest of his crew. But Mackey, every time he'd come up to get his commission, he'd pull some prank, and most of it was he'd shoot up the airfield

with a four-motored aircraft. Yeah, he... One day, we were up by the control tower, and the control towers, you know, how it's higher than... That's right. Yeah, he came across there at about three feet off the deck with a four-motored aircraft and pulled her up and went over the control tower. And, yeah, an Air Force girl, she jumped out a window and you seen him come and broke her collarbone. That was so they grounded Mackie then.

And, of course, then he never came up for a commission for quite some time. And when he did, he'd do the same thing again, you know. So he wound up, yeah, after the war, we sent us guys back down to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and who's there but Mackey was there. Still walking along with his boots undone. Yeah, his battle dress undone, and yeah, walked through the, we were down in Yarmouth, and, of course, when you got back to Canada, well, things were. Overseas, you never paid any intention to saluting some officer, you know, because there was so many of them.

But when you got back to Canada, you saluted everybody that was an officer. Over in Yermostov, Nova Scotia, we walked along in Mack, he's got his boots undone and sloppant along there, his battle dress undone, we're through. You should, when you come to the attention area is where the flag was, and you walked through there. You marched through there and you saluted the flag. Well, yeah, that didn't go over when you're overseas, you know. This big car pulled up with a purple flag on it and here's the old groupie. Well, he chewed our butts off, you know.

And Mackie was standing there saluting him, saluting him. Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. And the old guy is in there. And he said, funny, he said, oh, bull. Oh, God, yeah. Those funny things happen. Yeah, that's good. What about 19?

How about D-Day? How was it? I wasn't to the squadron yet, But we were flying on two-motored aircraft and Wellington's. They grounded us. All local air traffic was grounded because the sky was full of aircraft going across. You wouldn't believe, you know, from not having hardly an aircraft

that was worth two cents at the start of the war in 1939. You wouldn't believe that you could put that much stuff in the air. And they're talking about Lancaster's and Halifaxes and American aircraft and two-motored aircraft and the old DC-3s, two-motored aircraft, they were a workhorse, pulling gliders, you know, and it didn't matter where you looked in the sky on D-Day. that you could probably count, I bet you you could count 100 aircraft flying.

And it went on all day and all day, yeah. As a part of the Air Force, did you go, what on earth is going on, or did everybody know what was going on? Oh, you knew what was going on. Yeah, you knew it was D-Day then. As soon as it happened, yeah, you knew it was D-Day. but going across England, you know, that little island, yeah. And you just can't imagine you could build that amount of stuff in, you know, in four years.

You know, it's just mind-boggling to think. Yeah. Yeah. I forget how many Lancasters they built a day in Canada. Well, they pretty much converted every factory. and building. Yep. Yep.

Like everything. No cars. That's right. Yeah. If they were, they were used for the forces, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Was there anything before you left over here in the Rosedown?

Was there any factories or anything? Like, were you guys doing anything to support the war effort? Oh, cripe down east. Oh, yeah. Oh, there was, everybody was busy. Like the girls, that's lots of women went down east and worked in factories in Winnipeg and cities. So moved from Saskatchewan to go out east? Oh, sure. All over. All over Canada. Yeah. Oh, cripe. Yeah. You better not be not busy working because, yeah.

And like over in England there, they had what they call the land army girls. like everybody worked in the land army they did men's work they had a uniform the girls did and they did lumbering and

field work you name it they did it yeah just amazing no no there was lots thousands of women worked that's when girls and women when they

came, what would you call it, came into their own, that they should have been recognized long before that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They found out that they were doing work that men could do quite easy. Like, there was lots of transport drivers over and England were all girls. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, the queen, there she was. She drove transport during the war. Did she? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep She was like If there was something like

Yeah I like the word you use fathom you can't fathom it Right now I cannot fathom what you're talking about I can't even begin to imagine But if there was one piece of advice you could take from being apart And going through that and being You know Canada didn't see the war on its own territory But it was a huge part of the world war

Oh crap Is there something that you could tell the generations now that what would be the advice you'd pass along from being a part of something like that? Oh, uh, you know, I don't know. You're never going to stop wars. It's ridiculous, I know, because look at what we got right now. We got guys, China, Trump, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Russia, Putin there. You know, there's about four guys there

could start a war just like that tomorrow. And then people would be crazy enough to go to fight while that guy sits at home, you know. It's like in the First World War, the generals. Yeah, I think each general, a lot of them were in charge of a certain part of the front line. and I think they would, there was only about one or two of them that were up in the front lines with the fighting men. The rest were all back sitting having tea.

And it's your turn to attack on your salient tomorrow, maybe, you know. And they're like, and so they just attacked, yeah, against strongholds that Germans had. And we lost thousands. thousands of men. Like Vimy cost us how many. Three, four thousand dead. Yeah. Vimy Ridge.

Yeah. And that was really something to take Vimy Ridge. And only lose 3,000, I think it is. And those figures are maybe not exactly right. I forget how many dead. It costs us on Vimming Ridge. Regardless, it was a lot. Yeah, it was a lot. And yet that, to take that well, they'd been trying to take it for, that cost the English, the Allied forces, it cost us thousands of men to take.

It was trying to take a thing that was impossible to take the way they were doing it, you know. Yeah, it's stupid, absolutely stupidness, you know, really. Do you think that another world war then is inevitable? Oh, God. I would, you know, nowadays, oh, yeah, you could just about ruin the whole world with the bombs. Now we have, you know? Christ, you almost clean out the city of New York for Christ's sake with about two bombs. You know, unbelievable. Look at what we did to Nagasaki and...

Yeroshima. Yerashima, yeah. With one bomb, boom. And it's, now we have, they're ten times as great as that, you know, so, yeah. Korea there, that asshole we got out of Korea in there. Oh, well. Oh, yeah, like, shit. Me, they're flying overseas as like a pea shooter.

That's about like a pea-shooter nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever, I was wondering, I was watching a documentary on World War II, and they were talking about bombers going, I think from either side, going over and dropping pamphlets. And did you guys ever do any of that? Yeah, we did a couple. And what were on your pamphlets, do you remember?

Oh, propaganda. Do you remember what the propaganda said? No. Never paid any attention to it's putting garbage. Or the other thing, we did a couple of trips. Out of the bottom of the air crowd was a tube about this big around and about this long. So for people who can't see the size of its size, it's about three inches in diameter? No, about that big around.

Yeah. And about that long. Yeah, and a couple feet long. Halfway down was razor blades stuck on the edge. Well, you took strips of aluminum, you know, the strips of aluminum about that long and that's long, and they were made up in bundles. Okay. So you dropped those in there, and you flew over, and that's when Hitler figured that the main attack on D-Day, You read that.

