Description
Mr. Moulton describes the heavy demands on the Ordinance Corps in preparation for D-Day.
Donald Moulton
Mr. Moulton was born in Tobique, New Brunswick on March 29, 1923. As both of his parents were ill, he lived with relatives and attended different schools. Unable to find work in Canada, Mr. Moulton worked in the United States in both the lumbering and manufacturing businesses as a seasonal employee. He enlisted in the Army and shipped overseas as an infantryman. However, after developing foot problems, Mr. Moulton was transferred to the Ordinance Corps where he served as a truck driver for four years, transporting goods throughout Great Britain. In 2005, he took part in the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey to France and Belgium. Mr. Moulton currently resides in Tobique, New Brunswick.
Transcript
Like I say, I got …when I was in the infantry, I got categorized, my feet went bad on me, eh, so they transferred me into Ordinance. They asked me if I wanted to drive. Said, “Sure.” Like I say, I’ve said before, they gave me ten days course, and from then on, I drove trucks. They’re loaded with whatever they have and it’s all covered anyway. We don’t know what we’re taking, might be ammunition or whatever. And we take that to the, sometimes to the port. And then from port, ships will take it over and they grab it from over there. And sometimes they bring the old wrecks back and we’d have to drive them back to our Ordinance Depot. The roads were good. They were not very wide, but they were good. There were never any bad roads at all. It don’t get cold like this over there, eh. Not that much frost. No frost at all, I can remember. I was driving truck before D-Day. And at that time, boys, we were driving day and night, eh, getting truck, getting up through the front and stuff like that, and we never stopped. Seven days, we kept on going. Never … couldn’t even clean up, wash your clothes or nothing. Finally one day, once one fellow got so tired he went to sleep and they couldn’t wake him up one morning. They had to get a doctor to wake him up. So from then on, they made sure that we get one day a week off to clean up, wash our clothes and get a rest. But before that, we was going steady, going day and night. We’d get home midnight and around 6 o’clock next morning, we were on the go again. Kept on going, day after day.