Wounded During Battle of Caen

Attention!

Cette vidéo est disponible en anglais seulement.

Video file

Description

Mr. Roberts talks about getting wounded at Caen.

Emlyn Roberts

M. Roberts est né le 8 mai 1922 au Nord du Pays de Galles, en Grande-Bretagne. Sa famille est venue au Canada en 1926 en quête d'une vie meilleure et s'est installée à Watson Settlement, Comté de Carleton, N.-B. M. Roberts avait songé à la guerre et, lorsqu'on l'a appelé, il s'est enrôlé dans l'armée, croyant que c'était la chose à faire. Il a été affecté au corps blindé et a reçu son instruction au centre d'instruction du corps blindé de Dundurn, Saskatchewan. En décembre 1943, il a été affecté au 17th Dukes of Yorks et a été stationné à West Chiltington. M. Roberts a été blessé le 25 juillet, au cours d'un raid aérien allemand, et a perdu la jambe droite. Il s'est rétabli dans un hôpital de Grande-Bretagne et est revenu au Canada en novembre 1944, où il a achevé de se rétablir à l'hôpital des anciens combattants de Saint John, Nouveau-Brunswick. M. Roberts est finalement resté à l'hôpital pour y travailler, au service de prothétique, pendant trente-sept ans.

Transcription

I was wounded on the 25th of July, in an air raid, night. German air raid of course.

I was in a building and it was hit and the bomb came right into the room where I was and I was standing up at the time and, and that's when I, I was hit then, of course, and I don't remember very much, I can remember bits, I remember realizing I'd been hit and then after that I collapsed, I suppose, and then somebody helping to get me out of this hole I was in. And I remember being, somebody offering me a cigarette and I said, "I don't smoke." And then I can recall being put on a jeep, on a rack similar to M.A.S.H. that type of thing, and looking up and seeing the, the stars at night. So, then the next thing I remember being in a tent hospital back at Carpiquet Airport and I was, I was there for a week after I was injured before I was evacuated to the UK.

Badly, I lost a leg and I was hit in the arm and hip, the right hip, and right foot, and, and, oh I got hit five times I guess, yeah.

It's hard to say, shrapnel or rubble because the, you know, it's tough as, I suppose it could have easily been rubble as well, but it's shrapnel because I still retained some of that in my, in my leg, my hip.

Catégories