Insubordination at San Fortunato Ridge

Heroes Remember

Insubordination at San Fortunato Ridge

So he went out and took a look and it was all wrong. We had our anti-tank section in the wrong place, we had the machine gun in the wrong place and I said to him, I said, look, I said, you go out and tell those guys there, not me. I said you tell them that there in the wrong places. You must remember, I said, that most of those people have been blooded, meaning that they've had this experience before and they're going by what they've learnt through actual experience, of battle experience. And now you go tell them. He put me on charge. Oh yes, for insubordination. So if I'm on charge, I went and found myself a safe spot behind the house and thought well that's good, I can have a rest now, I have no more responsibilities, it's all his. So I crawled into this shed and while I was crawling, there's people laying there. I thought what the heck's going on here? I was tired. So I went to the far side and I got down in between the last party and the wall. And I went in there, cold, and the longer I laid the colder I got and finally I moved. And this body beside me didn't move at all. It was as stiff as a board. Oh well five dead bodies. I looked and they were German. I got out of there in a hurry. I went back in the house and found my little found myself a little nook and sat down on the floor and nodded away. We moved from there that morning and back along, there's a ridge, San Fortunata ridge, and part of the way up we had to go down into the valley and when the officer, he's leading, he started down in this little valley and there was Lombardi pines along the irrigation ditch. Oh no, and here's a mountain side facing us. Only a thousand yards, two or three thousand yards away from there. I thought, of all the places to be caught in.

Mr. Parker talks about battle stress, being put on charge by the officer in question, and his platoon walking into an ambush at the San Fortunato Ridge.

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.