WWII - Please meet Parkie, the young kid who made a man out of himself
- Thread starter parkie
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Honestly parkie, what you have been posting is absolutely great. I really don't think I could ask for anything more than what your already doing. Whatever you wish to post will be fine with me, and I'm sure the others. Whatever tickles your fancy and works for you. However, thanks again for what you've already done 
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I'll echo that... Every post I've read so far has been top notch, compelling stuff, so I'll take whatever you're willing to offer.
We can't say it enough parkie... thanks for sharing your experiences with us all.
We can't say it enough parkie... thanks for sharing your experiences with us all.
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Wow! This is amazing stuff - is all of this downloadable as one piece, or is this the only place we can see this material? If so, thanks for previlaging us with your past experiences. This sounds like the Canadian version of 'all quiet on the western front' - should be required reading for all who join up.
Also, that link to 1940 radio broadcasts blew me away - I had no idea that was even available over the internet - will provide hours of avid listening!
Also, that link to 1940 radio broadcasts blew me away - I had no idea that was even available over the internet - will provide hours of avid listening!
Sounds good to this old guy. I will just write whatever comes into my mind. There are other scraps I was in with the boy’s,I will write about, but I like to sit and think and write it on paper, that way the whole thing will appear in my old noggin like it happened, And you can see what it was like through my eyes. I’m not telling you what tickles my fancy though, because I’m a gentleman and she’s a lady. Something I wanted to point out, when I said I wouldn’t accept my medals or wouldn’t send for them, it’s not because I wasn’t proud of them, or what I did, A soldier should be proud of what he does and what he gets acknowledged for, Their put on all of us for a reason, so we can strut with pride and accomplishment so our brothers will strive to equal us and the unwilling can shrink with envy. Mine, I just couldn’t stand to look at the dam things for years, but a small child, my grand daughter, changed that for me.
A.C.(parkie)
That link for the radio broadcast,my son found that the other day,you can't imagine how I feel listening to that sixty years later,My war bride was sitting in canada in a tar paper shack listening to that,knowing I was in Italy,and not much else,I never knew they put it over the air like that it must have scared the hell out of her
A.C.(parkie)
That link for the radio broadcast,my son found that the other day,you can't imagine how I feel listening to that sixty years later,My war bride was sitting in canada in a tar paper shack listening to that,knowing I was in Italy,and not much else,I never knew they put it over the air like that it must have scared the hell out of her
This is the only place I found at home enough to share this stuff,all or most has never been told before except to my family,so it's all here and there more I'll tell yet,so enjoy.cause I wouldn't go through this again for Jesus Himself.Centurian1985 said:
Just Everyday stuff that happened would probably raise the hair on most peoples necks.
Something I have been wanting to do, I wanted to tell you a little about who I am and my family.
I married in Scotland two weeks before heading for Italy, I knew my wife for two weeks before we were married. I think a lot had to with the times we lived in, A lot of people got married in short order over there, probably thinking, with the way things were ,you grab has much of life has you can when you can, because you may never get another chance. My wife she stayed in Scotland for about another month, and then she came to Canada. My sister was going to put her up until I came back from overseas, but her and her scotch pride wouldn’t have that, so she lived by herself in a old granary on one of the backstreets in town until I came home from overseas, I always admired her for being able to do that. But she came from a fighting family, they prided themselves in tracing their lineage has serving the Scottish blackwatch back to the Napoleonic wars and the battle of waterloo, She gave three of her brothers to the second world war with the blackwatch. Coming over on the ship she developed scarlet fever, Years later it would cost us one sons life and left the other partially unable to walk. But trying to keep up with the old man, my surviving son wanted to join the army, but not much hope of that in his condition, So he developed his brain, I don’t want to brag, but I am actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, he put himself through University, for A Bachelor of science, Then He moved on And went to the Massachusetts institute of technology, and got his masters in Science and Engineering, he worked for Grummann, Lockheed and Boeing and a couple of others I can’t think of their names, But he worked on the Stealth fighters, patriot missiles, and a bunch the old man hasn’t been able to get out of him yet. But I will. Anyway I thought it was pretty good of him to retire and move back home, buy a house and move the old man in with him.Well gotta go my grand daughter and I are going to post this before he gets back and tells me I can’t. Ha Ha!
A.C. parkie
I married in Scotland two weeks before heading for Italy, I knew my wife for two weeks before we were married. I think a lot had to with the times we lived in, A lot of people got married in short order over there, probably thinking, with the way things were ,you grab has much of life has you can when you can, because you may never get another chance. My wife she stayed in Scotland for about another month, and then she came to Canada. My sister was going to put her up until I came back from overseas, but her and her scotch pride wouldn’t have that, so she lived by herself in a old granary on one of the backstreets in town until I came home from overseas, I always admired her for being able to do that. But she came from a fighting family, they prided themselves in tracing their lineage has serving the Scottish blackwatch back to the Napoleonic wars and the battle of waterloo, She gave three of her brothers to the second world war with the blackwatch. Coming over on the ship she developed scarlet fever, Years later it would cost us one sons life and left the other partially unable to walk. But trying to keep up with the old man, my surviving son wanted to join the army, but not much hope of that in his condition, So he developed his brain, I don’t want to brag, but I am actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, he put himself through University, for A Bachelor of science, Then He moved on And went to the Massachusetts institute of technology, and got his masters in Science and Engineering, he worked for Grummann, Lockheed and Boeing and a couple of others I can’t think of their names, But he worked on the Stealth fighters, patriot missiles, and a bunch the old man hasn’t been able to get out of him yet. But I will. Anyway I thought it was pretty good of him to retire and move back home, buy a house and move the old man in with him.Well gotta go my grand daughter and I are going to post this before he gets back and tells me I can’t. Ha Ha!
