# WWII - Please meet Parkie, the young kid who made a man out of himself



## parkie

I have received letters and messages from so many asking to share my stories and thoughts,some for the need to soothe the fears that family have, for our young who serve or wish to serve in defence of freedom,others to perhaps form a picture in their own mind of what family or friends may have gone through to make canada what it is today. you humble me.my love to you all.
To my grand daughter who for a small child gives me more than I can ever repay.to my brothers who lay in far away places on land bought with their own blood.I do this for you,because we won't know where we're going if we don't know where we've been.
I will continue on this post so please bear with me ,it will take more then a day to tell

 When I made my decision to enlist,I was both terrified at the thought of dying in a war.but at the same time wondering ,  what the girl's will think of me in a uniform.well what else would a 17 year old think of ? I went to the old school house down the road to talk with the old school teacher Mr Cook.I tried confiding in him my fears and my desires to wear a soldier's uniform since he had served in the first world war.He told me you can't have courage without fear.Courage is the resistance to fear,The mastery of it,but not the absence of it, and yes I do think a uniform will make you a man,After all no one will take you seriously if your naked.I can remember thinking boy this guy must be the smartest man on earth,years later I found that he must have been a fan of Mark Twain.Still,Good advice because I can remember many times ,saying over and over in my mind, master your fear, master your fear.I can especially remember being dug into a foxhole in northern Italy, we would take some ground and lose some ground and at night when you were dug in the germans would bring out a large rail gun they had in the mountain's over looking us and the silence of the night would be broken with the low drone of the engine on the locomotive bringing that damn thing out and it sent shivers down your spine because you just knew hell was coming and where are you going to go.nowhere.master your fear!!master your fear!!out to the left some poor souls crying because he knows what's coming to!master your fear!!master your fear!!Whump the ground would vibrate when that bloody thing let loose and Incoming!! you hear someone shout.no damn kidding, you think to yourself, how could you miss that,it sounds like a freight train coming in has it passes over head and you thank god.Their shelling about a mile down the road,you just know that some other poor buggers getting it,your only glad that this time it wasn't you and now you have about a minute to think of home or somewhere, anywhere but this bloody foxhole with that thing going off over my head,and Whump!!Incoming!!!Master your fear!! Master your fear!!


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## Kristen

That has really moved me a lot...thinking that 1 of my 2 friends is off to Iraq. It worries me that he may never come back, His daughter, and girlfriend may never see him again and Augest! I'll send them this story! Thanks Kristen


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## parkie

Kristen said:
			
		

> That has really moved me a lot...thinking that 1 of my 2 friends is off to Iraq. It worries me that he may never come back, His daughter, and girlfriend may never see him again and Augest! I'll send them this story! Thanks Kristen


you must be very proud of him.while he is serving his country and all of us,he will be mastering his own fears in his own way,I pray that you will be able to master your own and be strong for their sake.
                                                                                             A C (parkie)


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## parkie

from letter to sister october 1939
 dear sister
 sorry to leave you with the old man and eleven children to look after but vera and john will help their the oldest now if you have any problems walk down to kay's,have found news here more recent then what we have at home.Hitler has taken all of poland now.reports that the polish cavalry was destroyed by the german tanks.Is that not heroic olive,can you imagine the courage of men charging against tanks on horses.what  courage they must have.can't wait to get over and help.Don't worry dear sister,your big brothers no fool.but I'm no coward either,somebody has to stop this dictator.many here with the same opinion so I am not alone.report to osbourne barracks tomorrow.then hopeful of being in europe by christmas.
                                                                                                                             yours parkie


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## parkie

from orient steamship troop carrier December 1939

Dearest Sister
How are the little one's.all is well I hope.have passed basic I am onboard one of orient steamships troop ships mid-atlantic left canada three days ago.Have a lot of good men here with me.spirit's are good other than you can't step anywhere on board without stepping in some poor fellows supper from the night before.everything is covered in it.men are vomiting on each other has they pass on the walks.and dysentery is running through the lower decks.For some reason it isn't touching me,I could sure go for one of mother's loafs of bread right now,god rest her soul,last night was christmas dinner they served us cows udders sliced up.they had small riots in parts of the ship.Imagine olive a few month's ago I was pulling on them for milk now I'm eating them.I'll say it is awful good of the convoy escorts, they surround the troop and supply ships to keep the subs out. at night off in the distance you can see the sky light up at night and explosion's.remember Elmo,he joined the navy, he's on convoy escort,it is probably him looking out for me,he always thought he was my big brother.write him if you can he's on the windflower

