Description
Mr. Daniels expresses his opinion on how black people were not so willingly received into the service.
Welsford Daniels
Mr. Daniels was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 14, 1920. In 1923, the family moved to Montreal where his father was employed with the CNR. Mr. Daniels joined the Reserve Army in 1939 and served with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals during the Second World War. His work in the army involved repairing all types of electronic equipment for all the communications, and staying close behind the front lines to report casualties of war. After his service, Mr. Daniels attended Sir George Williams University in Montreal and graduated with a degree in commerce. His love for sports led to extensive travel throughout the world. In 1986, Mr. Daniels retired from a career as manager of the Immigration and Manpower Department and later moved to Ottawa.
Transcript
The wars, they did not take as many from the ethnic groups as they are now. And the large numbers of coloured people were only apparent in like Nova Scotia, and Montréal and Toronto. Maybe a little bit of the area of Vancouver too, might have been sensed too, you know. There were certain stories coming out of some branches of the services that blacks were not needed or not wanted, I forget how they phrased it. I’m probably putting the wrong emphasis on the word here but they were not as popular areas in which the coloured or blacks would want to serve. Army was an area where there were a lot more coloured presentation rather than the Air Force and that, but during the very same period there were coloured airmen, there were coloured seamen, so I think there were. . . . The stories that we heard were just probably occasional stories where some areas they did not receive the other ethnic groups so willingly.