A.C. parkie
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You're a stitch, parkie, and thanks again.
well,one thing,about marrying a scot,for years I didn't know what the hell a RIC-A_DAM_DOO was,but she knew exactly what it meant.one day years ago I was chanting that little tune about princess pat and the ric a dam doo and she asked me,what are you singing about the cloth of the mother for? Well,what do you know,so that's what a ric a dam doo was!
I have noticed that I haven’t said anything about our officer’s that led us, Generally speaking we had pretty good guy’s has far as our NCO’s went, Our commissioned officer’s were all right too, some let the power get to their head a bit to much, but I think it was more the time we spent in England that changed them rather than the person themselves. The way I use to look at it, Treat your men like their men, Command them, Don’t rule over them. Men will follow someone they respect to the ends of the earth. I have seen British Officer’s who belittled their men every day, For nothing, kind of silly you know, At some point all those guy’s are going to be standing behind you with loaded gun’s. I have noted though over the years, I have come across guy’s who were officer’s in Italy and in Europe, I have heard them talking and lying about what they did and taking glory on the backs of dead men, I respect a man who wants to take some glory for himself for something that he’s actually done or even if he was actually there.
I will say that, The way I saw it for the Canadians overseas, if Montgomery would have worried less about one upping the Americans at everything, I think a lot more of us would have come home.
In my home town, for years their was a fellow went around telling people about how terrible the beaches of Normandy were, but he didn’t want to talk about it, well I can respect that, a lot of guy’s bury their ghosts, he walked around with a cane from wounds he received at the landings and in battle. Then one day his wife was talking about how happy he was cashing his first pension cheque, well okay. But this was in about 1999.I asked her how old her husband was, and she told me. Well he just turned 65 that year. I asked ‘well didn’t he serve in the army’ she told me oh yes he served; he was the cook for one of the outfits for about five years in Ontario back in the early sixties. Well! I thought you lyin old potlicker. But I let it go, who knows maybe he got caught in the crossfire between the eggs and the flapjacks.
A.C.(parkie)
I have noticed that I haven’t said anything about our officer’s that led us, Generally speaking we had pretty good guy’s has far as our NCO’s went, Our commissioned officer’s were all right too, some let the power get to their head a bit to much, but I think it was more the time we spent in England that changed them rather than the person themselves. The way I use to look at it, Treat your men like their men, Command them, Don’t rule over them. Men will follow someone they respect to the ends of the earth. I have seen British Officer’s who belittled their men every day, For nothing, kind of silly you know, At some point all those guy’s are going to be standing behind you with loaded gun’s. I have noted though over the years, I have come across guy’s who were officer’s in Italy and in Europe, I have heard them talking and lying about what they did and taking glory on the backs of dead men, I respect a man who wants to take some glory for himself for something that he’s actually done or even if he was actually there.
I will say that, The way I saw it for the Canadians overseas, if Montgomery would have worried less about one upping the Americans at everything, I think a lot more of us would have come home.
In my home town, for years their was a fellow went around telling people about how terrible the beaches of Normandy were, but he didn’t want to talk about it, well I can respect that, a lot of guy’s bury their ghosts, he walked around with a cane from wounds he received at the landings and in battle. Then one day his wife was talking about how happy he was cashing his first pension cheque, well okay. But this was in about 1999.I asked her how old her husband was, and she told me. Well he just turned 65 that year. I asked ‘well didn’t he serve in the army’ she told me oh yes he served; he was the cook for one of the outfits for about five years in Ontario back in the early sixties. Well! I thought you lyin old potlicker. But I let it go, who knows maybe he got caught in the crossfire between the eggs and the flapjacks.
A.C.(parkie)
I want to pass on some tales of my good friend Joe, I owe him that much, and a whole lot more.
These are for you Joe, Love ya brother!
I still see you has that young, big, good natured guy, who gave his life for his friend, Has time passes you remain has I knew you, yet I am not the soldier I once was, when next we meet, will you know this broken old soul for the warrior he once was. I think you will
Him and I had some real times together, some life and death, and some just plain old funny, Since he’s gone, it’s hard to talk of him, without getting a tear in my eye, most of you will know what I mean when I say That I loved That big bugger, Those of you who don’t understand, There’s no use me telling you.
This is one story of Joe and parkie, one of many in Italy, I have held off telling much about Joe, I miss the big guy a lot, he became my family and I his, we knew more about each other than our own families did, But that is what happens when two guys spend many a dark night crouched in a foxhole, praying for their lives, sometimes with the enemy so close you could hear him breathe, other times sitting in a foxhole laughing our heads off about some silly little thing, Like Joe passing gas in the foxhole and telling me. ‘Run for your life parkie, the Germans are using gas on us’. I told him, One more stunt like that and I’m gonna go turn myself over to them, And Joe telling me. “Gees parkie your nuttier than squirrel turds’
Joe was single, and the girls sure liked him, The only problem was in Italy, Joe couldn’t speak a word of Italian, and I could. Boy! Did I get him in some tight spots? All for fun though. One girl had her eyes on Joe in Italy in a small town there, he had been helping her children and her husband was dead. So me being the translator of course, I only asked what I was told too. He asked me, ‘ask her what her name is, and what is she going to do with all these children, can I help her, get her something’s I asked her exactly that. “This gentleman says you are the most beautiful thing he has laid eyes on’ She was just taken with him, I told her. ‘This man is looking for a wife to take back to Canada, with him’ and she told me she really thought Joe was handsome. Well it didn’t take long and we were all on our way back to her families home, With Joe thinking he was the Canadian soldier giving a helping hand, and her thinking he wanted to marry her. Well she fed us, and we gave her some food that we had gotten from some dam place. We were all sitting and laughing. And then we heard an action on a gun being racked, and lo and behold we were surrounded by about six guys with machine guns on us, holy crap! My Thompson was beside me unracked and Joe’s was leaning by his chair. Two of them were her brothers and they were intent on shooting us, they were yelling at us in Italian, and I couldn’t keep up with the translating. So I just told all of them that Joe was a big shot with the army and that if they messed with him they would all end up hung by the neck, Joe asked me what I said and I told him I said he was there for the medical unit helping the children. Anyway they backed down and we managed to get out of there, with Joe telling me ‘boy, parkie it sure was lucky for us, that you can speak Italian’ ‘Ya Joe, That sure saved our lives, me and my Italian’
A.C.(parkie)
These are for you Joe, Love ya brother!
