German Tactics Prevent Movement

Heroes Remember

German Tactics Prevent Movement

Transcript

You're just moving along, pray to God you don't get hit, you don't get hit well you're ok. Interviewer: How would you describe the German resistance during that period? At that time it was bad. Interviewer: What were their tactics like, what do you remember them doing trying to slow up the advance of the allies? Oh they had tanks traps, they had tanks dug in, just to kind of sticking out old tanks, and they had ditches that you couldn't get a tank over, and they had, there were a lot of spies coming back through. One day we, there was a priest one day coming through like we went in to action most of the Eyeties would take off, they weren't gonna stay on their own, they'd take off and come back. Well you didn't, the infantry were supposed to stop these guys and have a talk with them, see where they're going, you don't know who they are. They could be Germans dressed in Eyeties clothes. Anyway one day it was a priest, well nobody is going to think a priest could be a spy are they? So some of our guys stopped him and talking to him and they thought he was a spy for the Germans dressed as a priest on the way back through taken (inaudible) and he'd go back and take it back to the Germans. Interviewer: So he was arrested was he? I don't know what they did with him, maybe they shot him. I don't know maybe the infantry shot him. Interviewer: During the period of time that you were pushing through the Gustav line and the Adolf Hitler line, and then eventually the Liri Valley campaign, with Monte Cassino on the left, during that period of time did you have occasion to see German prisoners more? Oh yea, oh yes you saw more at the end, yeah Interviewer: How did they appear to you? Over in Holland you saw a lot there, but then back in Italy, no they were pretty good, but as I say we never got involved taking them back, the infantry that was their job.

Description

Mr. Gorie recalls some of the tactics used by the Germans to keep the tanks from moving forward.

Norman Gorie

Mr. Norman Gorie was born on April 22, 1923 in Saint John, New Brunswick. His father did not have military service but his uncle served in the First World War. He grew up in New Brunswick with his two sisters and upon graduation from high school, at the age of 17, he began working as a carpenter building a military camp in Sussex, New Brunswick. In February, 1941, Mr. Gorie joined the Canadian Army enlisting in the 8th New Brunswick Hussars. He served with the 5th Armoured Regiment working as a Wireless Operator and attained the rank of sergeant serving in Italy and Northwest Europe and was in Holland when the war ended. He later returned home to New Brunswick.

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