Documentary maker in 'race against time' to interview WWII veterans

A B.C. man, inspired by the loss of his grandfather, a World War II vet who served in Summerside, P.E.I., is on a mission to interview as many veterans of the second great war as he can.

Eric Brunt has interviewed more than 400 veterans in his travels across Canada. He is planning on making the stories into a documentary called Last Ones Standing, which he hopes to release next year, the 75th anniversary of the war's end.

Brunt was moved to take on the project after his grandfather Clifford died in 2013 at the age of 95. Clifford was stationed in Summerside during the war.

His grandfather would share the occasional story about the war during family gatherings in his final years, and Brunt wishes he had recorded them and asked more questions.

He said the war's veterans are dying off quickly, something that became brutally apparent on his cross-country trip.

"I, unfortunately, came across that quite a bit, travels where I just got there a little too late," said Brunt.

"Other times I got there just in time. It would be a few weeks and I'd get a phone call from a family saying that the veteran had just passed away and I got his last interview, and it was such good timing. So I had good timing and bad timing throughout the trip."

That included one veteran from P.E.I. who offered to show him around Slemon Park, where the old Summerside base was, but it took some time before he could get to the Island.

"I got an out-of-service message," Brunt said about when he called the veteran.

"I quickly searched his name in Google and sure enough his obituary was in there. I unfortunately missed out on that one and that opportunity to be shown around and know even more about what my grandpa would have experienced. It goes to show that the whole project really was a race against time."

Brunt said 60 of the veterans he interviewed have since died.

He interviewed three veterans while he was on P.E.I.: Vivian Phillips of Foxley River, Lloyd Gates of Charlottetown, and Edwin Clow of Summerside.

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