I still see you has that young, big, good natured guy, who gave his life for his friend, Has time passes you remain has I knew you, yet I am not the soldier I once was, when next we meet, will you know this broken old soul for the warrior he once was. I think you will
Him and I had some real times together, some life and death, and some just plain old funny, Since he’s gone, it’s hard to talk of him, without getting a tear in my eye, most of you will know what I mean when I say That I loved That big bugger, Those of you who don’t understand, There’s no use me telling you.
This is one story of Joe and parkie, one of many in Italy, I have held off telling much about Joe, I miss the big guy a lot, he became my family and I his, we knew more about each other than our own families did, But that is what happens when two guys spend many a dark night crouched in a foxhole, praying for their lives, sometimes with the enemy so close you could hear him breathe, other times sitting in a foxhole laughing our heads off about some silly little thing, Like Joe passing gas in the foxhole and telling me. ‘Run for your life parkie, the Germans are using gas on us’. I told him, One more stunt like that and I’m gonna go turn myself over to them, And Joe telling me. “Gees parkie your nuttier than squirrel turds’
Joe was single, and the girls sure liked him, The only problem was in Italy, Joe couldn’t speak a word of Italian, and I could. Boy! Did I get him in some tight spots? All for fun though. One girl had her eyes on Joe in Italy in a small town there, he had been helping her children and her husband was dead. So me being the translator of course, I only asked what I was told too. He asked me, ‘ask her what her name is, and what is she going to do with all these children, can I help her, get her something’s I asked her exactly that. “This gentleman says you are the most beautiful thing he has laid eyes on’ She was just taken with him, I told her. ‘This man is looking for a wife to take back to Canada, with him’ and she told me she really thought Joe was handsome. Well it didn’t take long and we were all on our way back to her families home, With Joe thinking he was the Canadian soldier giving a helping hand, and her thinking he wanted to marry her. Well she fed us, and we gave her some food that we had gotten from some dam place. We were all sitting and laughing. And then we heard an action on a gun being racked, and lo and behold we were surrounded by about six guys with machine guns on us, holy crap! My Thompson was beside me unracked and Joe’s was leaning by his chair. Two of them were her brothers and they were intent on shooting us, they were yelling at us in Italian, and I couldn’t keep up with the translating. So I just told all of them that Joe was a big shot with the army and that if they messed with him they would all end up hung by the neck, Joe asked me what I said and I told him I said he was there for the medical unit helping the children. Anyway they backed down and we managed to get out of there, with Joe telling me ‘boy, parkie it sure was lucky for us, that you can speak Italian’ ‘Ya Joe, That sure saved our lives, me and my Italian’
A.C.(parkie)
Ortona
Something I can remember about ortona, when we use to escort the trucks up in the evening, they would take what they needed for food out, and disperse it in sections to whoever could manage to grab a bite without getting shot. Mostly it was hard tack and water, because the men could stick two or three pieces in their pocket and high tail it back to the line, water was just whatever they could gulp down, some had a small pail or can to carry some in. I got myself in hot water with command a couple of times there, for letting the civilians take food from the trucks when I was suppose to be watching them, but god I just couldn’t keep those kids from eating, some were no more then maybe four or five if that, and if your going to keep me from giving a starving child food, you better shoot me, there was quite a few people who hid in that town while we fought over it, and they almost starved trying to get food, how long they had been without, I don’t know, But some of those kids were naked except for an old rags thrown over them and they were terribly thin and dirty, poor little buggers,Then people wonder how I could kill, If they saw what I saw, They would wonder why I stopped!
If anyone says that life was the least bit humane under Nazi occupation, they are one hundred percent wrong. I know has time passes people like to forget and try to make me forget, but I will not. Ever! I have had people tell me that not all the German forces were like the Nazis, well, I haven’t seen all the German forces, I have probably only come across the handy work of about fifty percent of their army, but what I saw I didn’t like, If the argument is that, they didn’t all kill civilian’s,well no, not with a bullet, But you took every thing the people had for food and left them to starve. A slow death from starvation is no way to go.
Italy, Sicily, France.Belgium, Holland, I saw starving people everywhere I went
In France, I gave a man. a piece of hard tack, for a fan belt that he gave one of the trucks, He got down on the ground and kissed my Boots and sobbed!
In Holland I saw people eating rats, dogs, Anything, moving or not was food, I saw people licking out garbage cans. Licking out bloody garbage cans because they were starving to death.
Somebody who does that to other human beings, is no human being himself.
I have to stop for a spell,This gets to me.
A.C.(parkie)
Something I can remember about ortona, when we use to escort the trucks up in the evening, they would take what they needed for food out, and disperse it in sections to whoever could manage to grab a bite without getting shot. Mostly it was hard tack and water, because the men could stick two or three pieces in their pocket and high tail it back to the line, water was just whatever they could gulp down, some had a small pail or can to carry some in. I got myself in hot water with command a couple of times there, for letting the civilians take food from the trucks when I was suppose to be watching them, but god I just couldn’t keep those kids from eating, some were no more then maybe four or five if that, and if your going to keep me from giving a starving child food, you better shoot me, there was quite a few people who hid in that town while we fought over it, and they almost starved trying to get food, how long they had been without, I don’t know, But some of those kids were naked except for an old rags thrown over them and they were terribly thin and dirty, poor little buggers,Then people wonder how I could kill, If they saw what I saw, They would wonder why I stopped!
