Booby Traps in Tobruk
Heroes Remember
Booby Traps in Tobruk
This video format is not currently supported!
We landed in Tobruk. The Germans had been there about a month
before. This was after Al' Alamayn and they were getting pushed
back. And when we landed, there were six of us, aircraft.
We just landed and we heard "ump" and
we looked up and there was a cloud of stuff.
Somebody had set off a land mine.
I looked up and here's an Italian small fighter plane
going around and around and I said, "This is a short career."
There's a truck coming towards us with a black cross
on the side and then a 6'2" Australian got out
with his big sombrero and I said, we all said,
"What's with the black cross?"
He said, "We got tired paintin' it out."
He said, "We were runnin' back and forth so often."
We were goin' over lookin' at a cemetery and
there was some British, there was some German, this little
makeshift cemetery. But there were cases of ammunition, .5,
5 shell is about yea long and about that big around.
Bob had picked one of them up out of the case.
And this Australian said, "I wouldn't pick anymore up."
He said, "A guy lost half of his face the other day doing that."
He picked up one that was booby trapped.
So we went looking for something to eat,
it was early morning because you take off at night,
this was early morning. So we go up to the mess
tent and the only place with a roof on it at that time was the
mess hall. Everything else had no roof on it or they
were all beat up. And the cook says, "Blimey."
He said, "We didn't know you were coming."
You know, and here's thirty-six guys lookin for something to eat.
So we had hardtack, a couple of slices of
bacon and the mugs were soup tins for coffee.
Bob Head, from Winnipeg, got killed, poor fella,
on his last, last trip on operations.
They had a Junkers, a Stuka dive bomber sitting
on its nose just where we landed.
The aircraft, it was all on the sand, there were no runways,
it was just a long strip of desert.
And I think he was due, he was climbing this barbwire
fence to go have a look at this Stuka and it was a booby trap.
It hadn't been touched for months.
You had to be careful, any piece of wire layin'
around you didn't pick it up, you don't know.
Related Videos
First Enlistment
Mr. Doiron and his cousin enlisted even though they were not old enough. It was discovered that Mr. Doiron was too young and he therefore had to wait to sign on again. His cousin remained in the forces.
Second Enlistment
Mr. Doiron turns 18 and enlists again wanting to become a pilot. He explains why he became a radio operator instead.
Last day as a Training Pilot
Mr. Doiron remembers how his world came apart when he failed as a pilot. He also recalls how insignificant his failure seemed when his friend killed himself while flying the very next day.
- Date modified: