TRANSCRIPT

HH - Harry Harper, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

HH: Well, see with me, every, no matter what I was seemed to be in, I seemed to be the only black 1 there. Like I went in the army, I was in the hut, and there's 30, 38-40 in a hut and the first time I was in, I was in Nova Scotia. I went to bed early, I woke up, all I could hear was French! Everybody was French except me in this hut. Not only I wasn't French, I was the only black 1!

LR: Oh my gosh...

HH: And I had a, uh, I had a black Sergeant. And, uh, but ya see, he couldn't favour me, in fact it was the opposite way. 1 time we was doin', uh, rifle work, you know, practicin'? And we had, we had some, uh, blank bullets, and you look, the, they give ya so many, 5, and you're supposed to load 'em, and then unload, see? And, uh, somehow or other, I ended up, and you weren't supposed to keep any, somehow, somehow over a period of a month or so, I ended up with about 4. And so I'm practicin' 1 day and the Sergeant or the Corporal, I can't remember which, come in. So, and I still had 1 in the chamber. Couldn't get it out! T'stick it in my pocket. So then to make a long story short, we were out on a 5 mile forced run and so we get out so far and they tell you t' 'Halt,' and y' halt; and 'Stand at ease,' then 'Stand easy.' Well, when they say 'Stand easy,' you bang, you're about 5 feet away from the guy behind, next t' ya, you bang your gun on the ground; you know, when your hand goes down, and the thing, mine went off. And he was about 4 feet away from me, he turned around, see the smoke comin' out [starts laughing] outta my barrel, and he's got the nerve to say, and he's standin' bout this far away from me, 'Who fired that shot?!' Well, I couldn't even hear him, see? And then he got his nose about 2 inches from mine and he cuss me out for about 4 minutes. And they, they all told me he never repeated 1 word. And uh, and I'm standin' there, starin' him in the face... And, now all I heard, 'cause the, the thing, you know, I couldn't hear nuthin'. So I'm starin' him right, right in the eyes, not even blinkin' and all I heard was at the last, 'I'll fix you!' He did. 2 days later, we had a 20 mile route march. And on there you carry all your equipment and your equipment, your rifle and all your pack, amount to 65 pounds that you're carrying; you gotta get used to carrying that. Then you have, uh, they call it, uh, a PIAT - Projectile Infantry Anti Tank rifle. And it's, uh, it's like a stove pipe; it's about this big around and it's 5 feet long and you, we'd carry that; the 1st man in line, carry that on his shoulder. And he went so far, maybe half a mile, and then he would stop, hand it to the next guy, as he come along, and then he would stop, wait till this whole line, now there's 38, there's be about maybe 4[0], there'd be about 14 or 15 on the east line, there's 3 lines you walk. And they'd all pass you, then you step in behind. So in other words, maybe on the whole trip, you only carried that once, possibly twice. And, uh, so he, when he said, 'I'll fix you,' he meant it. When that route march come, he just handed me that PIAT - it weighed 60 pounds. And I got 65 pound pack and he says, made sure everybody heard, he says, 'Now, you will carry that the whole 20 mile trip - out and back.' And he said, 'Now if I see anybody even approach him to relieve him of that gun,' he said, 'you will carry it the 20 miles the next trip!' So you know nobody asked me! [laughs] I carried that thing... But I was determined. Boy, I was determined; I carried it... But let me tell you, when he said 'Stop,' or 'Rest:' WHEW! There was, there was 2 thuds: me and the other thing! [group laughs] Boom!

LR: Oh, I bet!

HH: And then the guys... But they used to laugh. They kid themselves, laughed after. And then we was on the route, we was on the range 1 time, was training. And, uh, what did we have to do? They had a, they had a long wall ,and they had about 8 windows in it and you were supposed to be jumpin,' you jump up and hit the bottom sill with your foot, go in the room and be ready to fire at anybody in that room. So, the 1st time we did it, we all, we had to line up, 5 or 6 guys or however many windows it was, and we were running for it, and the, I'm lookin' at that window sill, 'n I said, you know, thinkin' well, I'm left handed, so it's the left foot on the window sill and jump in. Everything was okay, I get in there and all of a sudden I found myself on the ground: I forgot to put my rifle in 1st! Landed sideways! [laughing] And it hit the, hit the window and I went backwards and so the Sergeant, he looked, he said to the next 1, he says, 'Now that Harry's shown you how not to do it...' [laughs heartily; group joins in] I had a lot of fun anyway.