If anyone says that life was the least bit humane under Nazi occupation, they are one hundred percent wrong. I know has time passes people like to forget and try to make me forget, but I will not. Ever! I have had people tell me that not all the German forces were like the Nazis, well, I haven’t seen all the German forces, I have probably only come across the handy work of about fifty percent of their army, but what I saw I didn’t like, If the argument is that, they didn’t all kill civilian’s,well no, not with a bullet, But you took every thing the people had for food and left them to starve. A slow death from starvation is no way to go.
Italy, Sicily, France.Belgium, Holland, I saw starving people everywhere I went
In France, I gave a man. a piece of hard tack, for a fan belt that he gave one of the trucks, He got down on the ground and kissed my Boots and sobbed!
In Holland I saw people eating rats, dogs, Anything, moving or not was food, I saw people licking out garbage cans. Licking out bloody garbage cans because they were starving to death.
Somebody who does that to other human beings, is no human being himself.
I have to stop for a spell,This gets to me.
A.C.(parkie)
Hey, Boy’s look at the shooting star! One of the boy’s says. Shooting star? I asked. Where? Right over there, parkie. That’s no shooting star it’s a bloody 240 coming in.
Geezus! Everybody hit the dirt. The glow looks like the moon is on fire and it’s about to go straight up your rearend, Mother of god! One of the boy’s says, and now you can hear it coming in at about a thousand feet per second. It hits about a quarter of a mile off. And you would swear that somebody just kicked you in the teeth and you can smell blood in your nostrils, from the shock wave. Their using that dam rail gun on us again! Don’t have to be real accurate with those dam things, close is good enough, If it hits even close to you; it’s enough to scramble your insides. I have seen men crap their pants and wet themselves from the god awful concussion of a 5-600 lbs shell hitting the ground, just within a couple of hundred yards. Down the road a few miles, the allies are firing back with a good sized gun, maybe in the 120 mm range, half the size, but it still looks like a small car on fire has it traces through the night sky.everybody, shut the hell up! Whats that sound, it’s so dam quite you can hear the engine on the gun. Their putting the dam thing away. Somebody says. Putting it away? After one shot? Bull shyte they are! Everybody dig for all your bloody worth, their adjusting fire on that dam gun! Men are digging like bloody mad trying to get below ground level! WHUMP!! Probably five miles off, but you can still feel the ground shake has it fires, and the glow of the huge shell tracing across the sky, heading towards the allied artillery. I Can hear men praying, “Heavenly father give us this day our daily bread’ Shut the hell up! Somebody says. “You asked for bread, he thought you said lead’’. Two or three shells have gone over us now and twice has many going the other direction from our guns, A really spectacular sight, if you weren’t crapping your pants! Most of us have dug ourselves a hole to get down in, and it’s so quite. Everything has stopped for a minute, no sound! A couple of yards over you can hear somebody talking to himself ‘Still not deep enough! Have to dig a little more’ Just a little more’ Dig! Dig! Dig!’ Quite somebody says! Off in the night you hear the Engine on the locomotive moving the gun.
When they adjust fire on the big rail guns, they move it back and forth on a curve in the tracks. The largest guns only come out mostly at night! For what the boy’s call Plinkin’. That way the planes can’t see them, unless there is something they really want to kill, they keep it in during the day. But the boy’s use to call night shots plinkin’. Like when you were a kid shooting at tin cans, they don’t care if their firing right on you, just general vicinity is good enough! Has a demoralizing effect on men. It’s like somebody throwing a Volkswagen loaded with explosives at you.
The drone of the Engine gets louder and louder, then dies off. Their going to fire! Somebody says. And men are digging like mad trying to finish off their little foxholes before they fire that bloody gun. A few minutes pass then WHUMP!! Incoming!! All eyes are on the sky has you can see the fireball coming straight overhead. It sounds like small train going over has it passes overhead. So close you swear you could touch it. It hits about a mile down the road, with a terrible explosion. That same poor bugger off to my side is still talking to himself ‘Gotta get deeper! Gotta dig a little more! Dig! Dig! Dig! It’s not deep enough! Gotta get a little deeper!’ Poor bugger he’s going nutty. I let my mind drift back home, bet my sister’s just putting the little one’s to bed. Wonder what my wife is doing tonight, while I sit in this dam hole. WHUMP!! Incoming boys! This one is ours!!
A.C.(parkie)
Geezus! Everybody hit the dirt. The glow looks like the moon is on fire and it’s about to go straight up your rearend, Mother of god! One of the boy’s says, and now you can hear it coming in at about a thousand feet per second. It hits about a quarter of a mile off. And you would swear that somebody just kicked you in the teeth and you can smell blood in your nostrils, from the shock wave. Their using that dam rail gun on us again! Don’t have to be real accurate with those dam things, close is good enough, If it hits even close to you; it’s enough to scramble your insides. I have seen men crap their pants and wet themselves from the god awful concussion of a 5-600 lbs shell hitting the ground, just within a couple of hundred yards. Down the road a few miles, the allies are firing back with a good sized gun, maybe in the 120 mm range, half the size, but it still looks like a small car on fire has it traces through the night sky.everybody, shut the hell up! Whats that sound, it’s so dam quite you can hear the engine on the gun. Their putting the dam thing away. Somebody says. Putting it away? After one shot? Bull shyte they are! Everybody dig for all your bloody worth, their adjusting fire on that dam gun! Men are digging like bloody mad trying to get below ground level! WHUMP!! Probably five miles off, but you can still feel the ground shake has it fires, and the glow of the huge shell tracing across the sky, heading towards the allied artillery. I Can hear men praying, “Heavenly father give us this day our daily bread’ Shut the hell up! Somebody says. “You asked for bread, he thought you said lead’’. Two or three shells have gone over us now and twice has many going the other direction from our guns, A really spectacular sight, if you weren’t crapping your pants! Most of us have dug ourselves a hole to get down in, and it’s so quite. Everything has stopped for a minute, no sound! A couple of yards over you can hear somebody talking to himself ‘Still not deep enough! Have to dig a little more’ Just a little more’ Dig! Dig! Dig!’ Quite somebody says! Off in the night you hear the Engine on the locomotive moving the gun.
