The Candice Malcolm Show - How brave Canadians changed history on D-Day (ft. D-Day veteran Jim Parks)

00:00:00.000 Exactly 78 years ago today, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in what is now known as D-Day.

00:00:06.380 Today, I have the distinct honor and privilege of speaking to somebody who was there,

00:00:10.420 somebody who fought and defended our freedom in Canada.

00:00:13.780 I'm Candice Malcolm, and welcome to a very special edition of The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.780 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in.

00:00:31.740 So today, June 6th, is D-Day, also known as the Day of Courage.

00:00:35.460 On June 6th, 1944, after months of planning, the Allied forces launched what was called Operation Overlord,

00:00:41.780 the invasion of Western Europe, which had suffered under Nazi occupation for four years.

00:00:47.120 At the time, the Allied forces were fighting across Italy, but with one foul swoop,

00:00:51.540 the Allied armies created a new Western Front against Hitler's forces,

00:00:55.880 designed to ease pressure from the Eastern Front and weaken the Nazi war efforts.

00:01:01.240 Operation Overlord, which was launched on D-Day, June 6th,

00:01:04.440 was a coordinated attack against the Nazis along the beaches of Normandy,

00:01:08.820 a 100-kilometer stretch of the French coastline across the English Canal from Great Britain.

00:01:13.940 At the time, it was the largest seaborne invasion in military history.

00:01:18.360 Allied infantry and armored divisions from Canada, the U.S., and Great Britain

00:01:21.700 began landing on the coast of France at 6.30 a.m.

00:01:25.360 The Normandy coast was divided into five sectors, Utah and Omaha, where the Americans landed,

00:01:30.700 gold and sword, where the British landed,

00:01:32.780 and Juneau, where our Canadian troops launched and were landed.

00:01:36.360 As you might imagine, the young men who landed there were under heavy fire from gun emplacements

00:01:41.140 overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes,

00:01:46.060 metal tripods, and barbed wires, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous.

00:01:52.420 Canada suffered some 961 casualties on that one morning while disembarking at Juneau Beach.

00:01:59.080 The Normandy landings marked an unprecedented war effort, unmatched at the time.

00:02:04.160 There were nearly 5,000 landing and assault craft vessels,

00:02:07.380 carrying approximately 160,000 troops who crossed the English Channel on D-Day,

00:02:12.980 with 875,000 men disembarking by the end of June, including 14,000 Canadians.

00:02:19.820 Allied casualties on the first day alone were 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

00:02:26.420 Now, of course, this turned out to be a major turning point in the war,

00:02:30.740 and by the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the Siena River,

00:02:35.500 Paris was liberated, and the Germans began retreating and were removed from northwest France,

00:02:40.600 effectively concluding the Battle of Normandy.

00:02:43.160 The Allied forces then prepared to enter Germany,

00:02:45.600 where they would meet up with Soviet troops entering from the east.

00:02:49.000 Again, the Normandy invasion began to turn the tide against the Nazis,

00:02:52.920 a significant psychological blow.

00:02:54.780 It prevented Hitler from sending troops from France to build up his eastern front 0.61

00:02:59.320 against the advancing Soviets.

00:03:01.520 The following spring, on May 8, 1945, the Allied forces accepted the unconditional surrender

00:03:07.580 of Nazi Germany, and the efforts of the Canadians and the Allied forces

00:03:11.420 on the beaches of Normandy were a clear turning point in the war

00:03:16.660 and in the effort against fascism in Italy.

00:03:19.880 Now, today, for this very special edition of the Candace Malcolm Show,

00:03:23.080 I am just so delighted to be joined by someone who was there,

00:03:26.680 someone who fought and nearly died,

00:03:28.860 someone who saw it all with their own eyes to defend Canada.

00:03:32.040 I'm speaking with Mr. Jim Parks.

00:03:33.920 He is a true Canadian hero.

00:03:35.960 Mr. Parks enlisted in the Canadian military at the age of 10.

00:03:39.920 He joined the cadets, and then at the age of 16,

00:03:42.200 two years before he was eligible to enlist,

00:03:44.560 Parks joined the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.

00:03:47.080 After enlisting, Mr. Parks began his training,

00:03:50.040 first in Canada and then in the UK, which would last more than two years.

