You Can’t Fight Shellfire

Heroes Remember

You Can’t Fight Shellfire

Transcript

The SP, they had steel rakes underneath them with our ammunition in, which they drug in underneath them. And on the back of them, they had all Mark V mines, our mines. So when we started going in there and everything was hell you didn’t know what was going on, you know. Snipers and it was all underground slit trenches. And we’re trained, the way we’re trained not even to pick up your wounded. Keep going, the ones behind coming in will get them, you know or pick them up. But they always said a Canadian won’t make a good commando cause he won’t leave his wounded behind. You didn’t worry much about dying, you know then. You didn’t worry about meeting the man. It’s the shell fire and things, you can’t fight that, you know, what can you do? The carrier I was in, you couldn’t go any, you stood up and here a shell lit right there. And I don’t know the sand or what and that’s when I got that. I went right head over heels. I think anyway. I don’t know if it knocked me out or what, you know. So here, the next one landed right in the carrier and everything went off in the carrier plus it was hitting in our mines so our stuff was going off too. So it was theirs and ours and everything, you know.

Description

Mr. MacDonald describes the chaos of battle and how he was wounded.

Allan MacDonald

In a family of twelve children, Allan MacDonald was born on April 2, 1922, in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. His father was a miner, and following the death of his mother in childbirth, Mr. MacDonald joined his father in the mines. After joining the Air Force and not being called up, he joined the Army. Mr. MacDonald landed at Normandy and was later wounded in action, leaving him to survive with several pieces of shrapnel in his skull.

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