When they adjust fire on the big rail guns, they move it back and forth on a curve in the tracks. The largest guns only come out mostly at night! For what the boy’s call Plinkin’. That way the planes can’t see them, unless there is something they really want to kill, they keep it in during the day. But the boy’s use to call night shots plinkin’. Like when you were a kid shooting at tin cans, they don’t care if their firing right on you, just general vicinity is good enough! Has a demoralizing effect on men. It’s like somebody throwing a Volkswagen loaded with explosives at you.
The drone of the Engine gets louder and louder, then dies off. Their going to fire! Somebody says. And men are digging like mad trying to finish off their little foxholes before they fire that bloody gun. A few minutes pass then WHUMP!! Incoming!! All eyes are on the sky has you can see the fireball coming straight overhead. It sounds like small train going over has it passes overhead. So close you swear you could touch it. It hits about a mile down the road, with a terrible explosion. That same poor bugger off to my side is still talking to himself ‘Gotta get deeper! Gotta dig a little more! Dig! Dig! Dig! It’s not deep enough! Gotta get a little deeper!’ Poor bugger he’s going nutty. I let my mind drift back home, bet my sister’s just putting the little one’s to bed. Wonder what my wife is doing tonight, while I sit in this dam hole. WHUMP!! Incoming boys! This one is ours!!
A.C.(parkie)
I had someone ask me. What was the worst thing that you saw during your years at war, I can’t answer that, it would be like challenging my demons for control of what is left of my soul. I do want to answer one nice fellow who passed me a line. Whatever someone told you, about how the people in Holland suffered, you can take your worst nightmares and double it and ten fold again, I will not repeat most of what I have seen, because that would involve the repeated demean of a decent people, I have seen things done to people of the most Imaginable horror. I have seen people reduced to squandering waste, by a hideous regime. Yes hideous. Of all the suffering that I saw in the war. There is little to match the unimaginable cruelty that the nazi’s visited upon the Dutch, and for what? What possible, horrible, dream can you have that involves the vicious binds and suffering that you visited on these people. Of all the reasons I went to war, releasing the Dutch from your terrible grasp makes my life worthwhile. It makes my sacrifices, Just!
Burn in hell you nazi Bas*ards.
A.C.(parkie)
Burn in hell you nazi Bas*ards.
A.C.(parkie)
For a good friend.And a good man.
I want to tell a short story, about a boy by the name of Eril, he came from Poland, I met him in Britain in about 41 or 42,He was about twenty years old at the time, when the war broke out in 1939 he was a student studying in Scotland, he felt that it was his duty to help defend his homeland against the Invaders. He traveled east with forged papers until he reached people of the polish resistance that helped him to reach his family home. When he arrived he found his entire family, right down to the babies exterminated by the nazis, His brothers and sisters of teen age were nowhere to be found, after some searching he found that they had been sent to the work camps for slave labor.but he asked to many questions and lingered to long, he was captured by the SS and turned over to the Gestapo, he spent six weeks being tortured, for information, his neighbours and friends had turned him in, he told me they most likely did this for food or promise of life by the SS, Life, was a powerful tool for the nazis. The Gestapo, removed his finger nails and toe nails by pulling them out, They took out one of his eyes, They cut his tongue up the middle like a snakes, They put hot coals in his ears, And they castrated him, Along with terrible vicious beatings and other savage games that they played with him, he was lucky to survive, if that’s what you call it. When they were feeling satisfied that he wasn’t a spy, they sent him east into the lands of the Slovaks and the Ukrainians has a slave worker, he was a strong lad, so his work detail was given the horrible task of burying people alive, because this way the nazis saved lead, Whole towns were exterminated in this manner, Before they sent him to a work camp, one of his last ordeals was burying close to three hundred children alive, who were suffering from tuberculosis at a makeshift hospital, In the slave labour camp. He managed to escape and he made his way back to Scotland. Some of the information he provided military Intelligence led to discovery of the mass graves and to the arrest and execution of various SS.he became an important person in my life and a trusted friend, he traveled from Scotland every year to my home where he stayed for two months and from my home, he would go on excursions to different parts of Manitoba in search of his brothers and sisters. One year he came over, and we went to the Dauphin Ukrainian festival in Manitoba, Allready in his late sixties, his hopes were vanishing of ever finding a member of his family, We were standing in the line of people waiting for perogies, when Eril just happened to say perogy in his native tongue, which is pronounced differently then perogy, or has the Ukrainian say Parahar, I don’t know how they spell it that’s how it sounds. A woman in the line says ‘you are polish’ to which Eril replied he was, Well she was polish too. She asked him where he might have been from, he told her, and she said she knew people in that town, She asked his name, And I’ll be dammed she knew people by that name who were now living in a different town in Poland, To make a long story short, Eril found his brother, Eril died in1995, but I still thank the lord, he provided this man the answer to his quest and some peace in a tortured life.
