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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