The Mortar Platoon in Action

I was what they called the mortar platoon, in the, in the company. And, I was travelling by carrier, ‘course we had a driver, a sergeant, an officer, and myself. While I was driving it, when I was in the carrier, I was the gunner on the carrier and until we set up the, the three inch mortar.

The Bren Gun: Well the Bren gun's a light machine gun, it fires thirty rounds. We have... it would fire thirty rounds at a time before you had to put, load, reload again. And it was a, it was a, it was one of the better guns.

The Three Inch Mortar: Well it would be used to probably soften up the enemy, we were good for a thousand yards, and it was like a small bomb. We could probably fire one a minute. And it was pretty devastating when it hit because it, it, there was a lot of shrapnel in it, come off of the ground for a hundred yards, comes about four feet off of the ground so it was, it was very, very effective.