Wounded During Battle of Caen

Heroes Remember

Wounded During Battle of Caen

Transcript

I was wounded on the 25th of July, in an air raid, night. German air raid of course. I was in a building and it was hit and the bomb came right into the room where I was and I was standing up at the time and, and that's when I, I was hit then, of course, and I don't remember very much, I can remember bits, I remember realizing I'd been hit and then after that I collapsed, I suppose, and then somebody helping to get me out of this hole I was in. And I remember being, somebody offering me a cigarette and I said, "I don't smoke." And then I can recall being put on a jeep, on a rack similar to M.A.S.H. that type of thing, and looking up and seeing the, the stars at night. So, then the next thing I remember being in a tent hospital back at Carpiquet Airport and I was, I was there for a week after I was injured before I was evacuated to the UK. Badly, I lost a leg and I was hit in the arm and hip, the right hip, and right foot, and, and, oh I got hit five times I guess, yeah. It's hard to say, shrapnel or rubble because the, you know, it's tough as, I suppose it could have easily been rubble as well, but it's shrapnel because I still retained some of that in my, in my leg, my hip.

Description

Mr. Roberts talks about getting wounded at Caen.

Emlyn Roberts

Mr. Roberts was born May 8, 1922 in North Wales, UK. His family came to Canada in 1926 in search of a better life and settled in Watson Settlement, Carleton County, NB.

Mr. Roberts had thought about the war and when the call came he enlisted in the army. He figured it was the right thing to do. He was assigned to the Armoured Corps and did his training at the Armoured Corps training centre in Dundurn, Saskatchewan.

In December 1943, he was assigned to the 17th Duke of York's and was stationed in West Chiltington. Mr. Roberts was injured in a German air raid on July 25th and as a result he lost his right leg.

Mr. Roberts recuperated in a hospital in the UK and came home to Canada in November, 1944 where he finished recuperating at the Veterans Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Mr. Roberts ended up working at the hospital with Prosthetic Services for thirty-seven years.

Meta Data