Severely Injured - No Memory

When I went out on the Chomedy in, late in ‘42, the Chomedy never got back ‘til 1944 sometime, but certainly I was back after a year, because I, in counter action against the enemy, I had concussion and, and fractured skull and severed good disks and everything.

Interviewer: Can you tell us what happened, where that happened?

I really don't know too much what happened, but the DVA got all of the particulars and everything. And when I was in St. Luke's Hospital, in the Veterans ward, in Montreal, the doctor told me that the barber service . . . I was there for 16 days with my head in ice packs and I'd just go, they'd take me down for x-rays. And then the doctor come and he said the barber service is coming in at 4 o'clock and you're going to see a friend at 9 o'clock in the morning. And I said "Well what did that mean? " And he told me that they were going to operate and put a plate in. So the barber service never come in, and the next morning was more x-rays. And then they ask me where, where my home was and I told them. They wanted to know if there was a hospital there, I said yes. They said "Well we're going to put you out convalescent and see what happens." And I said "Well, what about the plate? " and they said "Your, your break, your skull, your fracture, is like this." He said "So far apart and one part is lower than the other and this part," he said "is too close to the brain to operate. So it may come back and knit together." Well I said, "What if it don't? " He said, "You won't know what happened."