Ralph Diegel was born October 27, 1926 in Ferris, Ontario, just south of North Bay. He had been in the Sea Cadets in high school, so when the war came he opted for the Royal Canadian Navy. Initial training took place in Thunder Bay, and from there he was shipped down to HMCS Cornwallis […]
John Preece was born October 19, 1926 in Toronto’s Queen-Bathurst neighbourhood. John’s early life was not easy, largely because of family circumstances. His mother had emigrated from Scotland, and – alone in Toronto – she fell into a relationship with a married man and turned to alcohol. John does not have many positive memories of […]
Frederick Joseph Reid – Joe – was born April 19, 1920, in Sillsville, Ontario. He spent his early years there on the family farm, alongside his seven siblings. The family later moved to Trenton, and that is where Joe spent his formative years. He went to high school there, but he left early to take […]
Harry Waddingham was born on October 16, 1916 in London, England. Harry’s father was a Great War veteran who had been living in Montreal when the war broke out, so he and Harry’s uncle enlisted in the Canadian Artillery in that conflict. When he went overseas he was deployed briefly in Northern Ireland, and that […]
Ossie Lakness was born in Govan, Saskatchewan on May 5, 1923. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression in that small farming community, the youngest in a large family. Ossie remembers well those difficult early years, when dust storms and grasshopper plagues impacted the people of the Prairies. When the war came […]
Jack Dyson was born March 23, 1926 in Lancashire, England, and he came to Canada with his family when he was 3 years old. Nick’s father had been a coal miner near Liverpool, and he vowed that his young son would never find himself in “the pits”, so he went to Canada and made a […]
Tom Boneham was born March 21, 1923 in Warwickshire, England, where he grew up on a farm in the village of Shotteswell in the Stratford-upon-Avon district, not too far from the town of Banbury. His father Tom worked that farm with Tom’s mother Hilda; the two of them had met after Tom’s father was discharged […]
Joe Duffy was born January 1, 1922 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He grew up there in a large working class family, against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the emerging war. Joe joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1941: it was the “thing to do”, as he and many other veterans have noted. […]
Bud Norman was born October 29, 1923 in London, Ontario. He grew up there in his grandparents’ care, attending school and doing all the other things teenagers of the day were doing – school, sports, work, and so on. Bud was able to complete high school at an early age, and he went to work […]
Don Mitchell was born December 19, 1924 in the Tower Hamlet of Poplar, in London, England. He was an only child, as his parents had lost an older child in the aftermath of the Great War, when conditions were still poor. Don’s father was a veteran in that conflict, having served with the artillery, though […]
Burton Lieberman was born February 8, 1926 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Burton’s parents made their way to Pittsburgh from elsewhere: his mother was born into a large Jewish family in New York City, while his father escaped the pogroms in Russia at the turn-of-the-century, arriving in Baltimore at the age of 14. They met and married […]
Reynolds Tomter was born April 26, 1917 in western Wisconsin, not far from Pigeon Falls, where he lives now. He grew up on a farm in a rural valley, where neighbors worked together to combat isolation, and then the realities of the Great Depression. Reynolds remembers the tough economic times, but he also remembers the […]
Des Curtis was born July 16, 1923 in Caterham, England. He was born in the Guards’ Depot there, as his father was a member of the Irish Guards, one of the foot guards for the monarchy. Des’s father also happened to be a Great War veteran who served in the trenches and the major campaigns […]
John Colleran was born March 21, 1924 in Saintfield, Ontario. He grew up in the Ontario countryside near Port Perry, attending a one room schoolhouse on nearby Scugog Island. The family was hard hit by the Great Depression and John left high school in Grade 9 because the books were too expensive. By then the […]
Henri Saint-Laurent was born February 5, 1926 in Ottawa. His father was a veteran of the First World War, later a civil engineer who worked for the federal government. Because of his father’s work, the family was sheltered from the worst impacts of the Great Depression, and Henri grew up in relative comfort, and at […]
