Everybody Made It But Me

Heroes Remember

Everybody Made It But Me

Transcript

We had quite a few trips on the English Channel to try how the landing would be. We went out on the English Channel for a day or two, on the LTC landing tank craft, and we float around. We didn’t know where we were going. All of a sudden we were back in England. Because they were learning how to land, to see how many guys were going to be so seasick that they wouldn’t want to fight. So anyway, the second trip that we landed, I hit a sandbar and I was about 30, 40 feet from the shore and all of a sudden, I hit this sandbar. I was going straight out to the beach, and everybody’s going by me, but I was on the sandbar. The water started coming up the windshield ’cause I got the heck out, and all of a sudden the wave came in and over the tank. Everything was floating around. So we had to swim to shore. So anyway we swim to shore, we’re soaking wet anyway, when we swim to shore. This was about, I would say about two o’clock in the afternoon because of the tide. I can attain that because the tide went out about five, and it was completely out around six o’clock because I... We lit a fire, by the way, and we kind of dried some of our clothes. But I was laying down sleeping on the beach and I woke up. There’s my tank! The only tank left. Everybody else made it but me. So anyway I said, there’s always a sergeant with you or a... so he says, “Okay guys, I guess we’d better go back to the tank.” It wouldn’t run anyway but they had to call help to pick us up.

Description

Mr. Ducharme describes one of the pitfalls of training for amphibious landings.

Paul Ducharme

Paul Ducharme was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1919. His family moved to Lorraine, Ontario where his father had a successful career with the Abitibi lumber company. Mr. Ducharme left home, penniless, at the age of thirteen. In the years leading up to his enlistment, he was employed as a trapper, a guide, a male poster model, and a mushroom picker. He enlisted in Ontario and volunteered for the new 19th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment being formed in Borden, Ontario. After shipping overseas on the Queen Mary, Mr. Ducharme took part in the D-Day invasion, landing at Juno Beach. He saw further action in France, Belgium and Holland. He was wounded by shrapnel in Holland and sent back to England. After leaving the service, Mr. Ducharme operated an auto body shop for 40 years.

Meta Data