He said he wouldn't listen to them. Ramel and them saying, they're not going to attack there. They're going to attack down, you know, about where we really did. He wouldn't listen to him. No. It's going to be up there. So one of the reasons is we flew over that thing,

and they call it window. They call that stuff, window. How it ever caught the name of window. So you did. And you just keep dropping these balls. bundles out of there. And there's millions of strands this long would flutter through the air. And you'd get quite a few aircraft dropping. And it would look like the bomber squadron was coming that way. Really? On their radar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It showed up as a bomber squadron.

I had not heard that. Yeah. They call that window. So you'd drop window from the plane So that they'd think that a squadron was coming in over here, but realistically everybody's positioned way over on the other side. So then they'd send their fighters that way to intercept that bomber squad. Absolutely, and they'd get over there and every bunch of tinsel flying. There wasn't any. All of a sudden you quit dropping it and headed for home. But they'd already moved their fighters up to intercept this bomber squad or bomber.

or, you know, yeah, there was all kinds of this stuff going on. Little tricks of the trade. Yeah. So we did that, we did a couple of trips just before D-Day. Yeah, heading that direction, yeah. It was quite interesting. Yeah, so you just had this stuff piled in the aircraft. And just drop it as fast you can.

Bomb hammer, bomb hammer and the wireless operator, they're just popping it up through those, yeah. And there was, yeah, they were quite tightly packed, But as soon as you dropped it in there, the section. Yeah, would pull it right through the razor blades. Pull it right through there and then it just disintegrate. It's quite interesting, yeah. Another thing the boys had sent me was a news article from Yorkshire about a plane crash on at the airbase that you were a part of.

Yeah. What happened there? That was an amazing thing. my son in Erdry was looking at Facebook or one of them and he heard a name on his phone he heard it you know that's familiar so he really got interested and it was the base that I was on yeah how that thing ever got there they said had a quite an experience at the base on this crash aircraft it was us taking off the old

the old Halifax's they had Merlin engines in them and they were war right out and they had a quite a drift to port to left and you're and so you're supposed to counteract that with throttle. You just give more throttle to you. But they were so war out that to get the damn thing off the ground, you had the right through the gate. You had the throttles as far forward as you could get to get them off the ground because they were war out. Well, so here we are. I'm sitting in the rear turret and tails up and we're doing 110, you know, and all of a sudden the you're looking back and there's the runway and all of a sudden the runway goes that way you know and we're taking off across the airfield and

there was an aircraft sitting down there waiting for us to go by well we're heading straight for it so my pilot touched the brakes a little bit and it got too much and we're heading straight towards another aircraft and the only way we're going to miss it is we couldn't go any further to the left So we pulled up the undercarriage and there's a solenoid that the engineer had to stick to some through this hole and trip a solenoid for you to pull the undercarriage up. Well, you're quite a sit in the air, you know, to start with. We're still doing 110, you know, and we dropped and we hit the ground and bounced.

and part of the tail on the port side disappeared, and this big black bundle stuff went flying by, tumbling through the dirt and the dust, and hell, that's the port inner engine. And the diseases we bounced, and then we came back up in the air about 10 feet or so, and the next time we came down we had a gravel pile and the other part to the starboard inner motor

went by on the other side and we finally came to rest right underneath the wing of that aircraft sitting there it was an operational aircraft that had motor trouble and it got diverted to our aerodrome with engine problem or something and he had a full bomb load and a full pet load all and he's got guys standing around there, you know, and the engineers said, you know, even though we were going across the city, he said it was quite funny.

It looked like ants leaving an ant hill because they were running in every direction because here we are coming straight at them, you know. And we stopped a foot from hitting the undercarriage underneath that there. and my pilot, he opened the ski hatch above him, and it climbed up and stood right out on the wing of that aircraft. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm quite a bit of the air. You got out of the aircraft quick as fast as you could

and got the hell away from it in case it caught on fire because usually, you know. Yeah, I dropped out of there and hit the ground running pertinent. Yeah. And that was that crash. Yeah, well, I got the article on my phone. Was that? Oh, okay. Yeah, like it's... Yeah, there's some different things that happened that he hasn't got it in there.

No, it's pretty cool. And it's even got a little write-up on you. Yeah, each one of us says where we're from. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, so Silas Camel was born in August 1924 in Zeeland. Saskatchewan. Yeah. And was working and farming there when enlisted in the RCAF service in Saskatoon on the 9th of June 1943.

He was also posted to the 419 Squadron. And having risen to the rank of W-O-2, he too was recommended for the DFC on the 22nd of May, 1945. When he had flown 35 sorities between the 28th of September, 1994 and the 15th of March, 1945 is a rear gunner. The recommendation also states, this warrant officer has completed 35 operational sororities, the majority of which have been over the most heavily defended targets in Europe. W.O.2 Campbell's cooperation, coolness, devotion to duty contributed in large measure to the successful completion of an operational tour,

and his cheerful confidence has inspired a high standard of morale and his crew and the squadron in general. Yeah, that's putting it on pretty heavy, I think. I don't know. I mean, that's pretty cool for an article to A, B, be stumbled upon like that. Yeah. And then for them to have, you know, in your questionnaire, you always talk about how happy you are to be where you're at and everything else. Yeah, that's for sure.

Yeah. And it's cool that they caught that back then because obviously that hasn't changed now in how many years. Yeah, that would be my pilot and them that wrote that up. That's when they've got the DFCA. Yeah. A lot of it would be from my pilot and my crew, you know. Yeah.

When Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened and the end of the war comes, right, it's all done. Yeah. What were the thoughts of the group? Everybody's ecstatic? Well, see, after I finished my tour, then I went as instructing aircraft recognition. And then we came back to the, we had all joined up to go to the Middle East to fight against. Japan, my whole crew. Okay. But of course we all got split up and if we'd have went, if we'd have went to, if the

war would have kept up, it probably had a whole different crew if we'd have gone to the, we wouldn't have wound up with the same crew again, I don't think, no, because I never seen my guys after that. I seen my bomb aimer down at Yarmouth. but yeah I was in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Then I was instructing. I was supposed to be instructing aircraft, Japanese aircraft recognition.

Good God, I didn't know, and a zero from a ferry battle, you know. And I was trying to tell guys that were flight lieutenants and that sort of thing. The commission guys, they'd already did a tour or two over in Burma and out in there.

They should have been the ones that were instructed, not this kid. I didn't know the first thing about. And boy, when the VJ day come along was I ever happy because I just would sweat every morning I'd have to go to and try and tell these guys what a zero look like, you know, and I didn't have the faintest idea.

