A Live Grenade Thrown His Way

Heroes Remember

A Live Grenade Thrown His Way

Transcript

I don’t know what, what the average person thinks of, but war isn’t like you, you might think that you are standing up there with a gun and another guy is over there with a gun. It doesn’t work like that. Most of the damage is done by either mortars or artillery or land mines and as an infantry man sometimes, yeah sometimes you will run into a, a fight, you know what I mean, a fire fight, but it’s not too often. I seen myself one day, I had just, I was down beside this, the truck, the 1600 weight with a Bren gun, and a potato masher came over and landed that far from me and it didn’t go off. A potato masher is a grenade. It didn’t go off. Shortly after that the Corporal, Rogers called me, you know, well I got up when the potato masher landed, I got up and I ran, but it didn’t go off. And he called me and behind this embankment was a whole lot of Germans in there and he called me and I can still remember, I can still remember him hollering out “Come out with the hände hoch, come out with the hände hoch” And I was there with the Bren gun and this German guy came out, with his eye was just about hanging out you know and in the heat of the action, I mean it wasn’t the humane thing to do, but I just gave him a push you know, but that’s the way, that’s the way you are. It’s survival of the fittest, you know. I’m looking after number one.

Description

Mr. Marshall shares a story about combat where a live grenade is thrown by the enemy, but fails to go off.

Calvin Marshall

Mr. Calvin Marshall was born in Montreal, Quebec. At the age of 19, he decided to join the Reserve Army with the Royal Montreal Regiment. After receiving basic training in Farnham, Quebec, he enlisted with the active force in May of 1943. Mr. Marshall was part of the West Minister Regiment. He went overseas on the Mauritania, landed in Liverpool, England where he received advanced infantry training as a Bren gunner and moved in as a replacement with the regiment. After the war, Mr. Marshall was employed at Long Ports Canada Depot, and became a member of the Royal Canadian Legion.

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