Description
Mr. Terry explains a typical day in the Congo working in communications and on guard duty.
Bob Terry
Bob Terry was born on May 30, 1936 in London, England. He remembers walking in London and seeing a sign saying “come to Canada” and that is when he decided to join. After basic training in Trenton he was posted to the Congo. Later Mr. Terry went to Cyprus where he served with the Royal Signals maintaining radio masts for the British. After leaving the military he worked as a salesman and a commissioner.
Transcript
I was into Communications and during the course of the day I got out of bed and after I would go straight on guard duty and then when I was finished I would go to work. I was working in what you called a tape relay at that time. Where teletype messages would come in and they would be re-routed to wherever they were supposed to go. There’s a hub..., and you did your eight hours in there. You got something to eat then you went on guard duty again. For three or four weeks at a time we didn’t get more than about three hours sleep in a row, because we were either at work or doing guard duty, which was necessary because we were expecting to be attacked. And you didn’t really know by whom or with what or how they were going to do it. When we’re at work it was the FN C1 and when we were wandering around loose, for want of a better word, it was a Sterling submachine gun.