00:03:53.660 Jim had five brothers who served in the Second World War,

00:03:56.640 and his father and his uncle both served in the First World War.

00:04:00.440 So there he was on June 6, 1944, exactly 78 years ago.

00:04:05.180 Today, he was part of the very first wave of Canadian soldiers

00:04:08.140 to land on Juneau Beach in Normandy, France, and heroically beat the Germans.

00:04:12.800 Mr. Parks and his fellow soldiers would eventually push the Germans town by town, 1.00

00:04:16.340 over the months, with intense fighting that would result in significant Canadian casualties.

00:04:21.660 By the war's end, Mr. Parks would find himself in Germany,

00:04:24.500 having successfully liberated the Netherlands and pushing the Nazis into total defeat.

00:04:29.820 After the war, Jim and other soldiers spent time in the Netherlands and England

00:04:33.120 before heading back home to Canada.

00:04:35.400 He would continue to serve his country and his community after the war,

00:04:39.000 first as a fireman in Winnipeg,

00:04:40.640 and then he worked in various roles for the federal government

00:04:43.760 in administrative and managerial positions.

00:04:46.340 Jim retired from the military after 15 years in the reserves,

00:04:49.780 and he made his way up to the rank of major.

00:04:52.960 He now asks people to commit good deeds in support of the memory of the men who served alongside him.

00:04:58.240 He wants people to participate in virtual walks to raise money for veterans' causes

00:05:02.360 and organizations like the Juneau Beach Centre.

00:05:05.340 Jim now lives in Mount Albert, Ontario, with his wife Genevieve.

00:05:08.380 There are very few Canadians who deserve the recognition and honor 1.00

00:05:11.240 as a true Canadian hero, more so than Mr. Jim Parks, my guest today.

00:05:16.300 We are extremely lucky to have him on the show.

00:05:19.200 So, Mr. Parks, thank you so much for joining our podcast.

00:05:22.120 Thank you for being with us today.

00:05:23.780 How are you doing?

00:05:25.020 Pretty good.

00:05:25.580 Great.

00:05:26.580 So, why don't you tell us a little bit about what your experiences were like 78 years ago

00:05:32.280 on D-Day when you were part of the invasion storming the beaches of Normandy?

00:05:37.580 Well, we had a lot of preparation for the D-Day itself, and I recall leading up to that,

00:05:46.860 we were put on boats at Portsmouth, which is the southern part of England.

00:05:53.300 And I was in a landing craft tank, which is a bigger one, because I was with the mortar platoon,

00:05:58.960 and we had two mortar carriers, and we were lining up behind two armored bulldozers on the landing craft

00:06:06.580 tank, and we were supposed to go into the beach two minutes ahead of the infantry, the south

00:06:13.220 boat, because the armored bulldozers had big ropes on them with hooks, and when they could

00:06:18.860 come off the landing craft, they were to pull off all the obstacles in the water, which would

00:06:24.100 allow the landing craft that came in, wouldn't be hitting the obstacle.

00:06:29.980 However, that's the way it was.

00:06:32.900 We were hopefully two minutes ahead of them, but the way things worked out, we all got mixed

00:06:39.340 up, and we were mixed up with the landing craft coming in, and the bulldozers, they were

00:06:48.740 a little late, a little late getting pulling those obstacles in the water, but when they

00:06:54.780 went off the landing craft, the landing craft got fouled up, and our carriers, when we went

00:07:03.660 off the landing craft, the water was too deep, and we sank.

00:07:09.360 The water was about eight feet deep, and it was about six to eight feet when you figure out

00:07:14.700 the waves, and when you get close to the shore, it's rougher, and so we ended up, instead of coming on

00:07:23.140 the shore with the two mortar carriers, we ended up swimming in instead, and the mortar carriers were

00:07:29.080 under the water.

00:07:30.640 So I ended up on the beach, and the first thing I got to the beach, I plopped beside this, I knew this

00:07:38.120 corporal, corporal scape, he'd been mortally mooted, so I picked up, I picked up the Sten gun

00:07:43.500 from him, because I lost all my equipment going in, and then I headed for the sand dunes and

00:07:49.820 waited for the rest of our, our crew to come in.

