Second Wave At Dieppe
The Dieppe Raid
Second Wave At Dieppe
Transcript
When we first went in the,
to check out the strength of the enemy
it seemed like it was kind of a suicide
deal as far as I could see,
but I guess the people that were running the
thing had different, different thoughts on it.
The average soldier, they thought for sure
that was just a suicide thing,
but I can see now their reasoning.
Why they done this thing. I don't know,
they waited out in the bay for two or three days
before they actually went in to the,
head for France.
So therefore the Germans knew exactly where
they were and what they were
doing and everything.
But they were, I think they were just checking
out to see how strong they were.
But when I first went in,
we went into this beach and they told us,
“If somebody gets shot right beside you,
don't stop, keep running.”
So I was running on top of dead guys and
guys crying and screaming for help.
Just don't stop, go.
So that's the way we made the land.
I saw a man getting his head blown off and
he still run for maybe,
I don't know, quite a ways.
Blood coming straight up, no head.
He was still running.
You just shut everything out and just run.
You don't stop or look much,
you just keep your focus ahead and keep going.
You don't, don't slow down or nothing.
The guy went in to reinforce the Dieppe,
the people who were in Dieppe,
to help get them back up to strength.
Then the first day in action we worked,
there's twelve in a section.
There was only four of us left.
The first skirmish we got into,
so that just left four of us
to do the work of the twelve on to,
pretty well through the whole thing, like.
They couldn't get nobody to help us, like.
Nobody trained for engineers or stuff.
Well, that was okay.
From then on, I wiped pretty well
everything out that goes from there.
Description
Mr. Toney describes his landing at Dieppe where he witnessed much death and suffering and high casualties in his section’s first action once the beachhead had been secured..
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 3:03
- Person Interviewed:
- John Martin Toney
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Dieppe
- Battle/Campaign:
- Dieppe
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Seaforth Highlanders
- Occupation:
- Engineer
- Date modified: