Description
Mr. Toney describes how hard he and the war were on motorcycles.
John Martin Toney
John Martin Toney was born on September 26, 1923 on the Neskonlith Reserve, British Columbia. The strongest influence in his life was his grandfather, who taught him spirituality, life and survival skills. Mr. Toney feels that at that time he was being groomed to become a Chief. By the age of eight, he was hunting game to help feed his family. He later worked at a ranch and then as a carpenter. Proud to enlist, the army’s restrictive criteria forced Mr. Toney to renounce his Aboriginal heritage and designate himself an Irish Catholic. He was accepted by the Seaforth Highlanders, Engineering Corps, based on his success at demolition. His first action saw him in the second wave at Dieppe where he witnessed much death and suffering. Agile in the field, he hand-picked and led many reconnaissance and demolition patrols against the Germans. Mr. Toney was wounded twice, and after his second recovery, finished the war as motorcycle dispatch rider. He then signed up for Pacific duty, returning home early
Transcript
Speed was fun for me them days. I couldn’t get enough speed till I hit a big shell hole and then I’d get thrown off. I went through, the last three months of war I went through four bikes. The first one in the mud and I was, it was night, and I was ahead of these tanks in the tank track. I couldn’t get my bike out of it and this tank was gaining on me. I was spinning and kicking. Finally he got too close. I jumped off my tank, climbed on the back of the tank and rode out the night there. I left my bike in the mud. And the second bike, oh I was drawing fire. So I cut across this open field. That one got machine gunned. I got off it okay. Nothing happened to me. I figured I was faster than what the Germans were so I, got me there, so. That one got shot full of holes. That was the second one and the third bike, oh that one got a direct hit from a mortar. I wasn’t on it. It just got blowed up. So come the end of the war. So well, I wanted to tour Germany, go down and see that death camp where they had, things like that. So I figured my bike was getting too old so me and my buddy there, he was from Saskatchewan. He was Native, called him Rawhide. Oh well, we figured we wanted new bikes so we could tour Germany a little bit. We wondered, “How can we get these bikes so we can turn them in? ” So he said “Well let’s take the spark plug and put a little bit of sand in. Put the spark plug in then drive them a little bit.” Okay. Tried that and a few miles down the road smoke started to fly out. Pretty soon it got weaker. Time to trade it in. Went back to the QM store, “Need new bikes.” “Okay, they’re in there.” We went in. There’s just these two big boxes there. I said, ‘Where’s the bike? ” “In that box.” “Oh. Well,” I said, “I want to be able to ride it.” He said, “Well you can if you take it out and put it together.” He says, “I’ll help you, help you, but” he says, “I’m not gonna start.” Okay. So we got these crates opened, they’re all covered with Vaseline, I guess for when they ship them so the salt water don’t get, I don’t know what it’s for, but had to wipe all this Vaseline off and figure out what part goes where and finally we got them put together and the mechanic tuned the motor up and away we went then.