                                                                                      your loving brother parkie


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## parkie

forward to Italy;
 I'll bet you your ration of bully the next one will be an 88(german bomber),formations of bombers have been making daylight bombing Raids on us.we're getting close to ortona, so it's probably Air support for whatever the german's have left to surprise us.boy ,can't beleive my luck,here I am in this hell hole and I run into a boy from my hometown,their bringing ambulance's now in large numbers,You think; Great!! lots of corpsmen lots of ambulances,This can only mean one thing.Ortona has our number on it.Ya! sure see parkie I told you they were 88's.hey what the hell is that whistling noise.I knew full well what it was but i didn't even have time to open my mouth.the first one hit about 50-100 yards off.I can barely remember flopping to my side has the next one hit's.closer yet!!It knocks you so hard your lungs momentarily collapse.and another closer yet! even though I'm laying on my side It shoots me across the ground like a bloody skipping stone.then another and another.your lungs burn from the air being forced out so fast.and you feel like about ten men have kicked the living hell out of you.slowly drag myself to my hands and knees and I'm covered in white downy feathers.their everywhere.I think holy hell I'm in heaven.no.it's what's left of the cushion I was leaning up against that supply truck with.The truck!! it's been cut right in half,That was close,that damn Percy,he's lucky he's only been up at the front for couple of day's,I'll give him a piece of my mind, him and his bloody 88's.
Percy! Percy you potlicker where the hell are you hiding.he must have buggered off, his ambulance was parked across the road.sure ,that's it, he must have took off up the road,probably scared the hell out of the poor kid,never been bombed before.ya.that's it he must have buggered off he was parked right here.what was that.kicked something shiny on the road.ibent to pick it up.well I'll be dammed a silver ring with a P engraved on it.what's the chances of that.I'll give it to percy he's having a baby in about two weeks back home this will pick his spirit's up a bit.what the hell is all this crap all over my boots.sweet Jesus it's percy.


                                                                                                                         A C (parkie)


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## military granny

Dear Parkie
Once more I will say thank you for sharing you memories, no matter how painful, with us. God bless.


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## parkie

letter dated may 1940,Eastburn.England
 Lowest have felt in months.yesterday german's were coming in with a one man fighter-bomber trying to hit coal works.they were firing on a building full of old people has they passed.Three of the lad's and I took four brens to the roof of the building,The next pair that came in low we let them have it.so close you could see the pilot's face.both went down not far.we went to look at our handi work.both had gone into ground up to the tail end.everyone was cheering.we four stood in silence not a word among us.I wonder if they had family.             


                                                                                                                               Parkie


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## parkie

I am sorry if I am jumping around a bit ,but can not tell to much of one spot for any length of time.it is just to hard
                                                  
Italy.                                                                                                                                               parkie
 near the moro river.german's have been hitting us with long range mortar.Terrible things those,if your lucky you can hear the bang from them when they launch, some a mile or so off. at night they throw them at us in groups of up to a dozen or more.you can hear the damn things go off.And you try and count what's going up 1..2...3..4....5.....6....7 but there's so many going off at once,could be two could be ten,Everyone trys to listen but men are shouting,Incoming!! You bastard's!! It seeems like forever but it's probably only seconds and all hell lets loose.hang tight! and master your fear, you know.Some decide to run left or right out of the path.bad choice!you yell at them stay put. keep your ass in one spot,but it's to late for them.german's know that one you know.shoot up a few in one spot.then just has those are hitting us throw up twice has many on both sides.17 men from reserve brought up today all gone but for one.poor bastards sobbing over in the red patch,nobody wants to go near him,bad luck to be new,nobody wants to be your friend,it's just to hard losing friend's you lose enough every day has it is,no use making more!snipers coming in!germans so close you can hear them talking to one another.Everybody quiet.want to know what recon has to say.TOMMIES!! GO HOME!! you hear the german's yelling at us in a kind of broken english you know.We are the 76 panzer!! something you can't tell what the hell it is he's trying to say then he says WE WILL RETREAT NO MORE!!Some of the boy's are up  and shouting back.WE'RE NOT TOMMIES,WE'RE CANADIANS AND YOU'LL BE BLOODY LEAVING IN SHORT ORDER.who the hell do they think they are, go home!we were just getting started

                                                                                                                                A.C.(parkie)
                                                                                                               Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry


