Description
Mr. Giovannetti recalls when his Sherman tank was ambushed by a German Panther. He describes how the Sherman was destroyed and he was almost fatally injured.
John Lawrence Giovannetti
Mr. Giovannetti was born October 1, 1921, in Port Morien, Nova Scotia. He worked with his father as a carpenter and fisherman until joining the army. After basic training in Fredericton and armoured vehicle training in Camp Borden, he and the rest of the Fort Garry Horse unit were shipped to Scotland to prepare for the D-Day invasion. After landing in France during the D-Day invasion, Mr Giovannetti's unit continued to engage the enemy across the French countryside. After participating in action at the Carpiquet Airport, and Falaise, he was severely wounded when his Sherman tank was ambushed by a German Panther in Goirlie. The injuries he suffered in that attack cost him his left arm and ended his fighting days. After recuperating for months in hospitals in Belgium and England, he returned to Canada.
Transcript
Interviewer: Tell me if you can, Mr. Giovannetti, if you can, what, where it was you got hit and how it happened.
This, just trying to figure out how they, how they would spell Goirlie, it's G-O-I-R-L-I-E. It's not girl like we would say but they called it Goirlie.
Interviewer: Goirlie?
Goirlie, yes. That's where, that's where my day ended right there in Goirlie. We went across the canal there and over a metal bridge and after blowing a few things up of course. But we got out and there was a, there was a great big field, I don't know how big it would be probably you could set Sidney down in it, it looked to me that big. And we got off of the road and went in along the bush, a bunch of bushes that was there and when we got to the end of the bushes we got bang. They were waiting for us to stick our nose out. Germans with a big Panther tank and an 88 on it for a gun which the 88s were used for shooting down planes eh. We didn't have, we didn't have anything to compare with them fellas when it come to guns.
Interviewer: So it was the 88 that hit the Sherman? Your Sherman?
In one side and out the other, yeah. Do you know what saved my life? I sat in the gunner chair like this until everything stopped quiet and all the bullets stopped hitting the machine, the tank. And of course the other fellas were gone then. The young fella that used to be on this side of the gun, loading it, he had thirteen seconds, he had it timed that's how it took, long it would take him to get out of the thing. And they told you this because if it was a gasoline motor and you got hit with, that all them sparks flying around down there it's going to go up eh. He went out too quick. And of course the crew commander had to go with him or ahead of him to let him out so I sat there and saved my life. But, I didn't, I didn't get free of not gettin' hit. I had, I was laying on the ground there alongside of it. They fired probably a half a dozen shells into the tank after they put it out, after we got out of it. And some of that stuff hit me too while I was there. I have three pieces of steel hit me right up here in the back of the neck, one of them was in there, in me for twenty years. And I'm crippled because of this too, I had another piece through there. I had twelve scalp wounds on this side of my head where the stuff hit me, that was after I got up and took off out of there across the field, I did get up out of there and run. Got in a ditch about here down to the water probably. But that wasn't all. This happened at about eleven o'clock in the morning, they never got me out of there until supper time. So I lost a lot of blood, and nobody around. And it was then that I found out that the driver was alive, I heard somebody hollering and I looked around and he was in the ditch behind me. And he says "Just stay put John, I'm coming to get a hold of ya". So he saved my life. So from then on it was hospitals, that was the end of my fighting.