Description
Robert Horowitz
Mr. Horowitz was born in Cornwall, Ontario, on August 30, 1919, of Jewish parents who immigrated to Canada from Russia. He grew up in Montreal where he studied at Lord Arthur School and then moved on to Montreal High. He enlisted with the Régiment de Trois-Rivières in the latter part of 1939 when he was 20 years old and still in high school. Mr. Horowitz attended Camp Borden during the winter of 1939-40 for approximately 1.75 years. He first set foot on European soil in Scotland and trained in Salisbury. He saw action for the first time in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula before being wounded in Tremali. Following the war, he spent some time with Veterans Affairs assisting Canadian Veterans in England and later retired in Canada.
Transcript
We didn't have the armament to compete with the 88's. But we found ways of doing it you know, we were, and this goes further up. In one of the towns we went into, where the lead tank was going up the street, a German tank was in front of them. They just appeared out of nowhere. It was only the gunner that had the reaction, that he fired right away and we blew the tank up. And that's something that happens. You don't realize it's just a shot in a million that you pull it off.
Because we had a lot of rain at that time too, we were using donkeys to carry equipment, fuel, armament. Take up to the front line because we just couldn't move, the trucks couldn't move through the mud. And, that was the position there at that time.