Hitler Youth

Heroes Remember

Hitler Youth

We ran into the SS in the northwest Europe. We were on a patrol in a wheeled vehicle. They, what do they call them, they um? Oh terminology - anyway, we carried a 50 calibre machine gun on them and the whole bit and there was six of us or five, usually five of us in the vehicle. A Bren gun carrier, that's right. So we're off down this road and we ran into the enemy so we got a big shoot-up and we went right through them and went off to the other side. A couple of hundred yards further, we stopped and we turned around and got ready for more battle and we got fired upon from where we had just come. Just imagine, five or six 50 calibre machine guns firing on one little area and in there and they'd massacred this one little individual and he was a Hitler youth cause he was young, I bet you he wasn't more than 14 years old. Cause I looked down at him and I thought, oh you poor thing, did you know what you were doing? And that was my experience with the Hitler youth. They had dedication too, just like us and they fought to a standstill if they thought that that was what they were supposed to do. Yeah.

Mr. Parker talks about running into the SS and Hitler Youth in NW Europe, and how tenacious they could be.

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.