That's how stupidly good of the military. can be at time to send this coyote in there. Yeah. So when you come back from over there, what do you, what do you do? That is a tough thing. Boy, I'll tell you. See, you take, a lot of guys were criticized. I was only in for two years, you know. And when all of a sudden, The war's over. Oh, it's like you're out in the middle of dropping out without a parachute. You don't know, what the hell am I going to do? Like, of all this time, you've had somebody tell you what to do.

All of a sudden, you've got to tell yourself, you've got to tell yourself what you're going to do, not have somebody else tell you. So, you know, and that. is a tough thing. You take some of those boys that have been in since 1939 and they never got their discharge till 1945. They had a family at home. They'd never seen. Some kids, they'd never, their kids going to school for God's sake. You know, wife got pregnant, you know, when they left and they're gone for for their six years. And the little child doesn't know them from Adam,

you know. Here's a guy that has been in the same. there and somebody's been telling them what to do all those years. And, you know, when you're learning, you know, when you're a teenager and up to you're 20 years old, you know, 21, 22, that's your top learning portion of your life, you know, what the rest of your life is going to be. And there you are, out on a limb, you know, and the guy standing there with a saw going to cut it off, you know. It's a hell of a feeling.

It is. And I was, I say it, I was only in two years. I didn't have a problem, really. My dad had a moving outfit, so I had something to do when I first got home. I was on home on leave there for a while, for a month's leave, before I went down to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and even after I go out, and this, and, you know, everything you picked up was 50 pounds, you know, jacks and, you know, jacks and, you know, all that stuff, moving buildings. That was tough work. And you weren't used to tough work, you know. That just about killed me. After about four days, I'd make an excuse I wanted to go and see a buddy of mine. Yeah, right. It was just an excuse to get the hell out of there,

so I didn't have to do any work. But it is a heck of a feeling. And especially, and I thought about those fellows that had been, since 1939, you know, and all of those years. Yeah. When we got to Brandon, we had, you were set up in flights, about 55 guys. And then you had a corporal, and you did your basic training. You know how to march and you knew how to salute and all that sort of garbage, you know.

Well, these fellows, those 12 of them, they had joined up when war was first declared. What they did, they gave an old the unfield rifle and they sent them up to the Aleutians in case the Japs came along. They had this old Enfield rifle that if you're scared if he ever got a shell in the barrel, that it was all rusted and they were terrible things. So they're up there for four years. Yeah. And then they sent them down to Brandon to do the basic training. Can you imagine what those guys would be like?

They'd tell, yeah, right. Yeah, I could remember this is getting a little dirty side. The guy was Campbell. His name was Vince, Vincent Donald, and my name is Silas Franklin. Well, anyway, yeah. Vince, he was quite a character. But anyway, so they called him Venerial and me Siff. His VD.

Yeah, and the SF. Yeah. That's pretty good. That didn't last long. You had to, like, in those years, that you're in the war. Obviously, humor had to play a big part of it because you're under so much stress, right?

Oh, fabulous. It was, well, you can imagine what it would be like getting 18, 19, 20-year-old guys together. Yeah. Yeah. It was a great experience. I wouldn't have missed it for my life, you know. Even if I'd have bit the dust.

It was really serious. something and like exciting and scary at times like sometimes we're flying along there and you're in the rear turret and you can look right down alongside of you and there's you know some Ack, coming up at you, you know, and you think, ooh, I wonder if that went away down there's got my name on it, you know, something like that. So there's some times you wondered about, yeah, well, some days you thought you kind of had a feeling that maybe you wouldn't make it.

That trip, you know. I remember my pilot saying one time, of course he's sitting up there, he's got to take his crew into that thing where it's nothing but like ACAC burst, great big. And every once in a while they'd put up a boomer, azoa aircraft, it hit an aircraft. When you get a direct hit and all of a sudden aircraft just goes off like an actual bomb, you know, really, and nothing comes out of it. Just pieces, no parachutes come out. A friend of us, our crew, good friends were flying out there about, yeah, about 300 yards or 100 yards or something like that.

And they got a direct hit one night on a daylight trip. And yeah, and there wasn't anything come out of it. And that really shakes up, you know. That sort of thing really, really hits home. Then you kind of hard sitting there on that hard seat because you figure you're going to get one up your ass, you know. But my pilot, he looked up one day and he said, voice, and he had that feeling that day.

Boy, he said, I don't know if I can take you in there. And that little voice came on, the intercom. Oh, and Osborne was his name. And we called him Ozzy. Oh, Ozzy, you've got to have faith. Yeah, I guess so is it. I think it was my navigator that said it. Nobody owned up to it.

No, you got to have faith, Ozzy. Yeah. So that was it. So those times are pretty scary. Yeah. I should have started it off with this. I'd had a lot of people text me and I thought it when I first knew you were coming on, but I'm so grateful for what you guys did.

Like you're a part of, you know, we get to live in a place that the freedoms we have is just, we take it for granted almost every day. Yeah. But it isn't because of what, uh, Yeah. Went on back then. It might not be the way it is. Oh, hell.

Well, as I say, like my brother there, when you, did you ever hear the story of, did you ever hear the name, Menarsky? I can't say I have. Minarski was a mid-upper gunner. He was, uh, he was on a crew on our squadron. the aircraft, they call it the Monarsky aircraft that's down at Hamilton, the Lancaster that's flying. There's only two Lancaster's flying in the world. The other one's over at Croydon, at the airfield, just the other side on the outskirts of London, England.

The other one is down at... You can go to Nantan, south of Calgary, if you want to see a Lancaster. Okay. They'll taxi it out, and the four motors are running, and it's just fabulous. everything is there we'll have to do that it is and they

yeah they have a time I think it's in September I'd have to find out I wouldn't mind going back well they treated me like Royal because I flew in one I forget I was going to say what the hell was I going to say

it must have been a lie It was a name. Or Monarski. Minarski. Okay. They got hit and were on fire. And the pilot said Minarski was a mid-upper gunner. He said abandon aircraft.

Monarsky goes there was a door halfway back there in that aircraft, back down about here. and he noticed the rear gunner couldn't get his, couldn't get his, he was stuck in there. The damn thing was, they got hit with flak too, and of course, and they were on fire. And I asked he was back in there trying to get it open, I'm trying to get him out, and he couldn't. And he finally in his, and the rear gunner looked at him, he said, hollering out of him, go, go, go. and his clothing was on fire. And he got his shoot was on. He had it on.

And his clothing was on fire. And Benarski walked back and turned and saluted him and jumped out. And his shoot burnt in midair. He lived when he hit the ground, but they died shortly after. The aircraft came down and hit and exploded on it. hit the ground and all the other guys were gone, you know. And the rear turret came off and rolled out away from the aircraft. And the doors flew open and the rear gunner fell out on the ground.

