Description
Mr. McKerracher describes the type of guns used and the responsibility of the gun crew when manning a post.
Neil McKerracher
Mr. McKerracher was born in Saskatchewan, on January 15, 1923. Nineteen-years-old, and eager for adventure, he moved to Ontario and decided to join the army. He became a member of the anti-aircraft regiment, and after receiving basic training in Petawawa, Ontario, he was shipped overseas. He served with coastal defence in Colchester, England. Mr. McKerracher was married in England during the Second World War. Post-war, he and his wife moved to Calgary, Alberta, where they raised their four children. Having no appetite for civilian life, Mr. McKerracher was eager to enlist for the Korean War. During his service in Korea, he was wounded by a mortar fragment, yet continued to serve in battle, holding the rank of Staff Sergeant. Military life being his passion, Mr. McKerracher joined the Regular Force after his service in Korea. In 1953, he accepted a deployment to Germany, and lived there with his family for two years before returning to Canada. Mr. McKerracher retired from service life in 1978.
Transcript
You must remember that, you know, everybody back home is cheering us on, and one thing or another. All we wanted to do was be with our buddies. And, well, being a gun crew of a 40 mm Bofors, it was a nine man gun crew. And all daylight hours, when we were on coastal defence, the gun had to be manned. And you can imagine, in the summer hours, we had to have three men on the gun all the time. And summer hours, that means a lot of very, very boring hours. Like I said, we never even fired a shot, not one. We saw the odd German aircraft, but usually they were too far away. Our gun was for short range firing, like about a mile.