You’re supposed to step down.

Well the shells are about that long, and they go into a ... the platform of the cage, it goes into a cage. I think it, if I'm right, I think it holds about six, six shells at a time. And then there's ... I should had an old gal dang picture of the gun here, but I didn't think of bringing it. And there's six or seven guys in charge of the gun. There is a guy, there's a lance bombardier and then there's a guy on the left side of the gun, and a guy on the right and they raise, raise or lower the gun. And then there's a platform here in the middle. Middle, he's the guy that fires the gun. And then there's two or three guys on the ground and they keep, they keep throwing up the shells, and shells to number four. And if there is a misfire say, if the, if number 4,if the lance bombardier were in the Sergeant, tells , tells 4 to fire, and the gun don't go off, they're supposed to step down, down and don't open the, open the cage for him and then they're bullets are in, within 2 or 3 minutes, because it still.. it still could go off. The evening of the crossing of the Rhine, we were brought up, well up, well not too, too close to the Rhine, with all our ack-ack guns. And there was artillery shells which were higher than the, than the ack-ack. And then there was the big ones, way back and when they started, when we started firing, it was hell. The god damn smoke, you, smoke from them there shells. All these here big, big guns firing over us. And one of our guns, I'm pretty sure it was the evening of the Rhine, but I could be wrong but anyway, one of the gun, gun, gun crews in a different troop did, did have a misfire. And the Sargent, right away jumped up and got the cage open, she blew, right in his face. Well when the firing was all over, we heard about this and there was an old barn, not, not to far, they carried him over to the barn and you never saw such a gal dang mess in your life, his whole face. Although, although it didn't kill him, but he was brought back to England and never, never went over again.

Mr. Macdougall describes the crew’s responsibilities on an Ack-Ack gun, and the dangers of a misfire.

Donald J. MacDougall

Mr. MacDougall was born near Harriston, Ontario, in 1923. He was eager to join the Armed Forces, but was turned down three times because of his age. Mr. MacDougall returned home to work in a dairy but was finally accepted into the army in 1941. Once overseas in England, he was trained as an anti-aircraft gunner. He landed in France one week after D-Day and attained the rank of Sergeant while on the battlefield. Mr. Macdougall served in several battles across Northern Europe. He was married in England, and returned home to Harriston after the war ended.