A.C.(parkie)
I want to tell a short story, about a boy by the name of Eril, he came from Poland, I met him in Britain in about 41 or 42,He was about twenty years old at the time, when the war broke out in 1939 he was a student studying in Scotland, he felt that it was his duty to help defend his homeland against the Invaders. He traveled east with forged papers until he reached people of the polish resistance that helped him to reach his family home. When he arrived he found his entire family, right down to the babies exterminated by the nazis, His brothers and sisters of teen age were nowhere to be found, after some searching he found that they had been sent to the work camps for slave labor.but he asked to many questions and lingered to long, he was captured by the SS and turned over to the Gestapo, he spent six weeks being tortured, for information, his neighbours and friends had turned him in, he told me they most likely did this for food or promise of life by the SS, Life, was a powerful tool for the nazis. The Gestapo, removed his finger nails and toe nails by pulling them out, They took out one of his eyes, They cut his tongue up the middle like a snakes, They put hot coals in his ears, And they castrated him, Along with terrible vicious beatings and other savage games that they played with him, he was lucky to survive, if that’s what you call it. When they were feeling satisfied that he wasn’t a spy, they sent him east into the lands of the Slovaks and the Ukrainians has a slave worker, he was a strong lad, so his work detail was given the horrible task of burying people alive, because this way the nazis saved lead, Whole towns were exterminated in this manner, Before they sent him to a work camp, one of his last ordeals was burying close to three hundred children alive, who were suffering from tuberculosis at a makeshift hospital, In the slave labour camp. He managed to escape and he made his way back to Scotland. Some of the information he provided military Intelligence led to discovery of the mass graves and to the arrest and execution of various SS.he became an important person in my life and a trusted friend, he traveled from Scotland every year to my home where he stayed for two months and from my home, he would go on excursions to different parts of Manitoba in search of his brothers and sisters. One year he came over, and we went to the Dauphin Ukrainian festival in Manitoba, Allready in his late sixties, his hopes were vanishing of ever finding a member of his family, We were standing in the line of people waiting for perogies, when Eril just happened to say perogy in his native tongue, which is pronounced differently then perogy, or has the Ukrainian say Parahar, I don’t know how they spell it that’s how it sounds. A woman in the line says ‘you are polish’ to which Eril replied he was, Well she was polish too. She asked him where he might have been from, he told her, and she said she knew people in that town, She asked his name, And I’ll be dammed she knew people by that name who were now living in a different town in Poland, To make a long story short, Eril found his brother, Eril died in1995, but I still thank the lord, he provided this man the answer to his quest and some peace in a tortured life.
A.C.(parkie)
To all my friends who read my story.
I wrote this a time before,I believe in times like this,it needs a permanent home,here,
I would like to pass along a few words on what I feel has to being a soldier, not for the servicemen who may read this but for those that may come across this who are not or those who seem to have doubts or fears for our enlisted men and women.When the young men of this country have gone to war in the past we did it for the love of our country and the ideals that no man should be able to enforce his will on another. Some of you go to the ceremonies on Remembrance Day and I hear you say ''how awful all those young men'' and '' lest we forget'' but you already have and you don't even know it. Do you think the men and women who are serving our country do it because they couldn't find anything else to do with their time or that someone forced them to enlist in the service of their country? They are there because they are filled with the same sense of honour and love for their country that many before them had, and god willing many more to follow will feel
If you have never served then you will never understand how it feels to be on parade with a full measure of your brothers in arms by your side. I know when you see me at the memorial services you see an old broken down vet with two canes in a suit with a few medals hanging off his chest and one or two of his old buddy's in wheelchairs with him. But I'll have you know looks can be deceiving because inside I'm dressed in my greens and I'm marching with a full regiment by my side. Joe’s on my shoulder whispering 'we're gonna give them hell today old son' and the old man's barking " fall in'' and if I still could I'd be snapping to attention.
My grand daughter inspires me to write down my thoughts and my memories,She told me without it, people forget, what it costs for freedom,
So few of our people in this country want to stand for what it represent's. Everyone wants peace, but no one wants war, I suppose for some that is because peace is such a small little word that it seems so easy to throw around, but peace isn't something that is just a god given right, someone has to earn that peace and be willing to stand for it. It breaks my tired old heart to see people in parts of Canada carrying signs that we should bring our soldier's home and they shouldn't be over in a far away country fighting for some other country's freedom and we should let these country's sort their own problem's out, They are so blind they can't even see their own nose, our brave young soldier's fight for what Canada has always been there to fight for, That little five letter word. P E A C E. we have always stood for that whether peace makers or peace keepers
I never thought of myself has anything other than just one man who stood at one time with a group of other young men to say -NO! You’re not going to get away with forcing your will on the innocent. Just has our grandfathers stood with a group of young men to say the same.
I have often thought of men I served with and fell beside me and I always considered them to be my heroes, until one day at a memorial day service has the minister was speaking of fallen heroe's, My granddaughter came up and put her little hand in mine and said Grandpa your my hero, right then! everything I had gone through was worth it, and I understood that, THAT. is why you went to war old man.
That's all any soldier fights for, his beliefs and ideals and that maybe some day a small child will take their hand in theirs and say "your my hero'.
My old friend Joe who fell far to young, use to say a little prayer before going into battle, Lord protector, protect me and give me the strength to protect others, I don't know if they were his own words or not but I've always remembered them and he died doing just that, Protecting. And is that not what being a soldier is about or more importantly a Canadian Soldier. Something to few have the courage and the honour to be.
. In my lifetime I was fortunate enough to see bravery and gallantry beyond belief what one man will do for his fellow soldier can leave you truly amazed for the rest of your life. I witnessed men of the seaforth highlanders and the loyal Edmonton regiments, do things in the name of duty and love for their fellow soldier that you who have never served can only dream about.
