Trucks Loaded Down with Ammunition

Heroes Remember

Trucks Loaded Down with Ammunition

Transcript

We had thirty truck loads of ammunition, we had thirty truck loads of jerry tins, gas, and we had thirty truck loads of combo packs and we kept moving up off where we go and then we'd stop and then we'd off load, get settled, emptied everything off off our trucks and then stack them up and those were there for reserve and then we'd go back down to the beach where they had the big depots and then load up and then take it up through supply the units as we go along that''s where we kept doing it like that, eh. And then when we'd move, we would have to load these all back on these trucks and then you move them. Overnight you would move up then you'd off load and load again and then we got to where we started, most of it just helped keep you going we'd scrounge the booze and stuff. We always had a bottle in the truck and when they would say well you gotta take up a load of ammunition then we'd drive up and we'd go so far and then all the lights out and you're going right up, with the guns there and you take the ammunition off. Reach in and have a couple of good shots of Cognac or something. And then they'd say okay turn around there but be careful we haven't cleared that mines yet and here you got a big 60 hundred weight truck you gotta turn around. Interviewer: During the time that you'd be taking supplies, ammunition and the like to the front, you'd be well within range of the German artillery. Oh jee whiz yes, yes, from where we were, from where our belts would be we would be right in range of the artillery. Sometimes we went up to more than miles from the front line.

Description

Mr. Cromwell provides detail of the process of loading ammunition and bringing it close to the front line.

Everett Sylvester Cromwell

Everett Cromwell was born on December 12, 1921 in Weymouth Falls, Digby Co., Nova Scotia. He was the fifth of ten children. At age twelve, he left school to work in the woods because his father, also a forestry worker, had fallen ill. Both of his parents were soon deceased, and the ten children stayed in the family home supporting one another. Mr.Cromwell supported the family by working for a local farmer and then in the local lumberyard. He enlisted in June, 1941 in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. After basic training in Halifax, Sherbrooke, and Camp Borden, he sailed aboard the Louis Pasteur to England, arriving on December 23, 1941. Two weeks after the D-day raid, Mr. Cromwell arrived in France with the 2nd Division, Motor Transport. For the duration of the war, his unit was responsible for transporting fuel, food and ammunition to the Front in support of the Allied advance on Germany. After being discharged from the army and returning home, Mr. Cromwell, recently married, reenlisted because it was ‘steady work’. He and his family were to experience institutionalized racism in Halifax, being denied accommodations because of their black heritage. This in contrast to the fact that he felt equal in all respects as a member of the Army. Mr. Cromwell and his wife, Elizabeth, currently reside in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.

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