Enemy Encounter

Heroes Remember

Enemy Encounter

I was up with the infantry company commander and a.... moving forward on a RECCE and a .. I remember that there were some Germans at an intersection at cross roads. His lead platoon was firing and the Germans had a machine gun and they were holding up pretty well and then as his fellas moved in and the Germans dropped the machine gun firing and put the hands up comarad and they were taking prisoners. I think that was the first that I saw direct of the, of the two sides and then of course I saw more as I went up and we, when we moved in to farm houses coming to farms and so on. And in some cases we'd bring mortar fire down on the, in the farm buildings and the Germans would be in the buildings and you'd bring the mortar fire down to try to disturb them as much as you could and injure as many as you could. I remember one group of prisoners, who were taken, German prisoners, thinking that, and I think they might have been some of the Hitler (inaudible). I'm not certain, but they seemed to be very young, one group that I remember seeing, particularly. Here again as a platoon commander your so busy. You're, you're, you're thinking of this. You're thinking of that. You're checking this, checking that, that you don't have the time to think about something that, that you might think about if, if you didn't have that much on your mind. But I do remember one, going on one RECCE and going around a barn. And I always remember that if I remember correctly, we always had a password and one I believe that day was punch 'n Judy and I remember coming around the corner of the barn, with a Sten Gun cause I had heard some movement on the other side and I had to go around it and, and just as I come around the corner there's a pistol in my gut and my Sten Gun is in the other fellas gut and I remember me saying punch and he said Judy, it was another Canadian, but it was just one of those things, you didn't know who it was and you could hardly call out and say hello, ya know. What's your name? But there are a lot of those things that happen like that, that just looking back on em, they were a little bit humorous, at the time they weren't, they were rather, rather important matters.

Mr. Thompson recalls his first encounter with the enemy.

Donald Thompson

Mr. Thompson was born in West Saint John, New Brunswick on August 19, 1922. He was the middle child in a family of three boys. His father worked as a railway engineer and fireman with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Thompson was first introduced to military training at an early age becoming involved with the militia when he was roughly 12 years old. He received his Royal Canadian Rifles certificate as a qualified infantry machine gun sergeant in 1939 at the age of 17. He was chosen to go overseas with a company from the Saint John Fusiliers as reinforcements. He travelled overseas on a pleasure boat that was in the midst of being converted to a troop ship and arrived in Liverpool, England. From Liverpool he travelled by train to Aldershot and then on to Crookham Crossroads. There he joined the Cameron Highlanders and trained to support an infantry battalion. In 1943 - 44, while only 21 years old, he achieved the rank of captain and was in Inverary training for combined ops amphibious landings. They trained, in preparation for D-Day, in a camp that was surrounded by barb wire and no one was allowed leave. On June 6th 1944 he landed on Juno Beach as part of the second wave behind the Winnipeg Rifles. On the third day of fighting after landing on Juno Beach he was hit by shrapnel and subsequently sent back to England on a hospital ship. Although he tried to return to action his wounds proved to be too much and he was sent back to England a second time and then eventually back to Canada. After the war Mr. Thompson worked with the Canadian Legion (later to be the Royal Canadian Legion) in Saint John. He moved up the ranks with the Legion and ended up in Ottawa as the Dominion Secretary. In 1970 he was appointed Chairman of the War Veterans Allowance Board and held this position until he retired in 1987. Mr. Thompson was also named Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the Cameron Highlanders.