Nationalities in War

Heroes Remember

Nationalities in War

Transcript

Because there was so many different nationalities... there was the Russians. You had the Yugoslavs. You had the Dutchman, which at the time were classified by the English as being a bunch of dope. You know, they didn't like the Dutchmen at all. And you had some Belgian. You had French. And we had our own area, see. The Russians used to be in the corner, and they'd be cut off from from us, you see. They didn't want the Russian to associate with us. Then the, the whole camp was divided into sections, you see. The French were here and the British were here along, along the road, and we were on this side of the road. And the... then they had the air force. They always had trouble with the air force. They were, they were... because we were taught to, to escape and stuff like that, so they had them by themselves. And I was figured, the hell I'm going to go with the rest of the, the, the air force, I'm going to go with the British. So, I went with, with the, with these fellas from North Africa, the British 8th Army they called it, tall fellas. They were all guardsmen, you know. So, I liked it there with them.

Description

Mr. Cormier, talks about all the nationalities that fought in the war and what was different about all of them.

Laurie Cormier

Mr. Cormier was born November 26, 1921, in Moncton, New Brunswick. He was the oldest child of seven boys. His father, who passed away when Mr. Cormier was 12 years old, worked as a clerk in the general office for the railways. When Mr. Cormier's father died the family moved to Dieppe to live with his mother's sister. Mr. Cormier attended the Academy School on Church Street in Moncton at the time making it all the way to high school.

Mr. Cormier first joined up to be a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was accepted and did his first solo along the St. Lawrence but because of his lack of education he was scrubbed out. He did qualify as a gunner and after three months of training was called to serve in Europe. Leaving from New York he travelled to England via the Queen Elizabeth II.

Mr. Cormier served as a gunner aboard the Halifax aircraft and was on a bombing run over Europe when his plane was attacked and subsequently shot down over Germany. He was able to parachute to safety and after two days he was captured and interned in a POW camp. He spent the rest of the war in the POW camp. At the end of the war he was transported by American troops from Germany to Belgium and then to England by the Royal Air Force. Mr. Cormier stayed in England waiting for permission to travel to Canada, travelling home aboard the Isle de France landing in Halifax, before travelling home to Moncton where he was met by his whole family at the train station.Mr. Cormier took advantage of the financial assistance given to returning Vets and went back to school attending the Success Business College in Moncton. He was able to get a job on the railways in the Engineering Department and stayed with them until he retired.

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