We went to Jamaica

Heroes Remember

We went to Jamaica

Transcript

In 1940, April of 1940, they took us to Jamaica When I first went to Jamaica I cried for a week I cried my eyes up This is the first time I've been away from home and we went to Halifax and we got, the Lady Drake was the name of the boat, and when we were going down to Jamaica we heard on the radio of the Germans, the Germans saying that the Canadians heading for Jamaica was sunk by a German submarine and all hands was lost on ship so we didn't know what was going on with the Germans announcing it over the radio and I was quite scared at the time. I thought gee, they must have been just propaganda or something, because there was an awful lot of different stories coming from the Germans and from all over, different propaganda stories and that.

Description

Canadians heading for Jamaica for garrison duty heard some disturbing propaganda on the radio.

Gordon Durant

Gordon Durant was born on December 20thth 1921. Things were busy for him and his 7 sisters and 4 brothers growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan. His father lived most of his civilian life with a disabling injury from the First World War. Mr. Durant left school after grade eight to help out around the farm before joining the army at age 17. After completing basic training, he was sent to Jamaica for garrison duty and then to Hong Kong where he was captured by the Japanese. He spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong and Japan where he worked in the mines and on the railroad.

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