Eastbourne
Hi Mike:
Thank you for your reply. I think it is great that you are doing research on a geat part of World History. First let me say something I have wanted to say for many years. I arrived in England in 1939 at the age of 18. Having never been more than 80 miles from the city of Toronto in my lifetime, and saw the British people during the blitz, their cool resolve in cue lines, sleeping in the subways, going to hard rationing, has always left me with nothing but great admiration for these wonderful folk during the most trying time of their lives. Little did Hitler and his thugs realize what a mountain of resolve they were up against.
Mike, regarding Eastbourne, I have searched many books looking for information on this special unit that was sent to Seaford pre the Dieppe raid. The Major Armstrong that I mentioned has a son who is a writer on early Canadian history. He has done quite a lot of research on his dad. He would probably have more research on the units that were involved around Eastbourne. I do know that we were trained by instructors (I believe were from the 12th commando regiment) Some of the units that I remember were the PPCLI's and the Van Doos Royal 22nd Regiment. I remember a searchlight that had arch lamp that you had to crank to get the light source that was in front of the cottage. I do remember the small creek, and the reason why, a sargent and I decided to go into town one afternoon and you had to jump acrossed the creek, unfortunately he was a little heavier than I was and his jump failed to meet the other bank by about two feet. One awful muddy uniform. If you happen to find out anything more regarding this unit I would appreciate it. We were called back to our unit because Canadian High Command only wanted to commit one division which was the second.
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