Just a few bruises, can you believe? I cannot believe. That is unbelievable. Yeah. Well, anyway, Audrey and I, my first life, Audrey. 409 squadron was reconstituted up at Cold Lake. And Audrey and I went up there, like the squadron. It was like a, yeah. Well, who was there, but Minarski's crew.

And we got teamed up with them. We found out we were from the same squadron. See, that was in May that that happened when they bailed out and got taken prisoners. And so we spent the evening with them two nights. And Audrey danced. And the funny part was I had seen the navigator. He was big, tall. He had about as much meat on him as that door.

And him and my navigator were friends because he stayed on the squadron as an instructor. No kidding. Yeah. And so he remembered my navigator, Bob Young. Yeah. So we just had a great talk to the rear gunner. Yeah. He said, yeah.

He said, yeah, that didn't take very long to get to the ground, he said. Can you imagine what he'd be thinking? You know, I think this is going to hurt. No kidding. If he was thinking anything at all. Yeah. You know, yeah. Oh, a friend of mine, he got blown right out of here, crap.

He was a rear gunner, too. And it was a beautiful moonlight night. And he got blowing out of there, and he was floating around in the moon. It was between his legs and all of a sudden the moon disappeared over here. That's when he came to and realized that he was floating through space with snow. And they just issued us with seatpacks. The rear gunners had seat packs. They did before that.

They used to, they wondered, they were losing rear gunners. For the simple reason, if they had to bail out and you're going down, you had to turn your thing around and your motorists are probably dead. So you had a little crank there that you had to slowly and your turn it and move around until it's straight in line with your hookah. You pull your doors open, lean back, get your chest pack, your parachute on, put it on, go back in and then turn that little crank till it slowly went around to the back. and then fall out backwards.

Like they thought, then they thought, you know what? You know, I'll bet you if we gave the rear gunners a seat pack like the pilot, you know, it would probably save some guys. No kidding. Yeah, straight. Yeah.

Well, that's what happened to this Bill McLeod. Yeah, so he's floating through space. Yeah, and he came down in the, you know, upstairs. of a house that had the thing blown off. And he got taken. My other guy, friend was on the squadron, he didn't have a parachute when he got blown out of the aircraft there at the rear tier.

And he landed on the, bounced off of a haystack, the only one in the field, and bounced off a haystack out of the ground and wound up with a broken leg or something like that. Nothing matter. Yeah. Got taken prison, yeah. Could you imagine?

How lucky could you get? Yeah. When you come back, how long is it until you start working on the railroad? Oh. What did we say? I started on the railroad in 1948. 1948?

Yeah. What made you decide to go to the railroad? Well, I was working I was down east working in the body shop, and paint got to me. I got pleuracy, so I had to get out of there. Came back out to Meringo, my sister and her husband. He was the elevator agent. Came out there and worked for a guy that had a hardware and a grudge,

and I was running the hardware. And the CN station agent, by the name of Sybil, his name was, just happened to be talking to him one day and if you ever think of going to work on the railroad. I was free and easy. Well, yes, he sent my name in. And so on September the 17th and 1948, I finished up. I quit there. A guy by the name R.B. Campbell, he needed some harvest help so I went running a combine that fall.

And I finished and just pulled him in the yard. was getting it set up to put away for the winter. And the phone rang, and the guy was where he said, the guy Sybil wants to talk to you, he says, yeah, this is, the boat said, you know, you said you're interested going to the railroad work in the railroad. Oh, so I said, my boss said, am I all done here? Well, yeah, pretty well, so I. Oh, I got a chance to go to work on the railroad, co-fanned, he said.

So I said, yeah, sure. this was about 7 o'clock at night I said where do I go to work he said right here in Meringo oh well yeah okay when do I go to when do I go to work he said at 10 o'clock

so you started that night that day 10 o'clock that night didn't know the first thing about it but you go we were talking about this you almost go 40 years on the railroad well from 48 to you said you figured 1986.

Yeah. The year I was born. Is that right? That is. Yeah. I'll soon have as many years on pension as I did working. No kidding. Of course, a lot of guys accused me of shit.

How did you notice any difference from being pensioned off and working? What did you think of working on the railroad? It's good. I loved it. I was a station agent. worked in that. You don't know what that is. A lot of people don't know what it is.

No, you've got to, yeah, school me. Well, you've seen the stations. Yes. Haven't you? Yes. Most of them were at the end of Main Street in the little towns. That's what I did. You handled Express and Freight and Morris,

telegraphy. I knew my telegraphy already, you know. My telegraphy, I knew that. and you were able to copy train orders for trains, you know, give the messages. You sold airline tickets, you sued railway tickets, you know, and so you did all of that. And yeah, and that's what I did for all of those years. Any memorable thoughts on work in the railroad for that years?

Oh, yeah, lots, yeah. Well, I also, I was out at Edson. and I worked there as just a straight telegrapher, you know, in train orders, because everything was done by what they call train orders. These are notes that used to hand up to trains to tell them where you're going to meet a guy, you know, meet a train going the opposite direction. Right. Okay, so then I started out as a train dispatcher. in Edson. I did that for a year, a little over a year.

But that was like an air traffic controller. Same thing pretty well. Yeah. So, yeah, that was too heavy. I couldn't see running trains for the rest of my life, you know. So I figured a station agent's job, I used to relieve station agents on their holidays, you know. Yeah.

Liked it. I got to know of John Doe. public, you know, meeting John Doe Public. I was my own boss. I had a place to live, raised my kids in smaller places, you know. So that's what I did. Yeah. Pretty good life then. It was, yeah. It was a good life, a good life. Yeah. Yeah, you're pretty well your own boss. Yeah. See, I should repeat something for you. You got a piece of paper?

Sure. I'll show you. Okay. Just rip a piece off. Oh, no, just write on the book. Okay. Yep, absolutely. Train orders is what you give to trains.

Okay. As a train dispatcher, you would press and get an operator, say, that was an operator, telegrapher operator at Unity and Wainwright. Okay, so you give trains, so here's a train order. Say it's 106 order number and it's at Unity. Yeah, okay, it's to extra 4315 West at Unity, period. Period. Okay, here's the body of the order.

Extra 4315 meat. Extra 0.52.78 east. Winter, name of the place. And... I know where winter is. That is... How is the age under. Winter for 47. Where are you really? Holy crap. Okay. Sign and your initials.

And my initials was SFC. Okay, so, okay, now you give this to the operator at Unity. Okay, you say, all right, Unity. So the operator at Unity said he has to repeat this. Right. And in the meantime, you're the dispatcher and you're underlining each thing as he says them. Okay, so that there's no mistake. Okay.