And that to me is what being a soldier is about. The man next to you and the man next to him.
A.C.(parkie)
I wrote this a time before,I believe in times like this,it needs a permanent home,here,
I would like to pass along a few words on what I feel has to being a soldier, not for the servicemen who may read this but for those that may come across this who are not or those who seem to have doubts or fears for our enlisted men and women.When the young men of this country have gone to war in the past we did it for the love of our country and the ideals that no man should be able to enforce his will on another. Some of you go to the ceremonies on Remembrance Day and I hear you say ''how awful all those young men'' and '' lest we forget'' but you already have and you don't even know it. Do you think the men and women who are serving our country do it because they couldn't find anything else to do with their time or that someone forced them to enlist in the service of their country? They are there because they are filled with the same sense of honour and love for their country that many before them had, and god willing many more to follow will feel
If you have never served then you will never understand how it feels to be on parade with a full measure of your brothers in arms by your side. I know when you see me at the memorial services you see an old broken down vet with two canes in a suit with a few medals hanging off his chest and one or two of his old buddy's in wheelchairs with him. But I'll have you know looks can be deceiving because inside I'm dressed in my greens and I'm marching with a full regiment by my side. Joe’s on my shoulder whispering 'we're gonna give them hell today old son' and the old man's barking " fall in'' and if I still could I'd be snapping to attention.
My grand daughter inspires me to write down my thoughts and my memories,She told me without it, people forget, what it costs for freedom,
So few of our people in this country want to stand for what it represent's. Everyone wants peace, but no one wants war, I suppose for some that is because peace is such a small little word that it seems so easy to throw around, but peace isn't something that is just a god given right, someone has to earn that peace and be willing to stand for it. It breaks my tired old heart to see people in parts of Canada carrying signs that we should bring our soldier's home and they shouldn't be over in a far away country fighting for some other country's freedom and we should let these country's sort their own problem's out, They are so blind they can't even see their own nose, our brave young soldier's fight for what Canada has always been there to fight for, That little five letter word. P E A C E. we have always stood for that whether peace makers or peace keepers
I never thought of myself has anything other than just one man who stood at one time with a group of other young men to say -NO! You’re not going to get away with forcing your will on the innocent. Just has our grandfathers stood with a group of young men to say the same.
I have often thought of men I served with and fell beside me and I always considered them to be my heroes, until one day at a memorial day service has the minister was speaking of fallen heroe's, My granddaughter came up and put her little hand in mine and said Grandpa your my hero, right then! everything I had gone through was worth it, and I understood that, THAT. is why you went to war old man.
That's all any soldier fights for, his beliefs and ideals and that maybe some day a small child will take their hand in theirs and say "your my hero'.
My old friend Joe who fell far to young, use to say a little prayer before going into battle, Lord protector, protect me and give me the strength to protect others, I don't know if they were his own words or not but I've always remembered them and he died doing just that, Protecting. And is that not what being a soldier is about or more importantly a Canadian Soldier. Something to few have the courage and the honour to be.
. In my lifetime I was fortunate enough to see bravery and gallantry beyond belief what one man will do for his fellow soldier can leave you truly amazed for the rest of your life. I witnessed men of the seaforth highlanders and the loyal Edmonton regiments, do things in the name of duty and love for their fellow soldier that you who have never served can only dream about.
And that to me is what being a soldier is about. The man next to you and the man next to him.
A.C.(parkie)
I have been reading previous entries that we made from my old war diary, they bring back a lot of memories, I can remember the day, that we shot down the two German fighter-bombers, They had us on coastal watch in Eastburn England. I can’t remember what the coal plant supplied power for, but they had a large coal powered plant on the outskirts of the town, The Germans sent a couple of small planes, They were kind of built like a messerschmitt 109,but they had one or two bombs, can’t remember which, they were coming in from the ocean side of the town in two’s trying to hit that plant. When they flew through they would strafe the unit, and some of the shells were hitting a three-story building with a number of elderly people living in it. Something that I get a little chuckle out of, even now, there was a couple of old gentlemen standing up on the roof of the building shaking their fists at the planes, They were more concerned that somebody had the audacity to shoot holes in their home, than they were about the coal works. I can remember four of us going to the roof of that building, three of the guy’s were using Brens and I had my Thompson. You would never think that a guy could bring down a plane that easily with a small bore rifle, But when those two planes came through, they were right at eye level almost for the guy’s on the bren guns, geez was a sight, those brens lit the cockpits up on those planes like you wouldn’t believe, Those two planes went into the ground about a hundred yards apart, And the ground must have been soft or peaty, because there wasn’t enough sticking out of the ground to even tell they were planes, Looking back, it doesn’t bother me at all, but at the time, that was my first encounter with the enemy. I can remember wondering if one of my shells helped bring them down, And feeling sorry for the pilots, Not likely one of mine hit anything though, The way that Thompson fired it’s lucky I didn’t kill about a half dozen civilian’s. I can remember the old folks from that building out cheering for us and patting us on the back like we just defeated the German army
A.C.(parkie)
A.C.(parkie)
I can remember when the boy’s were coming home from Dunkirk, you could hear the roar from the battle across the channel, The way things were with them trying to get the guy’s back, Those of us on coast watch weren’t really sure what was going on, you just knew whatever it was, it was big, Allied fighter’s were going out non-stop, making a bee-line for the beaches at Dunkirk, When they came back, the one’s that did, some of those planes you would wonder how could they fly, some were literally more holes than plane, has they flew past , there was pieces coming out of the sky, has they fell off the planes, I can remember watching this one fellow come in ,and you could see him from a ways off, and you could hear the engine spluttering. And gain some power then splutter again. I remember saying to myself. Come on! Come on! Just a little more. Oh! He stopped! Oh no! He didn’t! He’s going! Oh! He stopped again! He came in quite a ways and he managed to bring that thing into within about a hundred yards of shore, and into the water she went, there were boats paddling out to meet him. And he just stepped out on to the wing then he hopped in the first boat that came along and they brought him in. I can remember thinking, Hell; don’t appear to be much to this flying thing! Maybe I should give it a try!
