A visit to the infirmary

Heroes Remember

A visit to the infirmary

I got up one morning I had to go to the outdoor, it was just an outdoor pit, with a bar and there was sacking around it. I sat on that bar and I had to crawl out of there. My whole life just passed right out of me and I crawled, I couldn't even put my clothes back on properly nor clean myself, I crawled out of the, the, the enclosure and somebody saw me and they yelled and the the first thing I know I'm in the infirmary. That pretty near killed me and here was I, I was, I was the best and the hardest, the hardiest one in the group, I thought, and I missed, I missed Sicily for that. I caught up to the regiment in Italy and from there on right through to the end. It was a case of we were moving up to a, to the front and it was at night and we were marching up along this road well this is a whole battalion affair and as we were moving up our support equipment, our, all of our support, the anti-tank and the mortar and the machine gun and the whole bit, they're moving up, were marching along side the road and all this equipment is going up on the road and I'm marching along and there was one terrific bang. It didn't affect me at all, of course I, I ducked, naturally, we ducked when there was an explosion of any kind. Sometimes we ducked even with the, the sound of a pin drop.

Mr. Parker becomes so ill with dysentery (along with, but later than, everyone else) that he is hospitalized, and misses the regiment's move into Sicily. He doesn't catch up with them until Italy. They then start working up the line in Italy.

Richard Allen Parker

Richard Allen Parker was born in Vernon, BC on May 27, 1917 to a First Nations family. He talks about his early years, the prejudice that he faced, and the meaning of being First Nations. He left home at an early age to work in the mines. He talks about joining the PPCLI in 1942, fighting the SS and Hitler Youth and his time in Algiers and Italy.