Pinned at San Fortunato Ridge
Heroes Remember
Pinned at San Fortunato Ridge
Transcript
And exactly what I thought would happen did happen.
They mortared us and they fired rounds of... tank fire at us.
And of course, naturally pinned us down, we couldn't move.
Prince's brother dug a hole as deep as this and we had,
as a matter of fact, we had to help him to get out of it.
Went down and then he went under this way.
Because of these Lombardi pines and when rounds of high
explosives hit them, everything went straight down.
And we were there 21 hours, pinned down, couldn't move.
I got up, on a number of times I had to get up out of my hole and
go and see how the rest of the boys were doing.
We lost three men there in that group,
out of that group from battle stress.
They just broke down, they were bags of jelly.
Prince was down in his hole the one time I came along and I could
hear him mumbling and. Prince had said to me previous to this
that he was an atheist, dyed in the wool atheist.
He didn't believe in God but that's all a bunch of b.s.,
so I left it at that.
But when I came along and I looked down and Prince was on his
knee about this, on his knees in about 3 or 4 inches of water
and he was praying. I said, "What are you doing, Prince?"
He never said a word. I said "Good on you". I said now,
I says, you're, you're with us.
And I went, I went up and visit the other
boys and went on back and crawled into my own hole.
Description
Mr.Parker talks about how a friend found his sense of faith at the San Fortunato Ridge during a 21 hour barrage.
Richard Allen Parker
Richard Allen Parker was born in Vernon, BC on May 27, 1917 to a First Nations family. He talks about his early years, the prejudice that he faced, and the meaning of being First Nations. He left home at an early age to work in the mines. He talks about joining the PPCLI in 1942, fighting the SS and Hitler Youth and his time in Algiers and Italy.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 02:11
- Person Interviewed:
- Richard Allen Parker
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Second World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Italy
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI)
Related Videos
- Date modified: