Enlisting and Training
I was too young for the war; in ’39 I was 17. My father bought a
house in Buckingham, with a friend from the mill there, a
childhood friend, a wonderful man. He charged 10 bucks a month,
I think. Then he moved out West, to British Columbia and in the
end, we inherited a fine house, five bedrooms, on a beautiful
corner lot in Buckingham. So we moved to Buckingham. I said to
my father, “I want to enlist.” And coming from the Gaspé
Peninsula, the draw of the sea, the open wind, y’know, I always
felt that way, I still do . . . My father said to me, “You’re
bilingual but not enough. You’re going to go to Buckingham High
School.” So, I went to Buckingham High School, I passed my grade
twelve,. And then I enlisted. I enlisted here in Ottawa, at
Cummings Bridge . . . And since I was bilingual, they put me in
the divisional corps. Then three days later, they sent me to
Québec because there were French Canadians enlisting in the
navy, like me in fact. And there, well, contact with me who was
bilingual, made things a lot easier, y’know? I did my military
training in Québec. There were no barracks. We boarded in town.
My training was on the Plains of Abraham, next to the armoury in
the former Quebec Winter Club, that they had rented to the army,
then to the navy during the war because there wasn’t time to
build training centres. The training . . . I really liked the
training. I’m that type of guy. It was on the Plains of Abraham
and next to the armoury. The 22nd Regiment was there and it was
a marvellous place. Y’know, you see all the towns nearby, the
St. Lawrence River, you see the big ships go by. Our training
consisted of running, of course. We ran on the Plains of
Abraham, we went down the side of l’Anse-au-Foulon where the
monument to Montcalm is, we went around Montcalm’s monument and
went back up again and back to the military buildings. Now,
there were some who passed out, because there were no barracks
there. They’d drink all night and then go train in the morning,
y’know? If they could’ve gone to bed at 11:00 that would’ve been
OK. So a jeep followed us for those who couldn’t go on any more.
They put them in the jeep to go down to the camp buildings. That
was good. And they made us go up the side of l’Anse-au-Foulon.
That’s steep; I don’t know if you know Quebec City. In our
training, that’s just how it was. Then we ran along the . . . I
don’t remember the street . . . Grande Allée a ways, then we
went back to the Plains of Abraham. I really got to know the
Plains of Abraham, y’know. That was good. And once training was
over, well, we left by train . . . troop train, yep, to Halifax.