00:07:53.260 It took a little while, because there's, there's a lot of, a lot of noise, and a lot of, a lot

00:07:59.120 of firing going on, and the, they, a lot of machine gun fire being, being put down, there's a lot

00:08:05.980 of mortar bombs still landing from, the, the enemy had mortars, uh, further inland, and

00:08:11.140 they were popping the bombs onto the beach, we had to take cover quite a bit, otherwise

00:08:16.540 we, uh, we were kind of lucky too, because the, the sand would absorb quite a bit of the,

00:08:22.540 uh, the shock of the bombs landing, take up a bit of the shrapnel, but, uh, it was still

00:08:28.140 pretty dangerous.

00:08:29.260 So we got to the, uh, sand dunes in the south, and the rest of the, uh, platoon come in, they

00:08:35.500 were okay, because they, they got further in, and they still had their carriers, we'd,

00:08:39.980 we'd lost ours.

00:08:41.480 So, uh, we, uh, we scooted in past about, once you got past the sand dunes, it was a little

00:08:49.280 bit quieter, because the, uh, the enemy had their, had their, their positions a little bit

00:08:56.060 further inland, to take care of the beach.

00:08:59.480 The beach party itself were overwhelmed pretty quickly.

00:09:02.500 When I say beach party, the beach party of the enemy, and that's what they had a little

00:09:08.300 bit, uh, further back.

00:09:10.280 So the first part we got in was a little bit, a little bit quieter.

00:09:14.120 When I say quieter, there was a little less machine gun fire and mortar fire.

00:09:19.060 And we, uh, we made our way to first, the first day was a little quieter, a little bit

00:09:24.380 quieter because of the snipers, except for snipers.

00:09:27.440 And we got to a village called Poutot, P-U-T-O-T, Poutot-en-Besson, and that was a small village.

00:09:37.660 So we got in around there, and we, we were dug in, and we, uh, prepared for, we said prepared

00:09:44.760 for the, uh, counter-attack.

00:09:46.000 And we had our own troops are a little slow getting in behind us.

00:09:50.340 We had reinforcements coming in, but they got held up.

00:09:54.700 The weather was a little bit bad and the beach a bit rough, but they finally got in.

00:09:59.660 And, uh, on it, we were there for the first night.

00:10:02.540 It was fairly quiet, except for snipers.

00:10:05.280 On the 8th of June, the enemy launched a counter-attack.

00:10:08.540 It was the 12th SS Panzer Division.

00:10:12.600 Panzers are tanks, so they had their tanks coming in and a little bit rough around Poutot

00:10:18.600 because, uh, they, uh, they were over, they were overrun, and we were, we were mixed up

00:10:24.500 with the, uh, with the enemy.

00:10:26.420 You go around one corner, you spot them, and, uh, they seemed to be popping up everywhere

00:10:31.880 because the, uh, the wheat field was about four feet deep.

00:10:35.360 It was, uh, this is June, and the grain was a bit higher, so they were infiltrating through

00:10:41.120 the, uh, the wheat field.

00:10:43.100 So it was a little bit rough there for the, uh, for the 7th and 8th.

00:10:47.320 The 8th is when the big counter-attack came in, and we, uh, we got overrun by the SS, like

00:10:52.580 I said, the, the tanks and the, uh, and the infantry, and it was pretty rough going there

00:10:57.800 for a bit.

00:10:59.080 And, uh, until they, we launched a counter-attack by the Canadian, Scottish, and other units,

00:11:04.840 and helped push them back.

00:11:07.100 So, uh, we had to re-establish ourselves around the village of, of, of Boutou.

00:11:12.540 It got pretty rough that first, uh, the first day or two.

00:11:15.760 So we lost a lot of people on the beach.

00:11:17.840 Uh, I think we lost over close to 150 on the beach, killed and wounded.

00:11:23.560 And then we, uh, we got a few reinforcements in that night, and we didn't get a chance to

00:11:28.640 spread them out.

00:11:29.340 So they were done, they ended up duggin' in.

00:11:32.260 We were diggin' in a trench, and they come around, and they said, make room for somebody

00:11:36.240 else.

00:11:36.540 So they, we had a, instead of being only two in a trench, we had three in a trench.

00:11:42.680 So what we did is we, we got out of the trench and helped them dig their own hole.

00:11:46.840 So, because it's a little too crowded when you get two in a, three in a trench, it's only

00:11:51.440 made for two.

