Description
George Couture
Mr. George Couture was born in Pennsylvania, United States on November 5, 1924. At three years of age his widowed mother moved the family of five children to Selkirk, Manitoba at a time when Canada was experiencing the Great Depression. Signing up to serve his country, Mr. Couture tried two times and on his third attempt joined the infantry with the Winnipeg Rifles. He traveled overseas on Isle de France and through coincidence this was the same ship he returned home on after the war. Mr. Couture volunteered for service which resulted in him being part of the D-Day invasion on June 6, then on June 8th was captured as POW. Spending time in the prisoner of war camps and suffering the life of starvation and disease, Mr. Couture survived and was liberated on April 23, 1945. Returning home to Winnipeg, Mr. Couture continued to serve in the military and volunteered for the Korean War. After thirty years military service he retired from the Canadian military. He now resides in Calgary, Alberta.
Transcript
Interviewer: And looking back during that time what about some of the worst moments, I can guess, but tell us what some of your worst times were?
You know, It’s the dirty, you’re used to being a farm boy, clean all the time and we’d be so dirty we had English sweaters and when we took those sweaters off you could run your fingers down and leave a trail of blood from these lice sucking it out of you. The dirt and the bed bugs, that’s another thing too. And then to see the men, they just died from starvation, you know, the older prisoners that had been there.