Artillery Transport

Heroes Remember

Artillery Transport

Transcript

Interviewer: And how were those guns moved? By a quad, a four-wheel drive quad. Just a box affair; four or five men, the gunners would sit into it. And next to the gun was the limber full of ammunition, 25 pounders, they weren't big, they were only about this long. And the charge was about the same length. But the charge consisted of, I guess more or less, cordite, the explosive. Cause you would use one charge to send the shell farther and put another different one higher, much more cordite or whatever, dig more higher explosive, sends farther still. Now that you had your ranging gun too, you'd do this with the gun, you know. Interviewer: Now the fellows who's job it was to move those artillery shells, that must have been a pretty risky job? No. No. Interviewer: They were all defused? Just before they're put in, cap off, but you could drop them and they wouldn't explode. It took eccentric, an eccentric movement. They were rifled eh, the guns? (Yes). And this eccentric was like a governor, so that when it hit, it would explode. The part from that was closed. (Oh, ok). Yeah.

Description

Mr. Candow describes how the artillery and ammunition was transported, and explains how the range of the gun and varying charges were used to aim.

Gordon Henry Candow

Mr Candow was born December 15, 1920, and is the oldest of nine children. Joining in with the lads he was working with when war broke out, he signed into the navy but was quickly transferred to artillery. In May 1940, Mr. Candow sailed overseas as a part of the 57th Heavy Regiment, and was stationed to Norfolk, Great Britain, performing costal defence for a year and a half. After being shipped to Southern England the 57th was soon incorporated into the 166th Newfoundland Field Artillery Regiment. In January 1943, the regiment was shipped to North Africa. They remained in action until the end of the North African campaign, when they were shipped to Italy where the unit saw action in Fogia, Cassino, Ortona, and Boulogne. When the war ended, he returned to Southern England for a short period and then returned home to Newfoundland.

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