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A Gruesome Job for a Youngster

Heroes Remember

A Gruesome Job for a Youngster

We were tied up on the starboard side and on the port side there was a tank landing craft. And again, that night, the German Air Force came over in full force and they hit the tank landing craft dead on and it killed twenty-eight guys. And we were the duty ship and our skipper said to me "George," by this time I'm a leading hand, I've got a hook which is equal to a sergeant, he said, "Take four guys on a work party and you go over there and help bring out those bodies." And that was the worst thing I had to do, was you know, hell I'm, by this time I'm seventeen and you know it's still pretty gory and the smell just, you know, just knocks you over. Yeah, and I, we had a salty old cook from Scotland, an old, really a character and I had my pipe pull, and I was, there was this piece was floating, and I'm trying to get hold of it and of course it was somebody, it was just a chest of somebody, and then Scotty, the old cook yells down, "Hey Shorty," he says, "that looks like a fine piece of meat, wheel that one aboard." I couldn't eat for three days after that. Yeah. But that's the way some of the guys were, they were battle hardened some of them. But we were kids see. Interviewer: And that would be a way to mask their own fear I would imagine. Could be, yeah. Could be.

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