The Sights and Sounds of War
Heroes Remember
The Sights and Sounds of War
The first time I went into action along the Liri, 1 Div. was in
and we came in, in support of them and as I was approaching
the front, I looked down and there were about 250 Canadian
bodies lying there. Just like cord wood. Most of them with the
1 Div. patched on it. Most of them, you didn’t see what had
killed them. They looked like they were, they could have been
asleep. But, you realized that these were dead soldiers and 250
of them there. It was just, just unbelievable. But you had a
job to do. Later on in actual action, when people got blown up
by shells, when tanks got blowed up and people dived out, all
fire and everything, and you would see them lying there and I
remember as I told you one time, I saw a friend of mine lying
there and his stomach was ripped open and his guts were on the
ground. They were grey. And this was my friend; I could see
his face. And I looked at his body. You don’t recover from
that easily. You’ve got a job to do, you get back in your tank
and you fight. But it comes back to you later. It doesn’t go
away. You have to gradually get rid of that, I don’t know by
what process. I didn’t do anything,
it just went away over a period of time.
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