RAF bombing raid and the German Attack

That, there were, the Tank Corps, all the men were just running, a mass of Canadian soldiers running away from, from the danger, and they were running towards us, you know, and it, it was a sight that I, you know, I can't forget really. And we were, course, this was our, our real first test of what we could do, and we had more casualties that day than we ever had all through the war. And we would have, the worst part really was that we had these wounded on stretchers, and they're lying there, and they're looking up at the sky, and seeing all this kindling wood coming down, you might say, and we, we literally had to hold them down, we literally had to hold them down and treat them as fast as we could. And this went on, oh for quite some time. I don't know how long, it must have been about well, 4 or 5 hours we were treating patients and moving them out as fast as we could, and some of them, we just pushed to one side because we felt they just they weren't going to live, you know. I remember one, particular one, that all the top of his head was blown off, and you, you know, you could see, you know, the brains and everything you know, and he was just barely breathing you know and...

Interviewer: What a nightmare.

Oh it was, it was. And to make matters worse, this was, then at, at night time, the Messerschmitts came over, and they're dropping fire bombs on us, and, to light up the whole section because we were right at the front and they would light up the section, and we would jump into our foxholes and soon as these firebombs would land, we'd jump out and put sand on them to put them out and they would come down strafing us, and we would jump back into our foxholes again. And this went on for almost the whole night, so that it was 24 hours of, of particular hell for all of us, you know.