Training

Heroes Remember

Training

Transcript

The, the battalion was moving to Wainwright and that again was another nice experience for us, young person like myself. It was a troop train all the way from Ipperwash well right to Wainwright, Alberta. It was about a 4 or 5 day, I remember on the train it was nice. Oh we got there, it was a new camp. The camp was brand new when we got there, they built a new part to that camp. We were, we were really at home then, everybody liked it so. We did we started out advanced training then. Interviewer: What do you remember about the other young men that were there with you? What were, what were they like? Well basically, well they didn't know how old I was, but I was their size. That's why they accepted me. I was pretty big for my age and they, they were good guys, good buddies. 4 or 5 guys hang out together and go to the canteen for beer when we got paid, basically stuff like that, but they were all pretty good guys. Interviewer: You're still 15 years old roughly at that time? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't know, know, nothing happened. From there on we went to my company went on to Jasper for mountain training and you know then you could start you know feel the, the what was going to go on. Some of them were selected for advance party to, to the first battalion then we started understanding what was happening. The first battalion was in Korea, we were going to relieve them and we got, we did 2 weeks in Jasper came back. That's the way it was happening, the battalion was doing 2 weeks, companies were doing 2 weeks they'd come back and relieved by another company until it was all done all ready to go. So then we start packing (inaudible). Interviewer: By this time your parents were aware that you were in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and you were under age. What could they have done? Well they, they you know my Mom told me she said I should get you, get you out of here, get you out of that. Dad went through it, that's enough and I said "no, no". So it went on like that and I went on to Korea. Well not Korea we went to, from Wainwright we went to troop training in Seattle then we got on a boat from there. Interviewer: What do you remember about the voyage across? Well I, I enjoyed it actually. We were on there for quite a while, about 14 days I presume and I remember the last, getting out at Yokahama a lot of work in the kitchen downstairs. And I knew what I, and I still know what I was doing. I was frying bloody minute steaks, tubs of them. There was five thousand men on that ship and I don't know how many grills we had and all we had to do was singe them and then they'd, they'd put them in a big pan and then they'd put sauce on them you know, bake them. I remember that quite clearly because it's, it's really deadly with the, with the you know the, when you want to singe them, they really singe them fast. Interviewer: Where did the boat, the boat eventually land? In Yokahama in Japan and we didn't stay on the boat too long. We were, we were anchored out we got in at night, early morning and I, when I finished working in the kitchen, I went up and I could see the lights eh at Yokahama and we were stopped. We, we pulled in that morning and then we were out, were on the troop train again to Hiro, Japan. That's the Japanese, used to be a Japanese naval base. Actually that was suppose to be where the bomb was suppose to be dropped in Second World War, but they went on because of the wind eh. We did some more training in, in Japan too. I recall, had a few bottles of beer. Yeah.

Description

Mr. Petit received six months' basic training in Ipperwash, Ontario then moved west.

Claude Petit

Claude Petit was born on October 31, 1935, in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. He had one brother and a sister who passed away shortly after her birth. Mr. Petit's family has a long history of military service; his father fought in the Second World War and many other members of his family participated in conflicts dating back to the Riel Rebellion. Mr. Petit enlisted in the Korean War at the age of 16 and served with the 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry.

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