Unity says. Order number 106. O&E, N-U-G-H-D-S-I-X at Unity, V-T-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-T-Y-Y-Y-Y-T-Y-Y-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-E-S-C-E-E-S-C-C-E. Do you know what I said? No, I have no idea, but I, I could get the gist of what you're trying to say. Order number, 106, O-N-E, 1, N-O-U-G-H-T, 0, 6, S-I-X. Okay, extra, 43-15, F-O-U-R, T-H-R-R-E, O-N-E, F-I-E-E-E-E-E-W-E-E-E-E-W-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E. Extra. Oh, here I am down here. You've done this already, so you do it again here.

So you say the number and then you spell out the number? Meet extra 5278, a 5E to B-O, S-V-N-E-H-T-E-H-T-E-C-S-T-E-S-T-E-S-T-E-R-S-C. You're quite the word smith, or at least the letter smith. Yeah. You give those, yeah, and as being the dispatcher. you go like as each guy you give this to more than one guy hey that's right you give one to this guy at unity and this guy here at wainwrights and you're making sure trains don't run into each other that's exactly right yeah that's what you used to do you still got it same as an operator yeah all right we took a quick little

break so that uh i can decide if i'm tiring them out or not um i got a bunch of questions that people had asked me to ask you. But there's different, I guess I wanted to go over the 94 years you've been going, almost 95. What is the one thing that sticks out that's happened in the world that when you look back, you just go, oh yeah, that was pretty cool or that was huge, it can be, it can be like TV. It can, the invention of the TV, it can be flying somewhere for the first time. It can be a person, an event. I think maybe the thing that I thought was absolutely fabulous is when they put a man on the moon.

Yeah, 1969. Yeah. I think that was one of the main things that I thought was absolutely fabulous. Really. I've had other things happen but nothing compared to that really, you know, really. Yeah.

I had another person ask, what's your favorite decade? Decade? Yes. Well, I guess the one would be in the 40s. The 40s was your favorite decade? I guess so. Yeah.

There was more inventions made during the war and there was the most exciting time that I had in those two years. I was in the service. And, well, I went on the railroad. I went out on the railroad.

That was quite exciting when I first did, and to be a train dispatcher was exciting. And to have your very first agency that's your own place, you know. And Mary. There in the first 50s in 1951, married for the first time, but went with Audrey for a few years in there. Yeah, that was cool.

That was cool. That was cool. That was 10 years. Yeah. I had a question from Dean Amundit. He said, Sa, you were born in the 20s, survived the Great Depression, went through World War II.

Some of the greatest global changes have occurred in your lifetime. What do you think was the glue that kept the fabric? together back then. Oh boy that's a tough question I don't know how you'd answer that. Like in what way you mean you mean that kept the world going? Yeah, or maybe kept people pushing the right direction because I mean there was you know for a lot of people their sons and daughters and husbands, wives, children, you name it were gone fighting in wars wasn't I don't think the economy by any stretch of the imagination was booming well when you went from the depression when five cents was worth five bucks you know and all of a sudden

you went from there where nobody had a job into the war the war where all of a sudden everybody's got a job. And all of a sudden you went from earning nothing. Like my brother, my brother worked for five dollars a month for a farmer, you know, in the 30s. How much? Five bucks a month. A month. Yeah, and the government gave the farmer five bucks just to take them so he'd have something to do. My brother, so, but the farmer didn't have to give his five bucks. So my brother worked for an old German fellow down in Zalandia there. He worked for five bucks a month and there's

no feed. They fed Russian thistle, green Russian thistle to cattle. Holy moly. And that and my brother said, you went into the barn with rubber boots, not just a pair of lobe. Yeah, that he said, and you didn't walk

around, you know, half in a dream because when a cow lifted her tail, you better start heading for the other side of the barn. But, so we worked for five bucks a month. It bought you a few packages of Vogue tobacco at 10 cents a pack, and five cents for a roll of papers, like Vogue papers for rolling smokes. Yeah, for rolling smokes.

Yeah. So, you went. to a dance, it cost you, yeah. Well, I remember when I was in the Air Force, we went to up to the dance hall in Grand Beach on a weekend. And they had jitney dances, they called them. Every dance you had, you paid five cents each. So you had to have a dollar or two when you went because you'd just go ask a girl or if maybe you would go with a girl from Winnipeg. And so it cost you 10 cents a dance. Yeah.

So, yeah, that was something. But then, of course, then you went into the war and everybody had a job. Yeah, some of them didn't pay that well like in farm labor But all of a sudden the price of Of grain went from Like there was some years that Well in the for an instant show you how bad it was That a guy used to ship your cattle a carload of cattle to Winnipeg to the auction

market. It'd have to go all that way to sell your cattle. Okay, or else you had a buyer come around, you know, would buy your cattle. But if you had enough cattle, you could ship a whole car. One fellow, they said they shipped a carload of cattle to Winnipeg, and you rode in the caboose down there on the freight. And they got into Winnipeg, and they sold, and he didn't have enough money left to pay the freight. They were worth nothing. Yeah, worth nothing. So there were those times,

but that, of course, was in the 30s. But then, of course, the Warriors came along. Well, then all of a sudden everything was worth something. And you went from, as I say, the depression to, well, as I say, like there was more inventions done in those five years that you just can't believe how it could be. I had the next question I'm staring at is Ken Rutherford had asked, what are the one, two or three things to focus on in life?

Well, you would suggest. Well, the number one thing is to be happy when you go to work. and I told my kids that I don't care what you do in life I've told my kids I don't care if you

have a pick and shovel if you're happy if that's what you like then be happy when you go to work in the morning I can't believe you're not on this earth

very long you know really when I think back of it doesn't seem like it's pretty near a century, you know, since I was born. It's just, you're not on this old world very long. So I can't imagine going to work every morning.

Like, I can't imagine working in an auto factory and putting that same damn boat in day after day after day and putting the nut on it. Can you imagine that? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's one thing. Money is not everything, is the other thing. Money won't buy you happiness.

And able to, the other thing is be able to laugh at yourself. There's nobody that's perfect. And I feel sorry for the person that can't laugh or laugh at himself. So those are the three things, I think, are one of the main things in life to go through life being happy. That's really good.

And laugh. Yeah. That's really cool. That was a good question from Mr. Ken. I shouldn't be surprised. He pulled one out. He's a guy who looks. at the life with those, I would say those things.

He's a very happy guy. Yeah. If you could go back to your 30-year-old self, what would you tell the younger you? Oh, crap. Well, I'd probably tell them that same thing. Yeah? Yeah, for God's sake, whatever you do.

Be glad. Be glad that you're alive. Yeah. I said, I do that old thing in the morning. I look, I tell people, I look in the mirror that ugly old bugger. And I say to him, nice to see you sigh. Yeah, it's nice to be alive. My father asks, over a lifetime of memory, what sticks out in your life?

