Montgomery's Double

Heroes Remember

Montgomery's Double

Transcript

I had a, a nice experience. I guess it was a nice experience, about the third day in Sicily, and it was so new, we were all so new and that yet that.... I know now, we were getting mortared ‘cause we were right up... I could see, you could see, the Germans. And this, there were explosions going on here and there. It was stuff coming over the hill, right around us. And it's funny, you'd think training would do you any good, but for some reason, I run like hell from where I was. There was a, a culvert in the road, and the culverts there... it was, it was all hilly in Italy, little dips. It was this little culvert there, and culverts there were stone, and about three feet, four feet high, and a ditch down into the front of them. I was going the hell into there, and everyone was running into there. You could hear them mortaring. You could hear them and they're kind of slow coming. You hear the whistling coming towards you. There was lots of that going on, but there's one particular one, landed and blew the front end off of a, of an English car sitting that was where I was, but I wasn't there any more ‘cause I'd run from that noise to get into that culvert, and I hurt myself. I'd pulled my nose up. I was bleeding pretty bad on somebody, so get me in that hole, under that culvert. But they, that's the real, first real shelling I ever experienced. And they blew the end of the, the other end of the culvert shut. That's how much close it was there, but blew it shut, anyways. And... some of them Seaforth boys, I was there, but some of them Seaforth boys had them shovels with their kits, dug that thing out, and Montgomery was in the other end of the tunnel. Montgomery. And I wondered what in hell would Montgomery be doing up there. There was a jeep come around for a drive, an English driver, who's all British 8th Army, and Montgomery, myself and another guy, he took us back behind the lines to... I don't know what the hell for. But I remember me sitting in the back of the, the back of this jeep, and he was, Montgomery was in the front right, and he offered us a smoke, and I thanked him and I didn't take one, and I was so embarrassed, and I said something to him about I'm not a very good soldier ‘cause I was shaking so bad. And he said, remember him saying to me, "It's OK, laddie. It was a harrowing experience." That's Englishmen. And he's so calm, nothing to it. I'm getting ahead of myself, but to finish that part of it, I never thought anymore about that, but as I went on in the army for a few months, guess I often wondered what in the hell Montgomery was doing up there with us infantry troops, the Seaforths and Vandoos. He's a field marshal and what would he be doing in a culvert. By this time, I ... I'd been in enough action to know that they weren't sending mortar bombs enough over there to kill Ed Laird. They were trying to blow that damn road, culvert out of there. That's what they were at. What kind of a knucklehead would get in there? That's what they're trying to blow up. He's a field marshal. That always struck me that way. Well, after the war, here in 1985, I took my wife back to Holland, and we come back to England. We stayed there for week in England. ‘Course we went to Madame Toussaud's Waxworks. Just in there is a big wax statue of Montgomery. My wife had heard this story before, y'know, just telling you. She said, "Hey, Ed, here's your buddy. Get over there, I'll take your picture." which she did. And I went up there and she said, "It was him?" and I said, "Yeah, it was him, but he's different, he, he seemed taller than the guy I remember, but then he's on a wooden thing, and his face was... It was him, alright, but this, this guy, the statue, his face wasn't quite as sharp, his nose wasn't as sharp as the Montgomery that I knew. When I find out the things from the architects the (inaudible) Montgomery didn't go into Sicily. He was having some troubles with the British government, him and Winston Churchill were feuding about how they'd do it or some goddamn thing, and they sent his look alike in there. And I thought it was, he said it was, was Montgomery. We thought it was a field marshal. But that's the guy that was in the ditch with me. But I noticed there was not much difference that I, when I got to taking his picture, you could tell him.

Description

Mr. Laird recalls meeting Gen. Montgomery while under attack near Sicily, only to find out years later that it wasn’t actually the General.

Edwin George Laird

Mr. Laird was born in Verwood, Saskatchewan and attended school there until grade 4. In 1934, when Mr. Laird was 11 years old his father passed away. Mr Laird and the rest of the family moved to a homestead in the bush north of Verwood. Not having a radio until 1940, news of war was very limited. As they started to hear radio coverage, Mr. Laird began to think he should get involved. In February 1942, Mr. Laird travelled to Saskatoon to enlist, and after joining the tank corps was sent to Guelph, Ontario, for training. Soon after he was sent to England where after completing his basic training, he was made a signaller. After advance training he was assigned to the 2nd Field Regiment On June 10, 1943, Mr. Laird disembarked from Scotland, destined to invade Sicily a month later. From there Mr. Laird fought across Italy with the Vandoos and Saskatoon Light Infantry. Eventually, Mr. Laird and other Canadians in Europe were sent to join with Canadian Forces in France. From there they moved into Belgium, and Germany, remaining there until the war ended. Mr. Laird returned to Canada in early 1946, and received his discharge soon after.

Meta Data