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On the Beach at Dieppe

The Dieppe Raid

On the Beach at Dieppe

Transcript
This runner met us, and he took us to where the ... the major, Major Green was and there was a depression in the ground and I said to Bradley, he had the radio, I said, “Lay in there” because we had no cover and I had his rifle and he was carrying this big radio set and anyway, I gave him his rifle and I went down into what they call the ... the prone position and as I went down, I went flying through the air and that chunk of shrapnel there on that dog tag hit me. And I... I must have been about ten, fifteen feet away from where I was originally anyway and I didn’t know what the hell had happened and I sat up and I seemed to be alright and then I couldn’t find my right arm. Then a stretcher bearer came up and I said, “I’ve lost my arm.” “No,” he says, “you’ve still got it.” It was pointing the other way. And he swung it around and we had these bandages that we carried with the safety packs that we had, first aid packs, and he put my arm in a sling and well I had to keep my other hand on it to keep my arm from going all over the place. Well then I started back to Bradley or crawled back to Bradley and he had set up communications, but the communications were terrible. We had this bloody great big antenna sticking up in the air and I think the snipers were trying to take pieces out of it and that and we had communication with battalion headquarters. and the rest, the battalion headquarters radio couldn’t get in touch with anybody but us. And they... It got pretty hairy there... There was bombs and mortar shells bouncing all over the place and every time I went bouncing up in the air, this thing would hurt, and then I got hit in the knee and finally Bradley said, “All I can get is battalion headquarters.” And I said, “well, what do they want?” He said, “They want us to relay messages out to the Calpay,” which was the command ship.
Description

Landing on the beach at 5:20 a.m., on August 19, 1942, Mr. Gorman oversees the set-up of radio communication equipment. The heavy rain from mortar fire results in a serious injury to his arm.

Donald Gorman

Mr. Gorman was born June 23, 1921. His father was a stationary engineer at one of Windsor’s high schools and was a veteran of both the Boer War and the First World War. Mr. Gorman left school after achieving junior matriculation. He held jobs in a bakery, a fish market and as an apprentice mechanic at Remington-Rand typewriter factory in Windsor. After enlisting on September 16, 1939, he took his basic training in Windsor before being moved to Camp Borden for advanced training in June, 1940. Mr. Gorman went overseas with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry Regiment and was involved in the Dieppe Raid.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
03:10
Person Interviewed:
Donald Gorman
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Europe
Battle/Campaign:
Dieppe
Branch:
Army
Units/Ship:
Essex Scottish Regiment
Rank:
Lance-Corporal
Occupation:
Signalman

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