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Description
Mr. Joslin describes the action at Cambrai that saw the Canadian Highlanders decimated by German machine gunners. He describes being wounded in the hand and complications arising from having a finger amputated.
Transcription
Ahead of us was the 72nd Highlanders. That’s the Canadian Highlanders, and they, they had to attack the railroad and they lost so many men, they refused to go any farther. And the sergeant was cursing them, calling them everything you could imagine. Because they would not get up and go. They were laying there. There were as many dead men as there was live. God, the machine gun bullets, whew! They come through there two thousand rounds a minute, machine guns. And they caught us. And we were going into a town and the machine guns were right there waiting for us. And they turn the machine guns on there and I got, funny thing, but I got hit in the hand. I was in hospital in France for about a month. And, oh I don’t know, they amputated my finger and they didn’t leave enough flesh to cover the bone and by the time I got to England, oh, it was a terrible mess, and they amputated again. And I was there six and a half months, just for a lousy little finger.