By Alan Hustak on May 2, 2015
Okill Stuart was with the 14th Canadian Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, at a command post a few miles into Germany 70 years ago, when the war ended. The regiment had just swept through Holland and was on its way to Berlin when it was told to cease fire. ‘We were expecting the end, then we got the news the war was over,” recalls Stuart, “The Americans were the army of occupation, we weren’t. They pulled the Canadians out the next day and hauled us to Utrecht. There was no way we could all get back to Canada at once, so while we were waiting in Utrecht, we found a yacht club where the Germans had been relaxing a few weeks earlier, picked up cigarettes and bully beef, and we went sailing to celebrate war’s end. With a bit of bribery, we never ate better in our lives.”
