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During the Second World War, William Drinkwater commanded a heavy truck platoon in No. 47 Army Transport Company, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (RCASC) in Northwest Europe. He joined the army in February 1941. Previously a cub reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, his typing skills qualified him for typing Part I and Part II Orders, which he did at Camp Borden, Ontario for 28 months. At Drinkwater’s request, he was sent on officer training and became a RCASC lieutenant. He went overseas to England, then to the European continent to 1st Canadian Reinforcement Unit. Drinkwater then joined the Winnipeg-based No. 47 Transport Company, part of the 1st Canadian Corps. Towards the end of the war, as a captain Drinkwater was a staff learner at Headquarters, 1st Canadian Army.
Please be advised that Memory Project primary sources may deal with personal testimony that reflect the speaker’s recollections and interpretations of events. Individual testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Memory Project and Historica Canada.
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Transcript
I was put in the office where they prepared the Orders, Part I and Part II. Because I could type I was put in the office that was typing Part II Orders. In those days it was done on Gestetner stencil and I was doing that job for 28 months I guess it was. Then I thought, well, after the war if I had children and they asked, “What did you do in the war daddy?” I would have to have said, “I typed,” which wasn’t a very good answer. So I wrote a letter to my commanding officer requesting that I be given officer training. At that point in the war, just after the North African campaign, the casualties among Army Service Corps officers was quite high. So there was a general push on to produce Army Service Corps officers.
We were given training on conducting convoys and we conducted a convoy from Aldershot right up to Northumberland [England], right close to the border of Scotland. They had a muster parade and I have a vision that what they did they had this muster parade and they started the head of the convoy down so far and they said this group is to the continent. It must have been planned beforehand because our documents were right there so they could go to the continent with us. So they trained us down to Southampton [England] and we got on, I guess it was a cross-[English] Channel ferry, and we disembarked in France at Avranches, I guess. As we got off the ferry, we marched up the road, we met a group of German prisoners coming the other way and I thought to myself, well here we are invading these soldiers’ homeland and they are being sent to my homeland.
Interview with William Drinkwater - FCWM Oral History Project
Accession Number CWM 20020121-062
George Metcalf Archival Collection
© Canadian War Museum
