A Deadly Fighting Patrol

Heroes Remember

A Deadly Fighting Patrol

Transcript

One of our patrols I remember, in June, in 1951. We had, we put on a company attack so, of course, when company attack, we're like this, you know, Simon's here at the radio, commanding officer right behind and other commanders and the rest of arrow head like this, every five feet and so on. And they had called the artillery to pepper pot this place, you know, and I said to myself there would be nothing left anyway, you know, so well we moved. They waited from here to where our cartons are I guess and they opened fire on us, machine guns, they cross fired, crossed fired on us, you know. So we lost 21 that night, you know, and we got chased back down we tried to contact Able Company because that was the only place we they pepper pot our area, knowing that where we were coming from. Somehow they are smart enough to know where we were coming from. Okay, we were going back in Able Company outpost, not even, it's a forward position, not an outpost, just a forward position. So we went in there and we, our people started to fire at us, you know. Can't blame them when I think about it, you know, I couldn't blame them. They don't know what's coming, who's coming from the enemies, enemy area but after awhile, you know, they realize, you know, that we are allies, you know, and... I was helping, carrying one dead body, you know, on a stretcher and that's when they realized, you know, where we were coming out at and they started shelling in our area. I dropped everything, dead body right there boy. I flew in the crawl trench and boy commanding officer was some mad about that. He said, “You guys get out there.” He said, “you save that dead body, bring him in.” We had to bring him in, in spite of shelling, you see.

Description

Mr. Simon describes his unit being ambushed and being chastised for abandoning a stretcher during shelling.

Stephen Simon

Stephen Simon, the sixth of ten children, was born in Big Cove, New Brunswick on February 19, 1932. After finishing grade eight on the reserve, he attended school off the reserve where he faced a lot of discrimination. He often fished with his father, who was a police officer at Big Cove. Mr. Simon enlisted at the age of eighteen, took his basic training in Camp Borden, and became a qualified paratrooper on December 22, 1950. After arriving in Korea, he trained as a radio operator, and served in that capacity until the end of his military service. In 1958, Mr. Simon’s skills were highlighted when he served in a top security communications centre.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 2:36
Person Interviewed:: Stephen Simon
War, Conflict or Mission:: Korean War
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: Royal Canadian Regiment
Rank:: Sergeant

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A Deadly Fighting Patrol

Heroes Remember