Ya Right! Not bloody likely, Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the country with a gun takes a pot shot at you.
parkie
Ya Right! Not bloody likely, Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the country with a gun takes a pot shot at you.
parkie
Parkie here
I took a little break from the writing for a while, I apologise, To those who enjoy the story, I just don’t want to get my mind into a bind like I did before, so that said, let’s continue.
Geez! This is cold, I’m so dam cold I can’t warm-up, I can remember lots of the guy’s saying this the winter after Ortona, Things were slowing down in spots has far as the German’s were concerned, we had minor run in’s with them, has the German division from ortona was being pushed back. We never had much for major battles that winter, Just once in a while somebody would go off to the woods a bit if the john’s were busy, and never come back, somebody would find him dead. Snipers! Always Snipers! Very few places you could go that you didn’t have to watch. First rule. Try not to get caught alone away from everybody and don’t draw unneeded attention to yourself. Don’t make yourself stick out from the rest of the boy’s. Use to make me wonder, why? What mad you stick out more than me? When you saw somebody take a round, Dam Snow! Couldn’t tell where the shot came from, just some poor bugger dropped over dead, But, it wasn’t like our sniper’s weren’t equal to the task if not more so, some of those guy’s were raised in the snow, they took just has heavy of a toll of the Germans.
The winter was cold, Must have been the cold air coming in from the ocean because it cut right through you. One day you would have snow, then the next freezing rain, Most of us slept in these rubber sort of ground sheets they had for us, we walked around with them wrapped around us during the day, The dam battle dress we wore, use to soak up moisture like sponge and then freeze on the outside, Makes me shiver to this day thinking about it.
Somebody came up with the idea of constant patrols. Sitting bloody Ducks is what we were, you would try to keep moving when you were patrolling to keep warm, and the snipers ,picked us off like flies. Not hard to hit a guy who’s trudging along in the snow and the slop. Our outfit lost a few men, some of the other unit’s lost two or three a day to snipers, that and the odd time bumping into an enemy patrol, I can remember being out in patrol and we would sit trying to warm for a second, and off in the snow you could hear a German voice raised with one or two words being spoke, but you couldn’t tell which direction it came from, or even if you could be sure you heard it sometimes you were so cold your mind would play tricks on you and you heard what you wanted to hear. But you knew you weren’t hearing things when you would find one of the boy’s dead in the snow, Sometimes frozen stiff, god knows how long he had been there, We use to sit and stare at them in silence, I guess everyone had his own thoughts, I use to think, ‘poor lad, out here all alone without your friends, Well, Your with friends now son’.
A.C.(parkie)
I took a little break from the writing for a while, I apologise, To those who enjoy the story, I just don’t want to get my mind into a bind like I did before, so that said, let’s continue.
Geez! This is cold, I’m so dam cold I can’t warm-up, I can remember lots of the guy’s saying this the winter after Ortona, Things were slowing down in spots has far as the German’s were concerned, we had minor run in’s with them, has the German division from ortona was being pushed back. We never had much for major battles that winter, Just once in a while somebody would go off to the woods a bit if the john’s were busy, and never come back, somebody would find him dead. Snipers! Always Snipers! Very few places you could go that you didn’t have to watch. First rule. Try not to get caught alone away from everybody and don’t draw unneeded attention to yourself. Don’t make yourself stick out from the rest of the boy’s. Use to make me wonder, why? What mad you stick out more than me? When you saw somebody take a round, Dam Snow! Couldn’t tell where the shot came from, just some poor bugger dropped over dead, But, it wasn’t like our sniper’s weren’t equal to the task if not more so, some of those guy’s were raised in the snow, they took just has heavy of a toll of the Germans.
The winter was cold, Must have been the cold air coming in from the ocean because it cut right through you. One day you would have snow, then the next freezing rain, Most of us slept in these rubber sort of ground sheets they had for us, we walked around with them wrapped around us during the day, The dam battle dress we wore, use to soak up moisture like sponge and then freeze on the outside, Makes me shiver to this day thinking about it.
Somebody came up with the idea of constant patrols. Sitting bloody Ducks is what we were, you would try to keep moving when you were patrolling to keep warm, and the snipers ,picked us off like flies. Not hard to hit a guy who’s trudging along in the snow and the slop. Our outfit lost a few men, some of the other unit’s lost two or three a day to snipers, that and the odd time bumping into an enemy patrol, I can remember being out in patrol and we would sit trying to warm for a second, and off in the snow you could hear a German voice raised with one or two words being spoke, but you couldn’t tell which direction it came from, or even if you could be sure you heard it sometimes you were so cold your mind would play tricks on you and you heard what you wanted to hear. But you knew you weren’t hearing things when you would find one of the boy’s dead in the snow, Sometimes frozen stiff, god knows how long he had been there, We use to sit and stare at them in silence, I guess everyone had his own thoughts, I use to think, ‘poor lad, out here all alone without your friends, Well, Your with friends now son’.
A.C.(parkie)
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Just to help you and others keep track Parkie, your 6 pages of posts have been read 2,220 times as of 03 May 2006 1420 PCT.
This should give you (and us) a good idea of how many of us keep coming back to look at what you are writing. I'll be interested to see how high that number will get as another month passes by.
Regards,
Centurian
This should give you (and us) a good idea of how many of us keep coming back to look at what you are writing. I'll be interested to see how high that number will get as another month passes by.
Regards,
Centurian
