To begin, artillery win battles and, of course,
we had for example,
I was with the 13th Canadian Field Regiment.
We had four members who
were walking parties, that is the forward
observer, an able and a signaler,
they landed with the infantry
so that they could bring back fire support
wherever the infantry needed it.
But our battalions who landed in France
were fought on a classic British manner,
was two… we made the attack with
two brigades up, one in reserve so the 7th and
8th brigade landed at Courseulles,
Bernières, St. Aubin and there was no
such word as Juno, these were Mike and
Nan beaches on our maps,
Mike and Nan beaches.
And those landings were, I must say,
we landed the mechanical
devices they had invented.
One of them is called a “funny” but
they weren't funny; it’s called a Petard Tank.
It has a huge spigot mortar on the front of
it that would throw a dust bin full
of explosives weighing I think 60 pounds,
close to 200 yards and that
would take a pillbox out.
And I know on the 8th brigade front
there was a 12 foot sea wall that
they blew huge holes in that sea wall.
And sometimes I have heard it said
that the Germans didn’t fight quite so
hard on some fronts than they did on
others but I watched a fellow by the
name of Jock Bowlan count the
empty shell cases in one of their casements
there and he counted 79 empty shell cases.
They fought that gun to the last round.
No, these mechanical devices we landed
meant that on all three British-Canadian beaches
we had complete success and
breakthrough on the three British beaches.