00:11:53.080 So it was pretty rough, because a lot of shell fire coming in, and there's a lot of machine

00:11:57.980 gun fire.

00:11:58.820 So, uh, we were hoping that, uh, we, we get some tanks coming in.

00:12:04.420 But the tanks did come in, but we, we, not near us.

00:12:08.380 They're, they're in the area surrounding us, but not near us.

00:12:12.760 That was our own tanks.

00:12:14.200 But the enemy had their, their tanks.

00:12:16.100 They had the, uh, they had the Taggers, and they had the Mark 4s. 0.68

00:12:20.180 So, uh, it was pretty rough.

00:12:22.260 You didn't, sometimes you didn't know around the corner whether your own people were there,

00:12:26.420 or whether the, uh, the Jerries were there.

00:12:28.580 So, you had to be careful where, where you go around.

00:12:31.820 So, we were told to dig in and prepare for the major counterattack, which we did.

00:12:37.660 And by that time, we had more troops coming in, which helped out.

00:12:40.800 And, uh, we were relieved because they went forward of, of us.

00:12:45.060 And then that meant, then we were reserved.

00:12:47.740 After the first day and a half, we were at the front.

00:12:50.300 And then we become reserved, which is about a hundred yards, 200 yards behind them.

00:12:55.000 So, uh, prepared to, uh, to counterattack them if they, they broke through.

00:13:01.240 That's how it was pretty rough this first, like I say, the first two days.

00:13:05.520 Well, Mr. Parks, it's incredible your recollection and your memory of this event that happened over 75 years ago.

00:13:13.120 Uh, can you tell us, tell the viewers, how old were you at the time?

00:13:16.540 I was 19 at the time.

00:13:19.380 Yeah, just, uh, because I joined when I was 15.

00:13:22.460 A lot of the time at the, you must remember, I was just after the depression years and there was a lot of people out of work and so on and so forth.

00:13:30.120 And, uh, so it was, as soon as the war broke out, all the young kids were running down to the recruiting office saying, I'm 18.

00:13:38.420 You're only 15 or 16, but they're saying 18 and they're, they, they didn't bother checking.

00:13:43.960 They were just glad to have you.

00:13:45.480 And so we had to, you look around, you, you see pictures of what we look like.

00:13:49.660 You didn't fool anybody because they, you look 15 and 16 and you were supposed to be 18 and 19.

00:13:56.080 But the, uh, when you look at it, the, a lot of the young soldiers at the time were underage in the, uh, in the initial people, initial part of the war.

00:14:06.620 Uh, there was a thing to do to join up and your parents didn't mind because one less, one less notes to feed, I guess, because that was depression years was hard to, hard to find jobs and hard to, uh, you were at school, but it was a little rough at school because that, uh, you didn't have that much school.

00:14:27.600 You know, you know, very necessities and so on, but we, uh, we got along, nobody starved.

00:14:36.820 That's great.

00:14:37.660 Well, your, your daughter sent me your bio, Mr. Parks, and it seems like D-Day was your very first, uh, taste of the war.

00:14:47.100 It was your first day in battle and everything up until then, uh, was more training.

00:14:52.140 So what was that like, uh, for your very first glimpse of, of active battle being such a monumental moment and a turning point, uh, in, in the war like that?

00:15:03.480 Did, did you realize the scope and the importance of D-Day at the time?

00:15:08.040 Well, actually, and I remember, I remember there was one sergeant of us, he was a, he was sort of a gung-ho guy.

00:15:13.740 And he, uh, he, uh, after going into the beach, he was, uh, this is this, he was saying, this is it, this is it.

00:15:20.720 We're going to go get him.

00:15:21.700 We're going to go get him.

00:15:22.600 We're going to go get him.

00:15:24.020 And the rest of us was sitting and saying, wondering what the heck's going to go on.

00:15:28.000 Because once they dropped that, that, uh, ramp at the front, you had to dash out.

00:15:32.060 You had to move out with your mortar carriage and so on.

00:15:35.020 But like I say, our, our, uh, our boat was hit.

00:15:38.440 So we ended up swimming in.

00:15:40.400 So, um, then once we got to the beach, we got picked up that sten gun off, Corporal Skate, who'd been, uh, who'd been wounded, badly wounded.

00:15:50.100 He died.

