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Description
Mr. Gouchie was part of the 2nd wave that landed at Juno Beach on D-Day. He tells us about that landing and the first few hours of the battle.
Transcription
We had to wait until the fellas cleared the beach and then we went in, went through them and then carried on from there. So we was late getting in and they didn't have the beach cleared in time for when they should be, they had trouble . . . it was kind of late when we got going. We had to walk in land. We were supposed to walk in three miles to a concentration area and meet the tanks. From there we got on the tanks and we just drove right til dark then. We got further inland than I think anybody, our battalion.
Interviewer: So when you use the term "We were the 2nd wave."...
The 7th and 8th brigade, they went in and they took the beaches, we're in the 9th brigade and soon as they had the beaches cleared we landed and went through them and carried on inland. While we was waiting we had to circle around outside there waiting to go in and the battleships, they were there were firing and you could hear all the racket going on in on the beach there and back further. But, then when we finally got in, like got on the tanks, we just . . . a lot of places we just by-passed them, we never stopped for nothing. A couple of times you come under heavy artillery fire. You had to stop. Then, soon as the artillery fire ceased you get on the tanks and we went again and then kept going till dark. But we had a little trouble at nights there, patrols coming in on us, but the next day is when we hit the rough part of it. So we get up there and we was ahead then and we run in. We took two or three villages, the 3rd one they really taken it, but then counterattack hit, they hit us with a counterattack with tanks and we had no support. We had no tanks. The tanks were pretty near all knocked out by that time. We had a lot of casualties that day from starting in the morning, right until way in the afternoon. When they counterattacked, they cut one company off first and the second one, they surrounded them and the third one they got just about wiped out. We faired off . . . our company faired off the best . . . our platoon rather. What was left of the company was two platoons and the sergeant got us back to an anti-tank ditch. We had to stay there. The other fellows were either captured or killed or taken prisoner at that time, by that time . . . most of them.