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Mr. William Reginald MacLean
Liberator of the Netherlands
I left from Halifax on the Cynthia. I remember it I was
sick all the time going over, it was rough, and I was no
sailor. It took about 5 days to go to Liverpool, maybe 7
days….that was a long time ago. We came up through France,
up through Belgium, up through that way to Holland. I was
in the 5th Division, 6th Royal Canadian Hussars. The whole
5th Division moved up. I was a private. I worked in
intelligence, I was driving the intelligence officer. I
belonged to the scout car DR troop. I was a dispatch
rider. I drove the intelligence officer, he was the
interrogator for the division, or one of them… I would take
him to where he was going, wait at the top of the POW cage,
and waited for him and drove him back. This was in the
spring of 1944. What I noticed in Holland was the difference
in the people, they were very friendly, and made us feel
welcome. We were stationed in Groningen, we spent a winter
there, and the first winter was a life-saver for me, because
the country was so clean and everybody was so nice, so after
coming out of Italy it was a 100% change. We were billeted
in a private home, an apartment the soldiers had taken
over. It would be a small hotel…we had beds! Our meals
were better when we got up to Groningen, it was a turnaround
from Italy. I really didn’t think I was going to get out of
Italy alive. All I had was my side-arms and that was it as
far as I was concerned. That’s all, we were in the scout
car or riding the motorbike or driving the jeep or small
truck or something… I went from England to Italy, we got
into the Mediterranean, and the Germans strafed us. There
was one ship lost, but we didn’t get hit. |
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There was quite a confusion. We were out on the
deck, those ack-ack
guns were going off at the planes. We were on the deck
of the ship, the guns were up above us, and the recall from
the guns seemed to affect my ear. The next day when I woke
up I had a sore ear, and it started to run, my ear is still
affected by it. They thought I was going to be in there for
about a week, but my ear just didn’t stop running. I was put
off in Algiers, Africa. I had to go by box-car, it went from
Algiers to Philipville, and I was in hospital for 6 weeks.
There was a jumping-off place there to go to Italy. I was
with the 8th and the Brunswick Regiment, I was out there
with them, and then I had to go down to Philipville, in
North Africa to a holding unit, over to Italy, and then from
there, that’s where I went to the regiment I came up to
Holland with. That’s why a lot of fellows didn’t say much,
they were scared that when you went down to the doctor with
something, a little thing wrong with you, that they would
haul you out for 2 or 3 days, and then you wouldn’t get back
to your regiment again, you’d be going to an new one all the
time. We became pretty close, you know….First time I went
into action was in Ortona, in Italy, I don’t really know
exactly what happened, we were in there, then we had to come
out and retreat, and then a few days later we had to go
again, and we approached it again….Never got a scratch. The
one thing that sticks out in my mind is the night the
Germans capitulated. Never seen anything like it in my
life. I’ve ever seen so many people crying, it was
happiness for them. The whole place ; we’d gone down the
street, met another guy, and we didn’t get back till the
morning, we couldn’t get through the people…you had to go
with the flow. They had food and wine that they had hidden
from the Germans, and it all came out that day. They
couldn’t do enough for you, the Dutch people, and I can’t
say enough for them. |
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