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WWII Veteran, Harry Albers

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Harry Albers in uniform
1941
Camrose, Alberta

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I think I could say that I lived through a tough time, interesting, but tough. Ten years of the depression and five years of war. It was a difficult time.
People would ask me if I would join the army again; I don't think so. Not for one dollar and forty cents a day. Not even for a million dollars. Still I wouldn't have missed it for anything. That was fifty years ago but I can remember a lot of things that happened to me. You know, when you get close to being killed a few times, you don't forget that very quick. I went to a lot of places and saw things that seem impossible and crazy now.

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Harry Albers (age 6) and sister Doris
1924

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Harry Albers (age 5) and sister, Doris
1923
Waterglen, Alberta

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I was born August 23rd, 1918 in the Water Glen district in central Alberta. My parents, Andrew and Ernistine Albers had a mixed farm that bordered Red Deer Lake. Of twelve children, two died before they became adults. My mother died when I was five years old. My sister Sue took over the housekeeping and childcare; did a heck of a good job for a young girl. Got me dressed up in a brand new sailor suit from Eaton's catalogue, for the first day of school and away I went. The Star School, like most of those old schools, was quite a deal. They were all built the same, about forty feet long and twenty-four to twenty-eight feet wide.
One time a couple of us kids got sick of going to school. It was such a beautiful day. We started out by walking around the bush in back of the house heading for school. All of a sudden, I got an idea. Why go to school? Let's go lay down in the straw pile. We could lay there and sleep all day; the rest can do what they like.
The trouble was, the straw pile was in sight of the house and the yard. We really wanted to get to the lake after a while because it got hot. Besides, we got thirsty. No water to drink. We never thought of that. We couldn't go down to the lake for a swim because they would see us from the barnyard. They would wonder what we were doing swimming in the lake when we were supposed to be in school. Long about 10 o'clock in the morning, it seemed like we had been there for two days. We couldn't stand it any longer. So we went back to the house and told them there was no school. They believed it, for one reason or another. We must have made up a pretty good story. We never tried that again.

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Harry Albers on the Farm
1946
Waterglen, Alberta

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I remember that during the depression, the trains were full of hobos riding back and forth across the country. After the war started, the cars were empty. I was called up to join the army in the spring of 1941. I would have gone in 1940, but they didn't send the letter to the right address. I was twenty-two years old, my sisters had all left home and I was cooking for my brothers and my father on the farm. $1.30/day army pay looked pretty good.

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Canadian Army ( Basic) Training Centre
1941
Camrose, Alberta
AUDIO ATTACHMENT


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First they said it would be thirty days training, then when the thirty days was up, they said it was four months training, then when the four months were up, they said I was in for the duration of the war. That's how I got suckered into the army…

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Harry Albers Regimental Ensignia
10 September 2004

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After training in Camrose and Dundurn, Saskatchewan, I went to the West Coast where I joined the Rocky Mountain Rangers for active service in 1942; I thought for sure that they would send us over to fight the Japs. The Colonel called us out on parade one day, read out a bunch of names and we had to fall in to the line up. "You boys are going overseas. You are going to England," he says, "as reinforcements for the Westminster Regiment."

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Harry Albers Regimental Crest
10 September 2004

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You could have knocked me over with a feather. I couldn't believe it. Here, I thought we were going west towards Hawaii and Japan. I wasn't too fussy about going to England. Heard what it was like over there. Cold, rainy and muddy. Short of food. Short of everything.
I was eight days on a boat that zigzagged all over the North Atlantic. They shoved us into rooms below deck. Thirty men to a room. In the corner, were rolls piled high and on the ceiling were a number of strong hooks. So we started hanging up hammocks. Someone didn't get started on the right hook in the corner and when we got to the other end, one guy wound up having only one hook for his hammock. Then there was a hell of a scream, "I got only one hook! What the hell are you guys doing?" So, we had to take them all off and put them on the proper hooks. Such sailors you never did see.
We landed in Liverpool, jumped a train and wound up in Aldershot. It was a kind of military town, all two-story buildings built of brick with iron steps going up to the pulpit with an iron railing. Our steel shod boots rang on those iron steps. I can still hear it. Clatter, clatter. Crash, crash.