Jimmy May joined the military in 1941, at a young age of 16. He was the youngest of six sons who had joined before him. He joined up in Chatam, New Brunswick, his hometown with the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment. He did his Basic Training in Fredericton, NB and then went down to Aldershot, NS and did his Advance Training. While in Aldershot, the military was looking for soldiers to go over on a draft with the West Nova Scotia Regiment. Jimmy quickly put his hand up to volunteer and the next thing he knew he was on a boat headed overseas. This was only 2 ½ months after he had joined.  Upon landing in England, he was stationed at the Whitley Camp, just outside of Godalmingh. He stayed for a short time with the West Novies when one of his older brothers who was with the North Shore Regiment "claimed" him. During the war if you had a younger relative in a different regiment, you were able to claim them as such and they would go back with whatever regiment you were in. After joining the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment with his brother, they were stationed to Aldershot, England for about a year, until the early part of 1943. While in Aldershot, they trained the entire time they were there doing route marches, rifle drills, learning to use a rifle, machine guns, brengunns, and mortars. Jimmy also took an "2 pounder" anti-tank course while there.

Jimmy recalls the first time he saw action. The 8^th Army, Montgomery's Army was coming from Africa, and the two convoy's met in the Mediterranean Sea, and the they together went in and invaded Sicily. This was July the 10^th, 1943. They fought all through Sicily for about a month. His regiment then did some more training at the Straits of Messina to get ready for the Invasion of Italy. On September the 3^rd, 1943 the West Nova Scotia Regiment invaded Italy. They were the first regiment there. Although they didn't run in to too much - they were bombed and shelled, but weren't too long on the shores and drove inland immediately to the town of Reggio. Upon coming ashore to Reggio, they were faced with many mountains. They walked up one of the mountains on what they called a "cow track." They were walking most of the day, some of the regiment were tired and foot-sore and straggling behind. Every time you climbed another hill and thought it was your last, there was always one more to go. When they got to the top of it, the regiment bedded down in the field overnight. They were only down for an hour or an hour and a half. The guards heard others speaking, so they called out the password, but got no reply. They suddenly heard a commotion. They thought that another regiment may have been bedded down not far from them, but it turned out to be Italian Paratroopers. Shooting broke out shortly after. The regiment ended up losing its Medical Officer, a Sergeant Major, and a few other ranks. But, the West Nova Scotia Regiment was a little too much for the Italian Paratroopers and they quickly surrendered and were taken prisoner. The regiment then went right back to sleep.

Ortona was one of the regiments bigger fights. They didn't actually fight there, they went in long before the Battle of Ortona on the left plank. They were supposed to go in and around back of Ortona to keep the Germans from retreating. But the German's were already prepared in the embankments. The 2^nd Brigade was supposed to attack Ortona from the front of the town. Jimmy's Brigade- the 3^rd Brigade never did get through the gully that surrounded the town. The Germans were waiting for them on the edge of the gully. They had everything lined up, and the West Novies lost 40 of its men that day and another 150 injured or wounded. They weren't getting too many reinforcements at the time, building up for the Second Front, so the West Novies were down to about 3/4 strength. During this time, Jimmy was a stretcher bearer, one of the soldiers whose job it was to go out and get the wounded and bring them back. His brother was a stretcher bearer as well. As fighting continued all that day and all night, Jimmy was getting worried about his brother so when things cooled down a little, he went out looking for him but couldn't find him. He searched all night long, but still couldn't find him and Jimmy didn't know what to think. The next morning, he searched for his brother again and found out that his brother had been sent back to the First Aid Station with a bunch of the wounded. Jimmy remembers this night as one of the worst ones, thinking that something had happened to his brother. His brother returned to the regiment and they continued fighting up the hills, and across the rivers in the Apennines Mountains on the East Side of Italy. The rivers were pretty near dry one minute, then it would rain in the mountains and there would be pretty near five feet of water. They would have attacks planned to go across the rivers, but by the time they were ready to go, the riverbeds would be flooded with water, so needless to say, most of their attacks were wet ones.

In 1944 Jimmy remembers being in a river in Italy attacking the Germans. After the war, the called the place Snowshoe Hill, because of the hayfields and the mud being so thick it was like a clay mud. It would be about 3 inches thick on the bottom of their boots making it hard to move anywhere fast and much less the hills they had to climb up. He recalls trying to get across a 75 foot river under heavy fire. The Carlton York Regiment tried to get across before them and they suffered heavy casualties and withdrew. The next morning, the West Novies were scheduled to go through. Jimmy knew they were drawing heavy fire. He recall hearing the "banging sound" of the bullets going right over his head. The Germans were using a light anti-aircraft gun. The bullets from the gun would explode immediately after hitting something. The next day, a two company attack was made across the river and Jimmy's company made it over. Following the attack, one of the Sergeants came to Jimmy and told him he was one of the luckiest man on this earth. Jimmy asked why and the Sergeant replied that he saw the fire from the day before going right across Jimmy and he was waiting for him to walk right through it. Apparently, the firing had shifted as they went across and Jimmy was at the end of the line. Jimmy could not tell how close the bullets actually came to him. All he could hear was the snapping sound they made as they went by. You wouldn't have any idea where the bullets were coming from, except the fourth or fifth bullet would be a tracer which would give you some idea, but not a big enough one. When they finally got across, the Germans withdrew. Most of the time Jimmy says it was simply a delaying action. The Germans were always on top of a hill firing down on them as they advanced. They were fully exposed most of the time with the Germans having a whole field to fire upon, you would be able to see for miles. Because of the advantage the Germans had, they really didn't need that many people. It was a losing proposition all the way.

The West Nova Scotia Regiment fought through three or four fortification lines. The Hitler Line, The Kezelring Line, The Gothic Line, etc. The lines were broken with Infantry attacks supported by small arms fire, machine guns, mortars, and artillery barrages.

Jimmy's most prominent memory of WWII was the Hitler Line, another company walked right into a mine field. They were walking on the mines steadily. The injured and wounded were yelling out for the stretcher bearers to come and get them. During an attack, the Padre Captain Wilmot M.C. thought that if they tied the Red Cross Banner around a flag pole they may be able to go get the soldiers that were suffering. He did just that and the German's ceased fire while he, Jimmy and the other stretcher bearers went in and got the wounded, amazingly not stepping on any mines in the process. Jimmy says the Germans were not all that bad. Their objective was quite the same, kill or be killed for both parties. Jimmy talks about the younger soldiers involved in Hitler's Army. They were children as young as 14 that were being trained to kill right from the start. They were a very aggressive bunch that loved the conflict of war, but when outnumbered they quickly surrendered.

In the last part of 1944, the West Novies were pulled out of the line. They were brought from the East Coast back to the West Coast of Italy, to Leghorn across to Marsiselles in Southern France. Their transport unit had gone ahead of them. They rode through France in their trucks up through Belgium, stopping off every now and again to rest and eat. They also went through parts of Germany, a point of interest being the Black Forest and the Siegfried Line. From there they went into Holland, across to the Cider Sea ending up in a place called Nykerk. They lost a few more men on the way due to trying to protect the dams that are in Holland from the Germans. They were in Nykerk when the war ended in May, 1945. From there the regiment went to took part in the occupation while waiting to come home. They confiscated rifles from the Germans and sent them back to Germany.