Tanks attack

Heroes Remember

Tanks attack

Transcript

And up at this end they brought me two dozen number 75 mines, they were about that long, so wide, we used to, everybody carried one on their belt and there was two, some kind of chemicals, two tubes that you put together clipped on the top so, and a bunch of wire. I had those all coiled up on that side, that narrow street, narrow road and when the tanks came in I was, it was my job to pull that across, we were, we were there at night we'd go into this house in the daytime and this night, I think I'd been away that day on a patrol with the captain and that night I'm asleep and I woke up with the awful noise, the tanks came in the other end of town and shot everything up down through it, as Kurt Meyers that time would say 18 tanks came in there on us. But I didn't know anything about tanks and their, the machine gun was just clippin' the top of the stone wall and they destroyed a machine gun, destroyed a Piat. And I seen them, they had flares up sometimes as light as it is here now. I said, "Boy if I can get a look at that machine gunner I'll stop that noise." And I stepped out on the, around the corner of the fence, steel fence and about 30 yards away was this big tank sittin' there. Well, what a surprise I got and before I could do anything that gun fired and he put the, he put the shell right into my 24 mines. That concussion picked me up. I was sort of bent over like that, that straightened me up in the air and I don't know how many times it twirled me around and sent me in the fields and when I came down I said, "This is it, I wonder if Max and Ray will make it," my other two brothers and I don't remember hitting. I remember my feet hitting the ground but I don't remember hitting the ground. I was gone before I hit the ground.

Description

Mr. England tells of waking up in the night and hearing German tanks coming in from the other side of town towards them. A tank fires a shell into a cache of mines nearby and he is thrown back many yards and knocked unconscious.

Arnott Graydon England

Mr. England grew up in a small town in New Brunswick where his father had a small farm and worked in the lumber woods. He was the youngest of nine siblings. He had some difficulty getting into the Army because he didn't weigh enough but his determination prevailed and he was drafted. Mr. England was known for his fine shooting abilities and was a very lucky man having survived three major explosions within 24 hours during the war. Mr. England fought in the Normandy campaign as well as in Holland.

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