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## parkie

Good lord give me the strength.
near the moro.
 Boy we kicked their rear ends good at that one.some of the lad's had enough of sitting waiting for something to happen.somewhere off to the right one of the boy's gets up and strolls right straight up through the german line.oh no.some of the boy's are breaking or what ?where the hell did he go.you look around you know and everybody has the same look.minutes go by,you hear some mumbling and somebody stumbling like their drunk.well I'll be dammed out of the bushes he comes pushing three or four german prisoners, smiling like he just won some sort of prize, you know.Go get a couple of your own boy's,these buggers are mine!! All the less to shoot us later eh!If only it could be that easy,still this picks the boy's spirit's up.A couple of the boy's jump up and help push them toward's the rear.men are looking at one another,and you can see everyone's thought's are drifting back to a few night's before.when we were all so pleased at our 
luck of finding a small farm.with a house still pretty much intact.and a large cask of wine in one of the outbuildings well everyone had a hell of a good time,good water was hard enough to come by let alone about a two hundred gallon jug of wine.it wasn't till we started getting that jug down we found  five people stuffed in the caske.A man of some age.probably his wife and three little one's.oh lord!!you sonsabitches.you sonsabitches!!how could you do such a thing,you sonsabitches!!you know the dirty rotten B........rds cut a bloody mark in the mans forehead.                                   I have to stop.

                                                                                                              A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

time for a change.
from diary may 1940  England
 yesterday was very quiet,this morning,large numbers running every direction. everyone on full alert,no one knows what was happening.can hear explosion's from across the channel.Spitfire's coming back with little more than wings left.some not at all.
whatever they were up against they are giving it all.


next entry.
 Explosions coming from across channel.can hear low roar.many fighters going across towards France.most spitfires,many ships going out of all sizes.they are trying to bring home boy's from dunkirk.tried to count planes going out.many going .some returning full of holes.one hit water just off shore.they got him out alive.


                                                                                                                                     parkie


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## parkie

We have received E-mails from some who are wondering if I served at a certain battle site or if I may have known what happened at one fixed battle,please keep in mind that hindsight is much different when it comes to events in the past.for us going through italy there was nothing to really tell you where you were.In some instances you know you were in a region at a certain time period,but with everything being pretty much blown to dust it's hard to say what was where,I apologize if some are finding it to graphic in spots.but,I would not do honor to the men who died writing this story if  I try to make it something less than what it is.This is war! That being said.Please be warned that it only gets worse.                                                 

                                                                                                    A.C.(parkie)
                                                                   Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry


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## sigspig

Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your memories. 

I have been serving for 19 years now, and after reading your posts, I hope to serve another 19 years. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.


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## parkie

We have had to pause,unknowingly we slipped into something that perhaps skould have been left buried.He is willing to continue,please, a few hours to settle.
                                                                                                                             A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Parkie here we're back .Italy
two bloody weeks of this,I can remember Joe saying.we were sitted along the road leading to ortona.ortona was perhaps 5-10 kms up the road.We only eat at night ,the flour they have been using has been filled with Bug's about 2-3 inches long with long feelers you know ,like the spruce beatle we have here in Canada.great big bloody things,bad enough food is short,very short.we have to eat them anyway so we toast the bread over a small fire,no use trying to pick them out if you do there won't be anything left, you know.so you get probably five or six in every slice plus all the bit's and pieces from the one's that got broke up in the mix,so toast them at night and pretend their raisins ,you know. managed to scrounge six oranges from,A group I think they were red cross ,don't know if they were Canadian or American,The oranges were  delicious,but we got the runs so bad could not eat any more,Joe found a young boy who looked like he was starving,we brought him in and shared our food with him,poor little bugger got violently sick,probably had not eaten in day's, even so he kept coming back for more,had to be careful you know,don't want to kill the poor little bugger.He didn't mind that the bread had bug's,so who the hell are we to pick,you know. you get hungry enough you'll eat any damm thing you can find.
 Sitting not six feet from a Gurkha grave.it's only about a foot long, Wonder how they got that fella in that little grave Joe says.Well I said that's probably more than they found of him.They don't stop those Gurkha's you know ,bravest men I ever saw,fight to the last.
 To them more honor in dying.then to live defeated.You had to love  them though ,you know,has your crawling in your hole for the night their just going out to do their business.No sound,nothing.you could be sitting out on recon at night you know,and all of a sudden,you'll hear,hi Johnny!! Almost enough to make you shit your pant's you know,you don't hear nothing ,but they allready have checked to see if your wearing Jack boot's or not.If you are you'll never see morning,very efficient,We find the odd german with a new smile cut ear to ear.
 Most who knows who finds them you know or if anybody,who cares, you know,let the bug's have the bas.ard's for all we cared.ya.they were quite the little fellows everybody was Johnny.Hi Johnny!!


                                                                A.C (parkie)
                                Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry


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## Hunter

Thank you so much for sharing these memories.  I showed them to my ten-year-old daughter, and she just read the entire thread with great interest.  She said to say thank you also. 

