10 Minutes at the Front

Heroes Remember

10 Minutes at the Front

Transcript

When I was leaving home, coming out Georgia Town Road, down here. Petrie's, where I live. This fellow came up from a house to wish me all the best. His name was George Burchell. And , O.K. I went on. And this night in Africa, George came in as a reinforcement. We had some casualties and he had been to England, a year or so before and did the training and everything and was ready to go on the guns, as a gunner, he was trained as a gunner. He came in at night of course and he was just waiting around for, to see the Sgt. Major in the morning. And when I came off duty here was George and I remembered him, shook hands with him and so on and he told me what he was going to do. And there was a Tiger tank up this slope, grassy slope about two hundred yards away that we had knocked out two or three days before. And he said to me, "Would it be alright to go up and have a look around?" He asked me if it was a Tiger and I said "Yes." and he said, "Would it be alright to go up and have a look around?" I said "Sure, I got no authority whatever you want to do I suppose". I said "You haven't been detailed?" "No," he said, "I haven't seen anybody". He said, "Well I'm going up". So George went up and about five minutes after I heard this big "rhump", looked up and here's this fellow (inaudible). So I remember myself, Tony Hall, he's dead now, ran up, and this was George. He picked up a potato masher, a German hand grenade, and pulled the string; plunk, plunk, plunk. In action ten minutes and killed.

Description

Mr. Candow recalls an accident suffered by a comrade from his hometown, within 10 minutes of arriving at the front lines.

Gordon Henry Candow

Mr Candow was born December 15, 1920, and is the oldest of nine children. Joining in with the lads he was working with when war broke out, he signed into the navy but was quickly transferred to artillery. In May 1940, Mr. Candow sailed overseas as a part of the 57th Heavy Regiment, and was stationed to Norfolk, Great Britain, performing costal defence for a year and a half. After being shipped to Southern England the 57th was soon incorporated into the 166th Newfoundland Field Artillery Regiment. In January 1943, the regiment was shipped to North Africa. They remained in action until the end of the North African campaign, when they were shipped to Italy where the unit saw action in Fogia, Cassino, Ortona, and Boulogne. When the war ended, he returned to Southern England for a short period and then returned home to Newfoundland.

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