Bob Miller was born December 7, 1923 in New York state. He grew up in Bellmore, Long Island, not too far from Jones Beach, an area that Bob remembers fondly. The Great Depression impacted Bob and his three older sisters, but the family managed to get by, with everybody pitching in. The family moved a […]
Edward (Ted) Parker was born March 30, 1925 in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He grew up in Massachusetts and Florida, as the family moved back and forth during those years. He grew up against the backdrop of the Depression and the early years of the war, by which time he was attending the Governors’ Academy in Massachusetts. […]
Richard Rohmer was born January 24, 1924 in Hamilton, Ontario. His parents divorced when he was young, so Richard recalls growing up between the two households and dealing with the consequent difficulties. He attended several schools in southwestern Ontario and by his teen years – coinciding with the start of the war – he was […]
Howard Pfeifer was born September 22, 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, so as a teenger he worked many jobs, delivering newspapers, pumping gas, and so on. When the war came, a cousin of Howard’s told him about the merchant marine; Howard liked what he heard, […]
“Digger” Gorman served in the Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Originally from New Brunswick, the future geology student – that’s where the name “Digger” came from – Digger was deep in his studies when the war approached. As a science/engineering student, Digger’s enlistment was originally deferred, but like many in his generation, he […]
Julia Parsons was born March 2, 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was an instructor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Julia recalls her childhood as being a traditional one, as dictated by the Victorian mores of the time. The family was not heavily impacted by the Depression, […]
Percy Smith was born May 10, 1923 in Ceylon. His father worked in the British civil service there, and that is where Percy spent his early years. The family returned to England in the late 1930s, as the clouds of war were closing in on Europe, and the world. Percy was 16 at the start […]
Bill Wilson was born in Winnipeg on November 5, 1924 to Scottish parents Thomas and Marion Wilson. Bill was 14 when the Second World War began and he planned to follow in his father‘s footsteps as he had served in the First World War. When Bill couldn’t get a place with the Highlanders cadet corps […]
Gerald Sutton was born in Uckfield, Sussex, England on July 23, 1925, and he attended grammar school on a scholarship in the historic county town of Lewes. While there he watched the Battle of Britain fought overhead in 1940. With that in mind – and despite the danger of U-boat attacks, his mother brought him […]
Paul Murphy served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Paul served aboard several ships, notably the Cobalt and the Wallaceburg, and he was involved in the RCN’s convoy system in the western Atlantic, working the triangle between New York City and Newfoundland. Paul’s ships would escort convoys in that zone, both […]
Evelyn Bloom grew up in prewar Montreal, enjoying life near “her beautiful mountain”, while at the same time seeing the harsh realities of the Great depression. When the war came, she and her sister decided to enlist. They understood that Canada was under assault, and stories of U-Boats in the Gulf of St. Lawrence only […]
We met Liam Dwyer at the Castle Peak Retirement Suites in Bracebridge, where he presently lives. Liam is one of several authors/editors who assembled At Your Age, a collection of stories of those who live there. The residents felt it was important for them to record their stories, which serve as a great entry point into […]
“Digger” Gorman served in the Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Originally from New Brunswick, the future geology student – that’s where the name “Digger” came from – Digger was deep in his studies when the war approached. As a science/engineering student, Digger’s enlistment was originally deferred, but like many in his generation, he […]
Gord Casey was born July 20, 1923 in Toronto, Ontario. While working in many different capacities during his life such as a cab owner, bus driver, transport truck driver, scuba diver and bar manager at O’Malley’s Tavern, Casey is best known as a Navy man. In 1941, Gordon Casey proudly joined the Canadian War effort […]
Don Morgan is a Canadian World War Two veteran who grew up in rural Ontario. When the time came to enlist, Don chose the air force, and after considerable training in different locations across Canada, he was ready to be a pilot. Further training in England ensued, and Don and his crew were ready to […]