00:15:50.960 He died of his wounds.

00:15:52.560 And I, I got to the sand dune.

00:15:55.200 And, uh, a few minutes later, our platoon commander, they come in with their mortar carriers.

00:16:02.080 And we just jumped on the back of their carriers, uh, to be with them.

00:16:06.900 Because we lost everything going in.

00:16:08.620 And we lost our carriers.

00:16:10.540 We lost everything.

00:16:11.420 We all had to swim in.

00:16:12.980 So it was a little bit rougher.

00:16:14.940 So, so for the next, uh, next while, we were extra people on those carriers.

00:16:20.000 And they said we would get, uh, we'd get our new equipment within a matter of, uh, a couple of days.

00:16:26.040 But we never got up to about three weeks.

00:16:28.560 Instead of getting a carrier to give us a 1,500 weight truck.

00:16:31.760 Which is, which wasn't very good to carry your mortars with.

00:16:36.000 And, uh, but it was better than nothing.

00:16:40.220 And so what happened next?

00:16:41.160 So you, you made it past Juneau Beach and up into, into the inlands and, in Normandy.

00:16:46.520 How long did you stay in Europe?

00:16:48.160 And, and what, what, what did you, what was your next role after that?

00:16:51.960 Well, you actually got to, we ended up in a place called Carpeke, which is a, which is a, an airport.

00:16:59.440 It was an airport with, uh, the Germans had used it, uh, prior to the invasion.

00:17:04.640 They used it as a, as a staging point.

00:17:07.160 They, they'd pop in there on the way to, uh, to bombing.

00:17:10.700 And they'd stop in and get gas and so on.

00:17:12.900 And they, they'd fly over to England. 0.55

00:17:15.200 And so we, uh, we got past that part.

00:17:17.620 We got into a place called Kahn, the city of Kahn.

00:17:21.420 But that wasn't easy because, uh, we spent about, uh, oh, a few weeks before we got into Kahn.

00:17:28.040 And, uh, in fact, the, uh, the Germans had put up a pretty good defensive perimeter and they had all kinds of, uh, they had their, they had the SS tanks and they had the, uh, had the guns and they had very well equipped.

00:17:44.420 And we had to, they had to mount a major defensive, offensive to get, uh, that, get past Kahn.

00:17:51.200 I think it took about eight or nine weeks before we got out of Kahn. 0.82

00:17:54.440 And Kahn was only about 12 miles inland from, uh, from the beach, right?

00:17:59.940 Because then, but in the meantime, uh, all of Normandy was just getting stacked up with all kinds of, uh, of, uh, army equipment and guns and tanks and everything else.

00:18:12.280 And set for the major offensive.

00:18:14.540 And, uh, we did a stage two or three major offensive before they, before they broke through the, uh, broke down the German, uh, the German, uh, defense.

00:18:24.440 And then we got past Kahn up to a place called Falei and the Falei was at the breaking point.

00:18:32.420 And, uh, they finally, uh, the Germans after Falei, they, they sort of on the run, they, they made their way back to, to the, uh, the big river, the big river.

00:18:42.140 They call the Rhine, not the Rhine, but the, uh, I forgot what river, all the roads.

00:18:47.700 That's, uh, it was quite a, quite a deal.

00:18:51.140 But that first eight to nine weeks was, was rough, rough going.

00:18:55.300 Everybody had a lot of casualties.

00:18:56.960 We had a lot of equipment was lost and so on.

00:18:59.780 So they, they put up a pretty brave, pretty brave front there.

00:19:02.880 They had a lot of equipment.

00:19:03.740 But what wore them down was our, our air force.

00:19:07.280 The air force come over and they were doing a lot of bombing.

00:19:10.120 You know, and the, uh, the fighter, fighter planes had rockets and they did a lot of rocket firing.

00:19:14.560 So it's, uh, it's amazing that they held out so long with all that, that contingent of firing that they had against them.

00:19:21.160 They couldn't move at all.

00:19:22.340 In fact, one, one of the generals was, uh, he was driving back in his car and a, and a, a fighter plane come over and it, uh, it, by firing it, it, the car took a base of action and ended up in a ditch.

00:19:36.200 And it, one of their major, one of the major generals was, uh, was badly, uh, badly hurt.