I think that to most Canadians the kind of commitment and sacrifice your generation made for us is just inconcievable, and they really have no idea how lucky we are as a result.  Yours sir truly is the greatest generation.


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## parkie

I want to apologize to everyone for the episode with the farm house,A little intervention on my part would save some having to read thing's like that, and the pain that it inflicted on my father bringing this out of the recesses of his mind.war is war, but the killing of innocent's is a very tender spot.with any soldier.He loves writing the diary,just a slip that got us into a very dark region.

                                                                                                                           (parkie)


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## military granny

Please don't apologize. We are adults here.  I think everyone realizes that WWII was not a easy time for anyone over there.


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## parkie

The following letter was posted from England July 1940.It was sent and delivered.In 1995 at a family reunion she handed him the letter and the two just cried and held each other for almost a half hour.It made me think about the sacrifices that families had to make during the war and just how precarious things were back then. His sister was sixteen years old at the time of the letter raising eleven children.Their mother dying  giving birth to the last one.
Dearest Sister
  Has you may or may not have heard .All of Europe has Fallen.Big Brother may not be coming home.If we fall here nothing will stop the German's they are taking everything.Talk of them Invading And people here readying for it.If  we do fall,talk among men we will fight to the last man.I love you dear Sister,give my love to all little ones.Tell all we went Bravely.until we meet again.
                                                                                                                Your Always loving Brother Parke


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## parkie

When Dad went to bed last night him and Pattie were talking about the people demonstating against the war on terrorism and how the hell can you demonstrate against the war .Toting your dam signs in yout three piece suits, and you take the free speech that the soldier fights for and you throw it right in his face,Anyway when I got up this morning,I noticed that my father must have got his grand daughter Pattie  to help him with a planned offensive,(old soldiers had enough) against terrorism with the one's toting the signs leading the attack.now that I understand what he meant it's kind of funny.
                                                                                                        A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Near ortona
 That night I remember,like it was yesterday,all day German's have been strafing us heavily,Imean so bloody heavy it was a wonder there was air to breath for all the damm lead in the air.Men are gettting blown to bit's from the heavy rounds the german's are using,You thank christ for night fall,so you can't see the bit's and pieces of the boy's all over the bloody place,you know,All nightfall brought was darkness and the odd poor bugger that the med corp couldn't find,moaning in the darkness,nobody knows which direction to even begin to look even if you wanted to,and if you do go looking, the german's have sniper's in every damm tree almost,you know.stand up and just one little reflection off something on you,your dead!Something new for the boy's tonight,must be in honor of our coming,some sort of a damm mortar,fires off about ten round's so fast it will make your head spin ,you know.wam wam wam wam you know all in a row like that.when they come down they make the most god awful noise,you know.sounds like the bloody hounds of hell coming for you.I suppose they were the hounds of hell,killed so many of the boy's,that and chunks of wood as big has your arm flying in every direction,men getting pieces of wood thrown right through them almost,you know,god awful night that, men screaming in pain all night,you know.just bloody god awful.man crawls to you in the night,crying for help with two feet of wood sticking out of him,what can you do,you know.how can you pull two feet of wood out of a man's innard's you know,some tried,All you do is pull the poor bugger's intrail's out,god,bloody god awful!



                                                                                                                     A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

for Joe.
he was a hell of a nice big fella,came from down in  southern manitoba,

The same day of the heavy mortar attacks. next morning snipers in the trees on the ridge are picking off men has men are trying to care for the wounded and get them out to where they can be tended to ,you know,german fighters still strafing us heavily,never a bloody moments rest,you know.just pour it to you steady.only now they started up heavy bombing again to go with the fighters.where the hell is the damm air support ,you know, caught on this bloody road,snipers giving us hell, and planes shooting and bombing us.you feel like a fish in the barrel,you know we had a small strip of bush to the side of the road,but Jesus it's like a shooting gallery in there to you know,and the german mortar crews have it ranged good.so you go in there.well.nobody wants to look like a bloody pincushion from flying chunks of wood,you know at least here there's a little refuge behind some of the small hills.I'll never forget to the day I die.We spotted a sniper in a tree about 50 yds off.Joe told me.I'll clank.when he pops from behind the tree,you spray the hell out of him with that Thompson.Joe clanked and before I could Even move.they shot him in the forehead. Rest in peace old son!!

                                                                                                           A.C.(parkie)
                                                                                                              PPCLI


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## Hopkins

Thanks alot for sharing Parkie...All of my Granfathers brothers and sisters served in Sicily and Italy...All coming back unfortunately as casualties (Not Fatalities) of some nature.

