Loss of a Friend

Heroes Remember

Loss of a Friend

Transcript

Well, you've five guys in the tank, and you sleep with five or four , and at night, and one's on guard duty. You did two hours off. I think it was four off. Two on and six off, two on and six off per watch, right through the three months. And you, you get . . . you're a little upset if a guy's a little late coming to relieve you. You're going to wake him up and you're back again, and he doesn't wake up fully and you gotta go back again. So you, you, you know who . . . you never want to be next to that guy. Ozachavich (sp) was that way. It was hard getting him, him to come out because he'd fall asleep. Not, not deliberately, but he would. Gordie Waldner always brings back . . . like, I got his, I brought his picture here. I got a picture of his grave. He got killed on the 2nd of October of ‘51. On the left flank of 355, we were down further. He was closer and in a different tank, but . . . he was carrying out, helping carry out wounded RCRs, and a shell landed a little close to him and blew his head off. And when I got this, I didn't get, I didn't get word for three weeks that, later, that he had been killed. When we come out of the lines to go home, he wasn't there. So, they told me he got killed. And I didn't know he was killed. This was the 28th of October, so it was three weeks before . . . so, things like this, you didn't hear much. We were going to go home together, and he never made it. I went to see his mother and she wouldn't see me, so . . .

Description

Mr. MacBride talks about the loss of a friend on Hill 355.

Albert Hugh MacBride

Mr. MacBride was born July 25, 1932, in New Westminster, British Columbia, in St. Mary's Hospital. He lived the early part of his life in White Rock and moved to New Westminister during the Second World War. When he was 18 he joined the Canadian Army enlisting with the Armoured Corps and the Lord Strathcona's Horse Regiment. Mr. MacBride did his basic training at Camp Borden in Ontario and later in Meaford, Ontario, with his tank regiment. He served as a driver/gunner with the Armoured Corps assigned to a tank. On his way to Korea, Mr. MacBride flew to Japan and after a short stay was transported to a troop ship on it's way to Pusan. In Korea, Mr. MacBride made his way to Hill 355 and served as a part of a five man tank team. In 1953 he returned home to Vancouver via Seattle, Washington, and was greeted by his father upon arrival. Mr. MacBride left the army and joined the Canadian Air Force and transferred to a career as a crash rescue firefighter for 20 years. He was married in 1954 and stationed all over bases in the Canadian Air Force from Summerside, P.E.I., to Germany. After leaving the air force he was the Provincial Fire Inspector and later the Fire Marshal for the Federal Government with Parks Canada Historical Sites and Indian Affairs for 14 years.

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