What have you done or experienced that sticks out to you? That sticks out? You talked about them putting a man on the moon, but what have you done in your lifetime that sticks out to you? I don't know. I've been satisfied with my life. I guess I probably could have made a better life. I guess one of the things.

that I think that I should have done in my life was be better with my kids. I was not a great person around children, you know, and maybe that was because I was in, and I did hear that a lot of guys had that problem after being in the service and have a guy barking on your butt, you know, to do something. you had a little bit of a tendency to be too strict with your children. And I'm not the only one. Like, I wasn't real bad, but I thought at times when, you know, I was immaterial, just what you, if you chewed their butt out, you know, for doing something.

That really was immaterial to life, you know. that would be that's one of the things that I I think I've always thought that there's one thing that I was always sorry that I didn't get a chance to thank my grandmother for raising me you know when she was gone when I was overseas like quite she'd been she'd been passed away for over a month before I knew it, you know. And boy, that really shook me up. Yeah. Yeah, I can remember I was sitting in my concert there all by myself one day. And that's when I had heard that day that my grandmother had passed away. and yeah and that's when I got homesick oh and I'll tell you anybody that says they've never been

homesick are lucky because boy I'll tell you you can ball like a baby and I was 20 years old and that's a tough situation to be homesick yeah and kids go through that early yeah but I was 20 years old and I just got a letter that's saying my grandmother passed away and I thought oops yeah and I've thought of that lots of times you know yeah of course when you're 18 years old that you don't think along that line you're yeah taking away about something like that what was the first vehicle you ever owned oh a 1946 Shev What color? Green.

A green. Yeah. Did you buy it brand new? No. No. Hell no. We were married. I lived in winter, for God's sake.

He couldn't afford one for the card's sake. Yeah. Yeah. I was baseball with Newburgh. with Neilberg from winter and Audrey had to stay home with a little one. He said if we had a car, then maybe I could go. Oh yeah, sure.

We went to Turtleford after we got the car, and oh, God, was it hot. And, of course, no air conditioning. And she had Tennessee to be car sick, and so did my oldest girl. It was just a baby. And going up there through the river and up in those hills, you know.

They both got carsick. And then they sat in the car all day in that heat. So that, I didn't last long playing baseball after that. It wasn't, yeah, I didn't laugh about that. I'll tell you, yeah. You probably had a divorce on the road right quick. Speaking of sports, as I'm a sports guy, what sports did you play growing up?

I played hockey when I was in high school and ball, played softball for the team around Salandy. We had a good team. We used to play us guys that were in high school played senior hockey against seniors. And yeah, we played all around there. other than that then I then I took up golf and that's it

when you're playing hockey for the hockey lover and me was it out on an outdoor rink or did you guys have some of it yeah Zalandia down there we played outside like those other little towns like Milden and Sovereign and Harris

and oh, let me see. Delisle. No, God, I think it was Tess here. One of those up there between Roastown. They had another one that had an indoor rink. Laura. Laura, it was, yeah, had an indoor rink. But Rostown, of course, had an indoor rink.

But all of those other little places, they played outside. Sure. double the rank yourself and everything else. Yeah, well, that's usually done for, yeah. How about your goal? The boys would probably take me out back if I didn't mention that you got a hole in one last year. Yeah.

And I heard that might be the second one you've had in your lifetime. Yeah, it was, yeah. I got one on the other hole, number six one time. And... What course is this, Cy? out here. At unity. Both at unity?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never seen either one of them going to hold. I reached down to pick up a tea when the guy's

all started hollering like Rick Blanchett and twid them. It's in. You got a hole in one. Oh, crap. I didn't even see it going. I couldn't see that far. You know, guys play their entire life, never hit a hole in one.

And you do it at 93. That's pretty freaking cool. Yeah. It's luck. Well, I'd have the other one. Don't tell them that. That's skill. I got one last year.

It's all skill side. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, yeah, I can imagine what they'd say, too. The other one was down on number six. I did that one. And, yeah, they had a. And the same thing was there.

They hit the ball and they had the closest of the hole. I had a cardboard on a stick. And it was right in front of the hole. Well, I hit the ball and I hit it left, a bit left. And it hits the green and it's rolling towards the hole, you know. And I thought, well, so it'll probably roll right off. I reached down to pick up my tea and, yeah, it's in. the guy's over and the other tee off.

Hey, you're lucky son of a gun, Campbell. It's in the hole. Yeah, it must. I had one in from Morgan Man. I interviewed him and his brother two weeks ago, I guess, now. And he asked, are we evolving as a people? Are we going the other way? Oh, hell.

We must be going up because we keep inventing stuff that's, you know, there's, I can remember my grandmother saying, and as we've said the whole thing, as you go down through life, yeah, I don't know what this world's coming to. Yeah, I don't know what those kids are thinking. Yeah. You still say the same thing, as my grandmother said. You know, But I don't know what's going to happen with that thing. With the phone. With technology you're talking. Not only that, but what it's going to do to John Doe Public.

Like our kids. I see it. It was showing on TV when they were talking about cell phones. And it shows the guy he's walking along and he's going. going to piece. Oh, he's walking along and he's walking along and he, boing! And you could hear the steel post.

And he just hit that with his forehead and you could hear it go boing and he backed up and moved over and he walked on down the street and looked. Holy. You'd think that's smarten them up? You would think so. Yeah, God.

But I think that's taken away from our kids they can't add two and two and get four you know and I think it's going to ruin them with a conversation with somebody else

you take you go in you go in to pay for something and forget it as far as giving them the extra change with most of it now it's all this tap and card and no money at all no no yeah

well that's right yeah no so you just don't bother you give them 10 bucks and it tells them what change to give you yeah I don't know how that's going to affect us down the road um

Christ right now can you imagine what have we like if we had a Could you imagine what it would be like, say for West of Winnipeg, if we had a major, major power failure, or if somebody shot down our deal up there. Our satellites. Yeah. Yeah, we'd be.

We'd come to a stop. Yeah, we absolutely. Yeah. If a war happened and they. shut up and knocked out some of those things, you know, well, we'd come to a standstill in Western Canada. And especially, you could, you could, you'd take about three bombs in Winnipeg

and you knock the railways out and you got Western Canada stuck. You know, it's, yeah, that's getting, that's getting a little more. But, yeah, somebody's the accent. What do you think of, so a big thing right now is it used to be global warming and now it's climate change. Yeah. What's your thoughts on that?

