War - A Great Life Experience

Heroes Remember

War - A Great Life Experience

Transcript

You’re young, you’ve got lots of energy, you’re usually optimistic, you know. Nothing can hurt you, and you go in with that attitude, and everything is really a ball. I mean, sure there’s dangers, but after that, there’s lots of fun, too. And most people will say that, even though they went into a lot of very dangerous things, they’ll most likely tell you that that was the greatest experience they’ve had in their life. And the same with myself. It was a wonderful experience. And seeing a lot of places, seeing a lot of people, and I got home without being injured. So I’d do it again, yeah. Canada did a good job with what it had. Unfortunately, Canada has to depend on other nations so much for what it has, whether it has radar or ASDIC or all these things, especially during the second great war. They were one or two down the line, so that the best radar, the best ASDIC, the British took and then when the U.S. came in the war they got a lot of the better things that they didn’t have, before us. It was sad to hear what some of the fellows on the corvettes had to go through because they didn’t have good equipment. As a navy, we had a navy every bit as good, so far as morale and trying to do their job, as any navy.

Description

Mr. Jervis expresses his pride in the Canadian navy’s participation in the Second World War, and states his service was one of the greatest experiences in his lifetime.

Rea Jervis

Mr. Jervis was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, the youngest of six. His father came to Canada from Ireland to work on the railroad. At age 18, Mr. Jervis enlisted with the Royal Canadian Navy. Shortly after enlisting, the Canadian government agreed to send 1,500 Canadian sailors to Britain, to man the British cruiser HMS Belfast, and Mr. Jervis was one of those sailors. As a result, he became a member of the British fleet and found himself on a convoy to Murmansk, Russia. He was a torpedo man aboard the HMS Belfast and the HMS Uganda until the HMS Uganda was re-commissioned by the Canadian government. After the war, Mr. Jervis studied accounting and worked with the Public Service for 35 years. He then transferred his family from Winnipeg to Edmonton, where he operated his own company, Edgewood Batting Ltd.

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