Description
Joseph Anatole Côté hid for 80 days in Holland. He recounts a funny culinary anecdote and his meeting with a German deserter.
Joseph Anatole Côté
Mr. Côté was born in Quebec City on October 7, 1917. He studied forestry engineering at Université Laval. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force to become a pilot. He started his training in Trois-Rivières, then went to Trenton. He was then sent to England and began his career as an airfield controller but was soon assigned as a pilot on several missions, particularly the famous Market Garden operation and another mission over Germany which led to 80 days of exile…
Transcript
ANECDOTES ABOUT HOLLANDAt one point, before going to the farm where there were German soldiers, we were in a wooded area nearby for a couple of days. There was an underground shelter there that someone had dug and we lived in it and . . . a deer came along. . . I followed it with my revolver, damn, I wanted to shoot it. But I said, if the Germans hear the sound, they’ll come running.WE LEFT OUR HIDEOUT TO GO LIVE WITH A FARMER’S WIFEWhen we got to the farm, the Germans killed the deer and brought it to the farmer’s wife, Mrs. [Osterink] and I think she served the best parts to us [laughter]. It was funny.I MET A GERMAN DESERTERWhen we were hidden in the woods once . . . when I was watching the deer, there were Germans, deserters, in the same woods as we were. And there was one . . . I smoked a pipe myself at the time? he had tobacco. So we paid him a visit from time to time. We called him der Führer . . . for a joke, you know. He laughed, too. He told us he was an insurance agent, before the war. He was ordered to serve . . . do his military service in 1937, and he said, “I was fed up with military life, and the war . . .” so he deserted. He wrote to me after the war. I had given him my address, and he wrote to me. He wanted to come to Canada. I looked into it in Ottawa. But he was in communist territory . . . They didn’t want to hear about him coming here. They said, “Impossible . . . Impossible . . .” So I don’t know if he succeeded in coming to Canada later, but I never heard about him again . . .