I don't know. I don't really know about that. I don't know. If maybe it's happened over centuries before us, I don't know. it'd have to be a long time ago if it was but whether that's whether

we have something to do with the global warming I don't know I don't know how about a different one when I was when I was when I first get to vote when you're young and you're 18 you get to vote you don't really you don't understand what's going on

Heck, even at 33, I stole some days, don't understand what's going on. You've had a lot of prime ministers specifically in Canada go through. This current one, Trudeau, for the West at least, has done a lot of damage. And I'm curious over your lifetime, have you seen, like, does this feel like this upcoming election is as big as what I personally think it is? or have you seen this time and time again over the centuries? No, I think this one is, oh, well, I think he listened to his old man. Old Elliot Trudeau. He said, don't worry about, yeah, the money.

Yeah, go into debt, yeah, it'll straighten itself out. And he's got to be thinking the same thing, because look at the amount of money. every time he turns around he's given away millions and millions and millions of dollars. Can you imagine giving Loblaws, what, $1.4 million, to buy a new new things for their store? You know, like, where you put stuff in the deep freezes, deep freezes. Yeah. La Blas. Yep.

1.4 million bucks. The answer to you is no, I can't imagine doing that. Well, it did. Yeah. Like. So in your mind then this is as pivotal as what I think it is this coming election. Yeah. Yeah.

God almighty, I don't know how many millions and millions of dollars we're in the hole now that he's give. Just the amount of money that he's give away. It's, it's, maybe he's old man, Pierre, maybe he had it right. Because I guess you look throughout the world and you look at most countries, they're all in the whole. So maybe it doesn't make any difference. Maybe it's only figurative speech. I don't know. Okay, so four left.

Kelly O'Donnell asked, if Sask people from the Great Depression could give us advice, what would it be? Boy, you're really picking my brain. Hey, I told you I was going to make you think today. Yeah. Well, let's put it this way. I remember and worked in Edson. I would start out the street. That's when you were first married.

I was making payments. You used to, when you got your pay every two weeks, you went and paid the grocery bill. And then every month you paid off all your others paying for your furniture and all of this and that. And sometimes I'd get home after paying off all the bills and I'd have a dollar. If I had ten bucks left for two weeks, wow, we'd go to a show or we'd go bowling or something. And sometimes I'd have a buck left to do for two weeks.

Because you could go and you could charge the other cigarettes or something. If I was smoking, I could charge them down at the grocery store. Then all of a sudden they decided you've got to pay cash. We damn near starved for two weeks. Well, okay. Then it's amazing. When you look around the country and you see houses worth 500 grand.

And a big motorhome sitting there, or a fifth wheel. and a truck with duallys on it to pull it, and a couple of scadus, a CD, they called it, for zipping around the water. Oh, I think, I wonder if that's the way to go, because I never could afford that. Well, you know, they're working for wages too.

You know, they must be a hell of a lot better manager than I ever was. But maybe it's the way to go. They've having all that fun when they're young, when you should be having fun, you know, where no, we really didn't, well, we had fun, you know, when we first married, we had fun, but we didn't have any money to spend to have the fun with. But we had fun, you know. Now, hell, we got the money. Too goddamn to hold to know how to spend.

So does that tell you anything? I'm sure the listeners will take from it what they want. Yeah, live it the way you want it. What was the first motion picture you ever saw? Movie. Movie? Yeah. Oh, I saw Charlie Chaplin and a non-talkie.

In Rostow. In Rostown. And our teacher, when I first started to school, yeah, in 1929, our teacher took 14 of us kids to the show in Rostown. No kidding. The neighbor guy come over with that same old truck that they all went to the lake with, you remember I was saying on July the 1st. Okay, he took us all to Rostown and we went to the show.

And that cost her 10 or 15 cents each. And it was Charlie Chaplin and a non-talkie. And what did you think of that? Oh, fabulous. Oh, God, if I could see, he's due to come on back on here in a week or so. And if I can, I'll probably watch it. He was absolutely terrific, yeah, oh, Charlie Chaplin. Who was your favorite musician?

Or band? Oh. Well, you know what? The ones I used to really enjoy listening to was Don Nesser and his Islanders. I'll tell you what, I'm going to have to Google them. I'll have to look them up. Yeah. Yeah.

Don Messer and his Islanders. What would be the song from them? Or just everything in general. Oh, everything in general. Yeah. Yeah, he had an orchestra. He played all of that, that old country music, you know. Well, I'm a country.

I'm a country guy. You know, I like country music. I find country music is each song pretty well has a story to tell. Like Google here and has country music. Yeah, that's what Dawn Master did. And they were around for years, yeah. Sticking with culture. What was one book you'd recommend to read if you're going to read one book?

Oh. I don't know. Really. Oh, that I really got a kick out of? That it was so I was right there. And that's James Harriet. James Harriet? James Harriet was a vet, a veterinarian.

And he was at Harrogate. just down the road from Middleton St. George where I was on the squadron over in Yorkshire, England. Our number six group was RCAF. There was all those squadrons. The only place they had left to put us, the Canadian said,

we would like our own squadrons. We're flying with the RAF and we don't get a credit for anything and we didn't. Well, we... When my... My brother, he flew with the R.A.F. Royal Air Force. Well, we were just, we were classed as those guys from the colonies, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's what we were. And what was, oh, sorry. So we moved up, they moved us up into Yorkshire. And we were the fog and the rain and that's why we were diverted to other aircraft, every few, other airfields quite often coming back because we're fogged in. But James Harriet was a veterinarian just down the road at Harrogate. And the first time I picked up a small book was Harrogate. James Harriet.

Wow. So I started reading. He wrote, to read the book is all short stories. Okay. and you would swear you're right there. You know, like for instance, he's telling about, he's out in Yorkshire and, oh, God, the farmers, they're, you know, dirt poor. And the fence lines were poles that were like this, you know,

or else all rock, you know. And he was out there, and the cow was trying to have a calf. And so they got her down, and so he's laying on her. head holding her down and he said the other know he said to the old farmer he said they don't know he said I got her down he said you pull the calf and the old farmer he said I glad I cannot pull the cough he said well get Alec there you hired man Alec was a little short Alec the little cuss he couldn't pull the skin off a custard

But, yeah, James Harriet, if you get a chance to read the best of James Harriet, you'll laugh because, and there's nice things. Like, you could go to bed at night and take the book and you can read a whole story. I'll have to take a look into that. Yeah. All right, I know I said four now I'm probably past that, and everybody's probably laughing at me. I got two more. I've got to get to one more by Kelly O'Donnell. He said, if SaaS people from the great, oh, no, not that's SaaS people.

I'm reading the same one. What have been the biggest impact on rural Saskatchewan? Electricity or going from horses to a tractor and car? What do you think was the bigger change? Oh, power. Power? Power in rural Saskatchewan. Yeah?

Yeah. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Tractor definitely too. But not all guys could get a tractor right off the bat, you know. But power came in. to rural Saskatch. I remember I was out of winter in 1954 when the power came in. 700 bucks got you power. You signed up for it right away because we had an old guy there.

