First Engagement With The Enemy

Our first engagement was in a place we called Starvation Gulch because after we left Bone and went inland, two batteries, one battery their guns and trucks hadn't arrived. And the other two batteries Queen and Roger battery, we went in with the French Matineau (sp) Division, matinee I think that's the right way to say it, and that's where we lost, we had our first casualties there actually. Funny thing about it when we came under shell fire I had shouted, you can hear the big shells coming, I shouted to my gun crew, "Take cover." We all dived down flat on the ground and the shells exploded. One piece went across my backside and I looked up at Tom and I said, " Jesus, Tom how much of me arse is gone? " He says, " There's none of your arse gone sarge but your jeans are." It had burned the top right off. It was as close as you'd want to get. And another fella, the fella never got hit. We had a steel toe plate under our boot, and the piece, which was lying flat, a piece of fragmentation of a shell case took off that, and his toes felt paralysed with the shock of it, you know. And he was holding his foot, "My God me toes are gone." But it was only the toe plate of his boot gone and the part of the sole.