00:19:42.320 And that, uh, you take some of their major generals away from, uh, from an army, you have nobody to lead them.

00:19:48.960 So the leaders weren't as good.

00:19:51.560 So that helped, that helped us quite a bit.

00:19:54.260 That's looking back at, uh, at what they said later, be able to read up why it makes such a difference.

00:20:02.880 So what, what kept you going then, Mr. Parks?

00:20:05.780 And what motivated you to continue the fight during some of the darkest days of those battles?

00:20:12.420 Well, you, you're, you're working as a group and you, everybody works as a team.

00:20:18.080 And you look to the other guy and he looks to you.

00:20:21.360 And as long as he keeps going, you're going to keep going.

00:20:24.380 Like I say, this one guy that we had, Tommy Plum was quite a character.

00:20:28.600 He was, uh, he was always, uh, gung ho.

00:20:32.100 And he was, uh, he was, uh, he was one of our sergeants and Jimmy Stewart, another good sergeant.

00:20:37.640 We have pretty good NCOs and the, uh, they, they provide, uh, provide a good incentive.

00:20:43.500 And we were lucky because we had, uh, the leaders they picked part of the going in to prove that there were good leaders when we hit the battle, because it all turned out pretty good.

00:20:53.880 And we lost quite a few, uh, the first, uh, first few weeks we killed and wounded.

00:20:59.940 So, uh, we had to have a good backup.

00:21:03.140 So that meant the, uh, the, the junior NCOs would move over and take over the senior NCOs job when they got wounded or killed in action.

00:21:12.640 And we lost quite a few that first, uh, that first while, because, uh, when I, when I go over there to visit cemeteries, most of the people I know are buried in, uh, are buried in Normandy.

00:21:25.840 When you go further back to Grosbeek in Germany, I don't know as many, but most of the people I do know, if I go by the graves in Normandy itself, I recognize more people.

00:21:35.900 But because they were with us quite a few, quite a few years in Canada and in England, we lost quite a few in that first, uh, first few weeks in Normandy.

00:21:46.380 What was, what was life like for you after you returned, uh, from the war?

00:21:50.980 And what was it like to, to come back to Canada after all this?

00:21:54.780 When you come back to Canada, I always call, I look back afterwards and I, I call that the year of the lost souls.

00:22:01.620 Because, you know, you come back, you've been so used to being active and, and, and, and, uh, being involved and so much.

00:22:10.080 And here you are, you're, you're coming into, into civilian life and, uh, everything's quieter and it's pretty hard to get adjusted.

00:22:19.100 And, uh, some people it's easy to get adjusted, but if you're at the front and being, being in action all the time,

00:22:24.880 it was a little different from somebody that being, say, stationed in Canada and being in a base, they could adjust easier.

00:22:33.500 Where a person being in Europe, being in action, being at the front or being, say, the Air Force, too, being in fighting in the aircraft and so on.

00:22:43.640 It'd be kind of hard for the, all those type of people to readjust to, uh, to the momentum was so different.

00:22:50.980 And, uh, like I said, I call it the year of the lost souls, the year of trying to get readjusted in life.

00:22:58.020 It was kind of difficult.

00:23:01.160 And, uh, I remember the first year you'd go down in Winnipeg.

00:23:05.960 At that Winnipeg at that time, uh, if you go to a bar, it was only for men only and no ladies were allowed.

00:23:12.600 Uh, in a place that was just jammed full of, uh, of ex-servicemen, drinking one glass of beer after another and refighting the battle, you know.

00:23:23.500 A lot of them were lies.

00:23:24.520 A lot of them were good stories, too.

00:23:26.000 But, uh, it was, uh, quite a bit of adjusting to do.

00:23:30.600 And they had all kinds of systems set up.

00:23:32.820 But, uh, it wasn't that easy.

00:23:35.080 I, it took me a while to get, uh, they had all these programs set up, but I, I couldn't take advantage of them at the time because I wasn't ready to be.

00:23:43.800 I, I ended up about four years later, I decided to, uh, to, uh, to start to do things on my own, you know, taking night courses and so on and so forth.

00:23:54.160 And I was, uh, I didn't realize at the time because I had a, because I had a disability from the war, I was eligible for, to, to get courses free.

00:24:03.680 But I was paying for the courses on my own four years later.