He always had it in for winter and he knew that the power was going to have to come through his property and if he didn't take it, you had to have so many on the line, you know, or they wouldn't put it in. Well, he was very close. to it and he figured if he stopped him from going on his property then winter wouldn't get the power well anyway went along and everybody went through in seven hundred bucks and we got the power and he went right past his barn you know well then he decided oh oh if if I can't stop my guess I might as well get it well they said well no you're not going to get it at 700 it's going to cost

you're $2,100. There's something about it. And the laugh was on him. But I can remember that. Oh, so when the power came in, you'd drive to the country at night. And of course, everybody had every light on it they could. They had, you know, all the main lights out on your pole, yard lights, you know. They'd all be on and yet the lights would be all over.

be all over. Must have been quite a sight. It was. It was really something. Yeah. Because we, Audrey and I drive down to Alsace, you know, and late at night always when you're going there, you know, pretty well.

And there was lights in the whole country. And especially at harvest time, you know, you're combine lights on and everything. Yep. Okay. A final one. A fun one I like to do with all my guess is if you had a time machine, and you could go to one sit front row at any event. Where would you go?

What's your event in history? Ha ha ha. You mean a sport? Anything you mean? Anything. You take me wherever you want to go aside. Oh. Well, I've been there before,

but I'd go back down and watch a Blue Jade game, and we might do that this summer. Yeah? Yeah. Would you go to the one where they win? Oh, it don't matter. Okay. Well,

I think if you had a time machine, you can go to a Blue Jays game. That's what you're saying? Yeah. So you might as well go and see the one where they win it. Yeah, don't. How the hell do you know who's going to, if you're going to win or not? Well, that's the lovely thing about a time machine. You can go to the exact day.

Oh, a time machine. Yeah, I suppose, eh? Never thought of that. Yeah, time machine. Go to wherever you want. You go to a Blue Jays game. Because that's what I mean. You can go as far back in history as you want.

You can go wherever you want. No. No. that's not right. I always wanted to go to Vimy and I have no idea why I didn't go. My son just went to Vimy and I couldn't believe it

when he said he was going to go to Vimy because he never seemed like he was interested in anything as far as me being in the service at all. And he said to me, do you want to go to Vimy? Yeah, I want to who'd like to go to Vimey. But I don't think I could if I was going myself, but Irene has trouble walking.

She don't like to admit it. And there's quite a bit of walking if you go to Vemmy. So I haven't. If I had that thing, I would go to Vemmy, and I'd go back over to my brother's grave. My brother's buried in. Harlingen. Harlingen. It's up in Northern Holland. He was shot down there by a night fighter over the island of Texel. And it's amazing how the Dutch people knew what the hell was going on at

night. They knew that my brother had been shot down over there. He was the only one, his body, was the only one that, and it washed across the Ziderzee. About 10 days later, they picked up Mudbother's body on the shore. And, well, you know what kind of shape you'd be in, you know. And he's buried in the little soldier's plot like we have out here at the cemetery. In the municipal cemetery at Harlingen, H-A-A-R, they have a way of saying that, that double A like, but H-A-A-R-L-I-N-G-E and Harlingen. And Audrey and I went over and stayed with host family over there.

We were able to go because the Legion, the Wargraves Commission, and the Dutch people made it monetarily available to Canadians who they give. credit for their freedom. We went up there, he took us up, drove us up to Harlingen, and we met the people that look after my brother's grave. We met them, we took them out for brunch, and they assured us that my brother's grave would be looked after by their families down through the years. And there's not a bleed of grass out of place in that. On my brother's grave, or all of them that are in there. There's quite a few in it.

But it's amazing how we walked in and we didn't know where it was, you know, so I thought maybe we'd find the guy that was looking after the place. You know, they're usually a guy like we do here in the summertime. And there was a little short Dutchman and finally coroner. and finally cornered him way over there and was able to converse enough. Ah, Canada said, yeah. And he said, ah, I thought so about your voice. And I said, my brother, Donald Edward, yeah.

Come. So he takes me over. He said, it's down that road there. Yeah. And so I took this picture. And then those days, when you sent their film in to get it developed, it would come back about this big.

But on the side was another small picture, just a little one, the same picture. So my brother was going over to see, his son was over at Lara, Germany in the Air Force. And this is my brother, the other brother, you know. And so he was going up there. So I said, here, I give you this picture. This is about five years later.

Take this picture and see if this little guy is still working there. My brother went in and he found him and he walks over and he said, Ah, he showed him his picture, his picture. He said, Ak, Kambo from Canada. Yeah. That's how much they think of Canadians. Like, he could have just forgot that, you know. If that had been American, he wouldn't even talk to you, you know. And my sister went over another, well, it's only about three years later.

And same thing, yeah. He knew she was my brother's sister. Yeah. Amazing. Well, I really, really appreciate you taking. time. I hate to, I'd probably keep you here until eight o'clock at night, but I've got to get you fed here at sometime. Yeah. Well, that's really something. That's, that really choked me up to go and see my brother's grave. We were closer together than my older brother. Yeah, he was away working,

you know, before. My brother, Donnie, he had, I don't know what you call. I don't know what you color hair. It's brown and yet it's like a burgundy, you know, you might call it. But at a temporary and freckles fight, loved fight. In fact, the last time my brother, they got together over there. Before I got over there, they'd been into town and they got on two buses coming home in this RAF air drill. And the brother didn't come and he's seen them in bed. morning. That's the last, he's seeing him in the jays. His eyes were black and it's, yeah, he had a hell beat out of him. Yeah, he got fooled around and he took about five guys on and he said to Fred. Yeah, I took three of them down. That's the last, my brother saw him. He took three of them

down, Jesus. Fred said, oh, he's in bad shape. Yeah. But those people, yeah, they, that was really something to take care of my brother's grave, yeah. Yeah. I'd like to go to Vimy. I have, I have a...

Feeling I'd take my other son from herdry. Just the two of us go. Irene would probably leave me. But that's it. Thanks again, Sigh. Okay. Hey, guys. I hope you enjoyed Sye.

I just want to thank Sai for coming on. That was for him to talk about World War II and open up like that. It's, you just don't get conversation like that. Well, maybe never in a lifetime nowadays. But I really appreciate Cy coming in and stories and how things were back then. Next week, I have Jackson Kaluwski and Bryce Kindop. Bryce plays for the Everett Silver Tips and Jackson plays for the Seattle Thunderbirds.

They're going to talk about growing up in the city of Lloyd. They were on the same team that went to the Tellis Cup and Midget AAA, and then what it took to get to the Western Hockey League, what they do in the off-season, their training, and just some other cool stuff about two young kids playing hockey still. So tune in next week. We'll see you then.