Seasick Soldiers

Heroes Remember

Seasick Soldiers

Transcript

And going over to Italy, I had never seen so many seasick sailors in my life. I should tell you that coming from England to Africa, we were on a ship that had been sunk twice, once in each war. And it couldn’t keep up with the convoy at all. And they couldn’t broadcast anything because you know, the Germans would hear it. So they’d have to send some kind of a battle ship back every day to see where we were. The Duchess of Bedford was the English name on it. But the Dutch had redone it and the Volendam is what they called it. We were downstairs in the hold and, well, we thought it was terrible. It smelled when we went down there, and all we had was hammocks to sleep in. Of course, hardly any of us had ever seen a hammock and that night some of the guys tried to get in the hammock. Of course they fell off, but I managed to stay in mine and just as soon as the lights went out, it was just swarmed with rats. And of course, Alberta boys and that never heard of a rat or never seen one. About the third morning, we had to go up on about the third deck to get breakfast and there was twelve of us at a table. Two went to get the meals every time, somewhere, to another part of the deck. And the third morning, there was one French boy with us, and he was the only one at the table. And he says to me, “Can you get breakfast?” in French. And he said, “ I don’t feel so good.” So when I come back with breakfast, there was nobody there. Two of the boys never did come back. They were in the sick bay all the rest of the journey. Well, we knew they went to the sick bay, but where that was, we had no idea. You know, the brass fittings and that were just all rusted as though it had never been looked after. Well, we were sure it was going to sink. We had life belts or whatever they were, but we’d never get out of the hold anyway.

Description

Mr. Kocher describes his unpleasant voyage aboard the Dutchess of Bedford from England to Africa and the amount of seasickness experienced by the soldiers.

Lyle Kocher

Mr. Kocher was born in Clive, Alberta on June 2, 1918. He was the youngest in his family with three brothers and two sisters. After six years of school he decided to quit and help his father with farming. As a young boy, Mr. Kocher joined the Royal Fusiliers of Edmonton Reserves. He enlisted in Edmonton and then went to Calgary for basic training. Mr. Kocher spent much of his army life in Italy and Africa. After returning home he wrote a book about being a Canadian soldier during the Second World War. In it, he shares his story of lost innocence and self- discovery.

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