Shrapnel Injury

Heroes Remember

Shrapnel Injury

I was over on the enemy side of the Bay of Caen railway line. There were small bridges over there and we were being shelled, some of us SB88's airburst 88's and some other artillery and we were over there at an observation post over there and I had registered in the ARC and we were doing some firing and then the attack enemy moved in. We pulled back across the railway line and then it became obvious that our mortars were not going to be able to be used because the enemy was getting too close and they were too close to the range the mortars and the thing to do was to get them out. And so I, I called out to them to, to get the mortars on the trailers and hook up and get out and then I was flat on my seat and I thought I turned my ankle and get up to walk again and I fell again and I called over to one of the other mortar fellas and told him to get out. And then I went and I jumped in my carrier and went back down the road to the first aid post and when I jumped out of the carrier I, my left leg kind of collapsed when I landed on it. So they came with a stretcher and took me in to the first aid post and, and I remember having the strange thought in my mind that I'd get this fixed and be right back with the platoon, but it didn't work that way they put me on a... put the stretcher on a jeep with a rack on it for, you know like it had four stretchers or what it took. So we went down the road and it wasn't a very pleasant feeling to go down the road and the road was still being shelled and on back down and eventually ended up on the beach or near the beach, I should say, where they had marquis set up for, for field hospitals I believe they were called. And eventually from there back to a, on a hospital ship and back to England to a hospital there and that's were the surgery was done. I hadn't, I hadn't realized till I looked back on the record there a while ago there, there was five days from the day I got hit with a piece of shrapnel about the size of your thumb until they did the surgery on it in England. So that's why it was so badly infected that I was lucky that I didn't lose the leg, but I remember the surgeon coming around to me the next day and saying, "Captain," he said, "your lucky!" I said, "I know I am, sir." "Yes" he said, "when I looked at that leg, it was so badly infected," he said "I put my hand in my pocket for a coin to toss to take it off or leave it on." "But," he said, "luckily for you, I didn't have a coin." I said, "I am glad you were broke, sir." So he, he laughed and so that, that was, that was that.

On his second day in France, Mr. Thompson was taken out of action after a piece of shrapnel lodged in one of his legs.

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.