Service and Sacrifice. The Gaspé Coast and the Two World Wars.

This is a rough cut of the first few minutes of an interview conducted by Tom Eden with Philip Doddridge, Royal Rifles of Canada, Veteran of the Battle of Hong Kong and POW camp survivor.
This interview took place at the Baie-des-Chaleurs Military Museum in New Richmond, Quebec.

While the First Canadian Division is fighting in Belgium, Gaspé's Leo LeBoutillier, joins the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles) in Montreal, and after a wild send-off, heads across the Atlantic to England.

The First Canadian Division leaves England to join the fighting on the Western Front. A Stanley Cup winner born in Douglastown is the first Gaspesian wounded in World War One, Canadians are victims of a gas attack, and John McCrae writes In Flanders Fields.

In the weeks that followed the outbreak of World War One, the Canadian Expeditionary Force trains in Valcartier, and a convoy leaves Gaspé Bay, onto England. Among the soldiers in that convoy, the first son of the Gaspé Coast to have won the Stanley Cup.

Europe goes to war.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo sets the stage for World War One.

Battle of Hong Kong Veteran Philip Doddridge (Royal Rifles of Canada, E29986) discusses the days and weeks following his liberation from Sham Shui Po Japanese prisoner of war camp, Kowloon, Hong Kong in August of 1945.
 
This is rough cut footage from a longer form recording which took place at the Chaleur Bay Military Museum in New Richmond Québec in October of 2014. Interviewer: Tom Eden

Introduction of the "Service and Sacrifice. The Gaspé Coast and the Two World Wars" podcast series with producer Tom Eden and history adviser Félix Fournier.