Landing in a Tree!

And then March 24th, we dro-, we made a parachute jump across the Rhine, and that was the largest airborne or air armada up to that time. And I think there were 10,000 planes and, and gliders involved in that. And we parachuted in the 24th of March about 10 o'clock in the morning. And, yeah, we lost our colonel. Unfortunately, he landed in a tree over a machine gun, and the Germans turned the machine gun on him, and Colonel Nicklin, Jeff Nicklin, who was a standout football player for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when he was going to university there.
And Col-, Major Edie, at that time who is 2IC of the battalion, was named commanding officer of the battalion, which was a tremendous choice as far as we were concerned. And, so, there was quite a lot of, lot of action that, at that time when we, when we jumped, we, it was necessary that we all carry quite a, quite a lot of equipment with us, and I had a kit bag and I suppose it weighed around 75-80 pounds. I had mortar bombs in it, mortar, yeah, mortar projectiles in it, and also had my small pack strapped to it and various other things, and . . . however, see, at that time when you, when you jumped, your chute opened and then you had a 30 foot rope, 25 to 30 foot line, that you lowered this valise or, or kitbag on, and I remember just lowering mine, and I don't know whether it was a piece of shrapnel or a bullet, or something, but it, anyway, it cut my line about six inches below my fingers, and I looked over my shoulder and I could see my, all of my worldly possessions tumbling. The last I ever saw of them. And, I was . . . I landed in a tree also, but I was very fortunate. My chute come down over the top of the tree and I swung in amongst the branches and my toes were just on the, just touching the ground, so all I had to do was turn the block of my harness and smack it and walk out from under the tree.
I glanced up and I saw this fighter plane, and I don't know whether it was one of ours or a German, but, anyway, I looked up and the plane was smoke-streaming behind it, and the pilot rolled the thing up on its wing, and I think he was trying to roll it over completely so he could drop out. However, he kicked himself out and I could see him strike the tailplane of the aircraft, which then changed the direction of the aircraft. Then it came in on a nosedive and hit the ground. And I can remember this pilot striking the ground, and he bounced once and he bounced right into the, into the plane, into the flames of his plane.
And, so, it was necessary to rendezvous as soon as we hit the ground, and the best thing I could find at that time was a shovel, so I picked up a shovel and I went in on the, this assault, with a, waving a shovel and yelling like hell. I often, I often think, I wonder what the Germans thought when they saw one man carrying a shovel. They must have thought that, you know, a small burial party like that they had . . . the invaders had a great deal of confidence. Anyway, anyway, we . . . They were . . . just as a statistic, we lost about, we lost over 1000, over 1000 people from the division on that, that day on the, in the jump area.