00:24:07.820 If you, if you did the, your first discharge, you're allowed two, two years to take advantage of any courses that was free of charge.

00:24:16.580 But after two years, you had to pay for it.

00:24:19.060 That's how they worked.

00:24:21.880 Interesting.

00:24:22.320 And so I see that you're involved with something called the memory project.

00:24:26.480 Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and what your role has been with this, with this, uh, project?

00:24:33.040 Well, you're on call.

00:24:34.940 Like people would like to, uh, like schools or organizations, they wanted the, uh, people to come forward and, and describe their experiences in World War II.

00:24:45.240 And so, uh, I, I, with a friend of mine, we, uh, we got a power, we put a PowerPoint together after a while and he did a very good job of putting up, uh, some, some, uh, shots of World War II.

00:24:58.620 And I incorporated my own discussions with it and I'd go to the school, go to the school or organizations and I'd play this and I was able to talk with it.

00:25:09.200 And I had this, uh, you know, you, how you have this little light, you, you point at the, uh, the screen and so on and you highlight the, uh, the messages and you're able to describe the, the action a lot better than just pulling out from the memory.

00:25:24.620 This is in sight, you remember, my memory got pretty good after a while because I, you got to recollect quite a few things, you know, you wouldn't, uh, you wouldn't bring in all the blood and guts.

00:25:36.140 You just bring in the generalizations and you'd describe all the actions and, uh, whatever you could do.

00:25:45.300 And so, uh, what is the message that you have when you speak to schools, you speak to students, you speak to young Canadians?

00:25:51.640 Uh, what is it that you think is important that they know about what you lived through, uh, what the Second World War was fought for and, and what Canada, uh, means to you?

00:26:03.000 Well, what it means is that, uh, just cherish what they have, look around what they've got, they're able to walk, be able to get a job where they want, be able to travel where they want, they can, uh, do what they want each day, get up, you take what job they want.

00:26:17.460 But they have, they have the freedom of choice.

00:26:20.800 It's a matter of preparing themselves for that choice.

00:26:23.620 And they, they stick to the advantage of that, uh, don't take it for granted.

00:26:28.280 Just, just, uh, just realize what you have and utilize every, every aspect you can of your energy and your education to do the best you can to make a living.

00:26:39.880 Because what, you've got your whole life ahead of you, you've got to prepare for it.

00:26:44.540 You've got to make sure you've got a bit of good foundation.

00:26:47.720 And you've got to look ahead.

00:26:49.700 Prepare yourself for not only the next year, but look ahead a bit and say, well, how am I preparing today so I'm better off next year and the year after?

00:27:01.400 Like, if you, if you're looking forward to, uh, when you first get started, you get married, or you want to get a, you want to get a house, how are you going to, you have to plan ahead of time, how are you going to plan to get that?

00:27:13.020 Where are you going to go?

00:27:14.400 And in the meantime, you've got your own job.

00:27:16.540 You're preparing yourself in your own job and you're, you're, you're improving yourself in your education and work habits.

00:27:24.320 So you get ahead of your job and earn more money because it wasn't, without earning the money, you're not going to go anywhere.

00:27:30.900 You've got to get a good foundation of work habits and education.

00:27:36.280 Well, that's such a wonderful message, Mr. Parks.

00:27:39.080 We really appreciate your time.

00:27:41.200 Thank you so much for everything you've done for Canada.

00:27:44.160 Uh, it's really incredible to get to talk to you, uh, knowing, you know, the sacrifices that you made, where you were, the importance of your role in, in shaping the country that we now enjoy and that we're so privileged to live in.

00:27:57.300 So thank you so much for, for joining the podcast.

00:27:59.860 God bless you.

00:28:00.960 And, uh, thank you again for everything.

00:28:03.400 Well, thank you very much.

00:28:04.680 It'd be nice talking to you.

00:28:06.420 All right.

00:28:06.820 Have a great day.

00:28:07.720 Thank you so much, sir.

00:28:09.140 Bye.

00:28:10.160 It's an incredible story and we appreciate Mr. Parks's time.

00:28:13.740 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:28:15.840 I'm Candice Malcolm.

00:28:16.600 This has been a very special edition of the Candice Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - June 06, 2022

How brave Canadians changed history on D-Day (ft. D-Day veteran Jim Parks)

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