Cormier, Alfred

Alfred Cormier was born February 25, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts. The family had Canadian roots, and when Alfred’s father’s health deteriorated, they moved to New Brunswick when Alfred was 7.  Alfred grew up there in the small community of Adamsville.  As he recalls he left school when he was 13 – so that he could help support his family during the Depression years.  Alfred worked on an uncle’s farm during that time, and when he was 16 he decided to join the Canadian army, lying about his age.  He got away with it as his birth certificate was in Boston, and when his parents tried to get him back at home he said he’d run away if they tried to stop him.  So he and his friend Maynard went to the recruiting office, where they were served bacon and eggs; given the poverty of the time that made a difference! Alfred made it through the recruitment process and swore his oath to the king as he joined the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment, losing his American citizenship in the process.  The next step was to board the troop ship, and Alfred went over in a large convoy full of 3rd Division troops; they arrived in Liverpool and headed to Aldershot, and it was there that their training began. The men knew something was on the way when their training began to intensify in spring 1944, and sure enough it was the long-awaited invasion.  Alfred and the North Shore Regiment were slated to hit Juno Beach in the first wave, and they did just that.  Alfred made it off the beach and into St-Aubin-sur-Mer, where they spent their first night in France.  Sporadic fighting in Normandy continued through the next month as the regiment received its orders to take part in the assault on Carpiquet, where Alfred recalls that they lost more men than on D-day.  The advance continued along the coastal route, through Belgium and the Netherlands and into Germany itself.  Cheering crowds of civilians greeted the Canadian liberators along that route.  Alfred was hospitalized for a time in the Netherlands, but apart from that he was never wounded.  When the end of the war came, Alfred opted to stay in the Army of Occupation, and he spent much of the next year in northern Germany.  It was then that he returned to Canada:  first he was in New Brunswick, where he married, but opportunities were  limited, so he and his wife made the decision to move to Montreal, where Alfred found work with Eaton’s.  Alfred Cormier was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec in October 2025.