Humanity Over Conflict

Heroes Remember

Humanity Over Conflict

Transcript

Freddy Zukiwsky our stretcher bearer and I had quite a little show there a day or so later. We helped a baby being born. Went in the next house there young woman there, they asked if we could help but we had no medical officer. Never asked... Well Freddy was a stretcher bearer but he never took any training on it really. He just didn't want to shoot anybody that was all. So he went over and I had read a, not read, I had looked at pictures of childbirth in a book I seen a while before. So Freddy said it must be like, farmers, it must be something like animals. So we go and see. So we went over and helped her anyway. And it was only a few days after that we pulled away from there, and about a month later we went back through and a lot of the German civilians were out there then. And this young woman there, yelling, "Where's Freddy? Where's Tommy? Where's Freddy?" And anyway, we figured she meant us like that, we didn't recognize her. She's holding up, "Baby, baby!" And we finally got up to the front of the trucks like that there, or got out at the back like that, she'd named the baby after us. So I got a baby, I haven't got a baby, I have a name on a German baby somewhere if he's still living. So has Freddy. It was quite a thing, it was quite an experience too. It was kind of nice to see life amongst other Nazis. And I met a friendly German one time too, a German soldier. When we were at Nijmegen you saw an occasional jack rabbit, Belgian hair. And we stayed out in the brick yard quite a bit of the time, that was a nice warm place in there, like sheltered. But I went out after jack rabbits one day, and I shot a jack rabbit. I stepped over this fence, went into the field to get him, I went to pick him up and a gall dam bullet hit the ground beside him. And I looked up like that and there's a German standing up, he's quite a long ways away. Still had me cleared out, we had kind of at a peace with each other at the time, not too much to him. I went to reach the rabbit again he shot again, right about the same place. I said to myself, "He wants that darn rabbit that bad he can have it." So I head out again, back and stepped over this fence and I happened to look back you know to one side nice little sign, "Mine field." I was into it, and he warned me. And anyway I guess I was lucky, cause we had quite a bit of rain and thawing at that time, I guess maybe six inch of water I guess was froze over. I might have got blown up. But he never shot me, he shot beside the rabbit, he was a good shot too because he could have picked me off.

Description

Mr. Tomlin describes two personal events where humanity won out over conflict.

Glen Tomlin

Mr. Tomlin was born in Clinton, Ontario, in 1923. His family moved to Harriston when he was very young. Once he was old enough he worked in a box factory earning $7/week for 60 hours of labour. Despite having had rheumatic fever, which made it impossible for him to walk at a marching pace, Mr. Tomlin was accepted by the army, where he trained as a field gunner. He later switched to infantry, joining the Hard Light Infantry, 9th Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division. Mr. Tomlin's service saw him in several combats in Northern Europe, often engaging the enemy at very close quarters. Mr. Tomlin now resides in Palmerston, Ontario.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 2:41
Person Interviewed:: Glen Tomlin
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Europe
Battle/Campaign:: Rhine
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: Highland Light Infantry
Rank:: Private
Occupation:: Gunner

Language selection

Humanity Over Conflict

Heroes Remember