Description
Mr. Downe talks about what some of the dispatch messages he delivered might have been about.
Russell Downe
Russell Downe was born on February 26, 1924 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He joined the army when he was just seventeen, following in the footsteps of his two brothers, Edward and Robert, who were already overseas. His training took place at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Mr. Downe worked as a motorcycle dispatch rider for most of the war where he was responsible for delivering urgent messages.
Transcript
Top rank news, high powered, what would you call it, news that couldn’t be put on the air. It would be, say between one general or one brigadier, and a general or whatever. But it had to be hand delivered, in case of course the enemy would find out what it was. And, if they did, lots of times, there was buzz, if Europe was going to attack somewhere, say five o’clock in the morning or four o’clock, this would be about support fire that they didn’t know they were going to have, things like that. Then they’d go in and know that artillery would be with them. They couldn’t pick up a phone and tell them that because Gerry would be listening too. So, these are the kind of dispatches you delivered. They were the most tricky part of a dispatch riders job.