Description
Robert Arthur Champoux
Mr. Champoux was born in Hull, Québec on March 21st, 1921. He lived there until the age of 8 when his father, a First World War Veteran, moved the family to Ottawa. Mr. Champoux had three brothers and four sisters; he was the third oldest child. When the war broke out he was attending Ottawa Technical High School. He left school, after his first year, to join the Army after failing to join the Navy and the Air Force (who were not yet recruiting). He left for Europe July 17th, 1940 and ended up stopping in Iceland where he remained for the next 10 months. Mr. Champoux’s wartime service saw him fighting on D-Day and in the Falaise Gap. He also fought in Calais and later on in Holland where he was wounded. Mr. Champoux got a job with the Mint upon returning to Canada. He joined the army again in 1948 retiring in 1965.
Transcript
The reason I just said the, that we went to Wales and also Inveraray we were firing live ammunition and it was constant and very, very hard training. For instance, up at Inveraray on that estate there was a, this huge mountain and they had a, they had a sort of a look out up on top there, it had nothing to do with the war. But that was there. We had to climb that thing before breakfast in the morning. See, we had Nissen huts in the back and that’s where we were sleeping, staying and our training took part going up and down that bloody hill. And the ranges, firing over in the sea with the machine guns and I, I found it very pleasant except the fact that it was pretty hard to go up and down those mountains, before breakfast. And we knew that we didn’t know for sure, but we knew there was something in the air, once you start doing that kind of training.