That was horrible, that was my first experience with war.

Heroes Remember

That was horrible, that was my first experience with war.

Transcript

Friends, and I didn’t want to leave them. Anyway I went over to France. Oh boy, that was something. We went over to France about twenty-one days after D-day and from there on, it was like, it was like saying, “God, this is something new.” They’re fighting up ahead of us. There’s something going on over there. What the hell is going on, ‘cause we were sitting back waiting to move. And, all of a sudden, we got our moving orders that we were going through Caen, that they had taken a place, Caen. That was an experience. That was a real experience because that was the very first large place we had seen which was nothing standing. We were rolling along in our vehicles and stuff like that and then we’d go and we’d travel to what they call the Falaise Gap. That was horrible. That was really … first experience like war. We were up on like a big hill and down in the valley, they’re going to Caen, was the valley. Their troops advanced so fast in that valley. Our own, the British … and bombed them. They were thinking we were up on the higher plane, eh. We were watching them. We said, “Holy hell, what the hell are they doing?” That’s before they took Caen. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared. As I was saying, what the hell, that’s a way down there, you know? When the planes would come over and take off, yeah, we were in the trenches. We’d get a little hole and the funny thing, that night, the very first night, there was myself, Wally Shaw and two other guys. We had dug a trench. It was shallow, no more deeper than this and it was a lot of wheat because it was the time in August, like in the wheat, July and August. And we took and stacked the wheat over the thing and laid there and slept that night away from the vehicles, you see. And there was a lot of gunfire, artillery fire and that going on, but didn’t bother us, it really didn’t bother us. We were split up then. The company was split up into platoons and we went on our own merry way. And wherever we were supposed to go, we would go and bring our material and drop it off and get the hell out of there, you know. All through France it was, it was the same, I think, it was the same daily routine; daily do this, don’t go here, don’t go there, we’re now going to proceed here, blah blah blah and we’d deliver material, drop it off and come back.

Description

Mr. Berry describes the devastation at Caen and the accidental bombing of Allied troops at Falaise Gap.

Irving Malcolm Berry

Irving Berry was born on March 10, 1924 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He attended South End School, but left school early to find work. At the time that war broke out, he was working as a porter for the bus company, earning $3.50 per day. Mr. Berry was aware that the recruiting officer in Halifax was prejudiced against blacks, but managed to successfully enlist. His training took place in Camp Borden, and then he shipped overseas, joining the 86th Bridging Company, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. Mr. Berry’s active service in France began twenty-one days after the D-Day invasion. His company’s responsibility was to deliver bridge building components to the Front, and if needed, assist in the actual construction of new bridges. Three major areas of activity were the Seine, Arnheim, and the Rhine. Mr. Berry left the Armed Forces after the war, but reenlisted in the RCASC in1952. He retired with the rank of Sergeant in 1974.

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