Do You See Him?

I think the gunner was a real... I say he was good. And I think him and I saw this situation together. Every time a tank or a vehicle went by about 60 feet, maybe 100 feet ahead of us, he was getting blown up. And we figure it was coming from this way. But there was a whole bunch of trees out there. There was a farmhouse right there and the barn was on the right and the house was here. Well I thought, uh oh. On my own I thought, you know, I never talked. We knew, we finally figured it out and we just drove up to between the house, over the fence, through the house and just and he was moving ahead, the German. Just as I saw the turret and the gun, I said, “Do you see him?” Just the minute I said that, BANG. He fired. Interviewer: And he hit the tank? And he was loaded. But what happened, one German... it killed everybody by the way, except the one guy, the guy that was in charge of the tank. Somehow, I don’t know what killed him, but he went flying over sideways like this and he never moved. The only guy we saw was him. He was a nice looking guy. His hat... lovely red head, you know, curly red head. Yeah, really nice looking man. He looked to be about, he could be 27 or 30. One of their best soldiers, I guess. Yeah, but what happened with our shell, it just picked up the turret up a ways and I just see it up and down almost in the same spot. I guess the concussion must have killed them because nobody moved except the guy on the top.

Mr. Ducharme describes a deadly attack by his SPA on a German tank

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.