WW2 is quite possibly one of the most influential events in modern history both in terms of historical significance and cultural influence. With the overall scale of the war every corner of the world was effected. From the beaches of Okinawa, to the streets of Berling, the middle of the Atlantic, the rocky islands of Alaska, the desserts of Africa and the plains of Russia. Almost everyone in the world was effected by the war as it consumed the earth leaving behind tales of destruction, death, sacrifice and triumph told by those left behind. 

Because of the scale and effect this war had in the planet I have always been interested in the technology, people and story’s of the Second World War so I was very excited to start on this project.

The driving question that we were given for this project was “what was Canada’s legacy in WW2” the project was to make a podcast that was seven minutes long and included an interview from a veteran who we would meet through the memory project. My group of Melika, Adlih and myself were given the opportunity to talk to a veteran of the RCAF, Jack Purdie. We got in touch with Jack through his daughter Colleen and set up an interview at Shannon Oaks.

Jack was a tail gunner in WW2 and while he never saw action, he was stationed in Britain for the later half of the war. However before we met him we had to do some research to get the questions and understanding necessary for a good podcast.

We did many activities in the weeks leading up to the final due date to lean more about WW2 like a video series which we took notes on in class or watching WW2 in color outside of school. Researching all of the topics was really enjoyable as there are so many different ways of researching it. However we didn’t just have to be knowledgeable in WW2 trivia, we also needed to learn how to make a podcast and what better way of doing that than by listening to them.

As a class we listened to many podcasts to get an understanding of what types of podcasts there are and what makes them good. This would come in handy later during the production phase of the project. After all of the research was done we actually got to go interview Jack, it was an amazing experience for me and Jack was very eager to tell his story with us.

After capturing the audio on three different mics we then divided up the different parts and began editing our own podcasts. I focused in questions related to his training as I was very interested in his planes and his overall reasoning behind joining. I’ll leave a link to my podcast as well as my group members’ as well below you can also find the full uncut audio here if you want to listen to the 45 minute interview in full. 

Podcast 11

Podcast 12

Podcast 13

Uncut