Description
A hard fought battle, Mr. Charland provides detail as to what the soldiers were faced with during patrol, a very tense battle.
Claude Charland
Mr. Claude Charland was born February 27, 1929 in Montreal, Quebec. As an only child and born during the Great Depression, Mr. Charland was placed in a boarding school in hopes of experiencing a better life. After obtaining a high level of education, he made the choice to join the military. In 1948, he took part in the Canadian Officer Training Corp and underwent infantry training in Camp Borden followed by additional training in Val Cartier. In 1950 the Korean War started and Mr. Charland became an instructor for francophone officer recruits. In 1951, joining as a callout, Mr. Charland chose to be part of the Korean War. He joined with the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment and upon retirement held rank of Lieutenant. Mr. Charland holds great pride for his service during Korean War. In 2018 during the Korean Olympics, Mr. Charland had the great honour and privilege to be the torch bearer as part of Team Canada and carried the torch 100 metres through the rink grounds where he had served and played hockey many years before. Mr. Charland retired from the military in 1982 and remains very active in his community.
Transcript
In the summer the North Koreans had requested peace talks would start. And, of course, that influenced the type of war game that was going on. The battalion, for instance, was committed to very difficult battle and the one before Christmas was the battle, Hill 355, pretty well know a Lille Jabarter which lasted five days for them. That was very, very painful, very hard and they stayed there. And by their stay on the side of 355, they allowed the Americans who had to leave the position to come back and reoccupy it. And that was the last big one. The last big, big one for our battalion, let’s put it this way. But after that it was not because it was not big, it was not easy. Well they called this the war of patrols at that time. And patrolling you don’t do that normally during the day, you do that at night. You are in pitch dark all the time. You have to have a third sense or a fifth sense or a tenth sense to be able to feel what may be happening or what could happen. And then during the day it’s different because you get shelling. You see the enemy, he sees you too! So that’s about the size of it. That was the hard time about it, yes, at that time.