Almost Fatal Mistake

I think we were in the Hochwald for a while, forest, and putting in time more or less there. And we went from there to, up along the river, and I think it was March the 23rd, 23rd, 24th night. The, our officer, was our last officer, he went across with the 51st Highland Brigade, the Tee's and Tynes Scottish Regiment. They made the first assault across the Rhine. And about three or four o'clock in the morning, we went across our platoon, his platoon, Mr. Eisner's. And I know I was in the first boat and I think I put the, second or third man to put a foot on the ground, thought there was another who could make that same claim. I know there's like going through a hail storm almost that stuff cracking by, and it was pretty rough. Though my letters say it wasn't too bad. You couldn't tell, (inaudible). It was all (inaudible) up there at the time too ahead of that Matt Holten(sp) I think it was written a, he went across the day after, and he said he never saw so many dead people around, in all his life. He said he's talked to the officer of the Highland Light Infantry and he say he never, he said the shell fire and so on and explosions was horrendous. The officer from the Highland Light Infantry told him, "You should have been here yesterday when it was really bad." It must have been hell. But that same day we landed across the Rhine. A captain, not one of the officers the Tee's and Tynes Regiment, Scottish Regiment had told us that the village of Speldrop was clear, there was nobody in there. There was men there but the Germans were back in there again. So he sent "B" Company in to clear the town out again. And there was a real mix up because there was still some of those Scottish soldiers left in the town. In fact I shot one, accidentally. But he wasn't supposed to be there you see. I seen this moving in the basement, and I opened up the American grand I had and put four holes through his shoulder. He thanked me after for his trip back to England. But anyway, another fella from up Wingam way he went round the back, he saw somebody running across an open doorway he opened up on him with a Bren gun, he's just a guy right across here, put five holes in him and none of them were fatal. The guy says there, "Careful there mate," he says, "I'm British." And Buchanan, our guy he says, "Screw me chum." he says, "I'm sorry." Then he yelled, " These guys are British in here!"