First Engagement With The Enemy

Heroes Remember

First Engagement With The Enemy

Transcript

Our first engagement was in a place we called Starvation Gulch because after we left Bone and went inland, two batteries, one battery their guns and trucks hadn't arrived. And the other two batteries Queen and Roger battery, we went in with the French Matineau (sp) Division, matinee I think that's the right way to say it, and that's where we lost, we had our first casualties there actually. Funny thing about it when we came under shell fire I had shouted, you can hear the big shells coming, I shouted to my gun crew, "Take cover." We all dived down flat on the ground and the shells exploded. One piece went across my backside and I looked up at Tom and I said, " Jesus, Tom how much of me arse is gone?" He says, " There's none of your arse gone sarge but your jeans are." It had burned the top right off. It was as close as you'd want to get. And another fella, the fella never got hit. We had a steel toe plate under our boot, and the piece, which was lying flat, a piece of fragmentation of a shell case took off that, and his toes felt paralysed with the shock of it, you know. And he was holding his foot, "My God me toes are gone." But it was only the toe plate of his boot gone and the part of the sole.

Description

Mr. Baggs describes his first engagement with the enemy where they encounter their first casualties.

Eric Thomson Baggs

Eric Thomson Baggs was born in St. John's, Newfoundland on March 3rd, 1918. He grew up in a fishing family and worked with his father at Royal Stores in St. John's filling fixtures and looking after wholesales. He joined the boy scouts when he was twelve. Mr. Baggs was accepted into the Royal Air Force in 1937 at seventeen but his father wouldn't let him go. He then tried for the Royal Navy but was refused because he was too young. When he was twenty-one he enlisted in the Army's Heavy Artillery Branch. He was trained in St. John's and then escorted to Liverpool in 1940. At first, Mr. Baggs was primarily on costal defense. Later his battalion became the 166th Field Artillery which became known as the best artillery regiment in all of the Allied Forces. When Mr. Baggs returned home to Newfoundland, he went on with life as usual, continuing work at his fathers store.

Meta Data