I Salute your service and everyone elses


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## parkie

I regret to have to inform everyone,I can't continue with  dad's war diary,We were doing well ,until the entry that contained the event with the farmhouse,whatever happened there it has made a dramatic change in his state of mind.I noticed that entry's did not coinside with his recollection,because his good friend Joe that he often spoke of,died three week's before ortona and his other post's after that should have been week's before the Moro.I noticed that he isn't sleeping at night and he's up roaming the house.He wanted very much to do this for his PPCLI family in support of our soldier's.I have a small entry he was working on for his next post that he wanted me to enter.It is a piece from a song that the boy's use to sing in Italy,poking back at a 'lady Astor of the British  house of commons who said that they were the D-day dodgers.He couldn't remember all of it,,but here is a portion.

                    Forgotten by the Army,remembered by the few.
                    We had our armistice,when armistice was new
                   one million German's gave up to us
                   We finished our war without much fuss
                  we're the D-day dodgers,out here in Italy

  I thank everyone for the support that they showed him,he truly felt like a soldier again,and I do believe  he missed that for many years.
 He is still available to message and such, I just think the way things are with him right now,I'll give him a rest from diary.

                                                                                                           For
                                                                                              A.C.(parkie)
                                                            Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
                                                           1st Canadian Infantry Division 2ND Brigade   -  A title he  is very proud of


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## Fishbone Jones

Thank your father for us, and thank you for helping him make a permanet record of this. We are all appreciative of his efforts and hope he can quell his demons soon.


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## Kirkhill

Many thanks, and like recceguy I hope he can recover his peace.

Cheers.


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## military granny

Dear Parkie and Family
 How can we ever thank you..... My guess would be doing what we all do on this site, keep supporting the boys overseas and keep supporting each other. We are one big family whether we are PPCLI, RCR or any other regiment of the CF,or the families left behind or the older wiser Veterans.


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## JBP

Every time I read a new entry from you parkie, it humbles me and shakes me to the very foundations of my being. Makes me question what I would have done in your situation, I don't think I would have had the level of courage you showed under fire like that, I guess that comes with time in combat but I'd probably have been one of those poor men scrambling around like a chicken with my head cut off I think, one never knows... 

Thank you so much for your diary, it brings to light for so many of us what it was really like over there. Of course there's any number of movies to watch to get a good glimpse, but no one really has an idea what it was like for the average Canadian soldier over there, at least, they didn't until you started your diary. Again, thank you so much.

Now I can understand why some veterans never want to speak of the war, and the memories that plague them.

Thank you again and take it easy,
Joe
Proud and Thankful of the sacrifices made by you and all the Allies soldiers


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## parkie

Hello,
I would like to try and continue writing more, or at least speaking of the war if anyone would like to read of my experiences overseas, some of you have been following since we started writing this and I appreciate that you find the story interesting. I’m sorry that I can’t be more historically accurate from the point of a certain place at a certain date in Italy, It has simply been too many years. While there are things that tend to stay in a man’s memories it can be difficult to focus on where exactly they happened. I can see now that my mind is clearer that I have made a couple of mistakes.We didn’t really encounter much in the way of plane attacks until we got closer to ortona,Not that there was any shortage of other things flying through the air thar could kill you,Then they hit us pretty good for a couple of day’s, trying to take a bridge out there,That was where I lost Percy. Joe died before we arrived at the monastery, somewhere near Monte cassino we encountered German artillery and Infantry and he lost his life to a shot from a German sniper, one that I was to kill. And all my life I have had to live with that. He was a very nice guy, Joe was, He came from around steinbach Manitoba.His family was of a religion that did not allow them to serve in the military, but he didn’t think it was right, not to serve a country that sheltered them when they were fleeing persecution. He was a handy man to the army because he could speak fluent German, Russian and Dutch, I suppose that’s why the two of us ended up together because I could speak Dutch and Italian very well.
 I wish that I had more of my experiences written down, but paper being has hard to come by has it was, it sometimes fell pray to other uses, I think you know what I mean.
  A happy thought of Joe comes to mind, The two of us were out on our own, And we had stopped to do our business, I can remember telling Joe ,I hope there was nothing important on that paper. and Joe replying to me “well, it’s just shi*ty info now anyways’’.We had a big laugh about that.
 That’s how Italy was for me,land, lose a friend here and there,leave.with a few good fights in between,over time people have asked me, so you must have been at the Moro or the Savior rivers,well,I suppose I was,That must have been that place that was all blown to hell with the water running through it,or I guess it could have been that other place all blown to hell with the water running through it.I suppose after we left somebody was nice enough to go put signs up to give these places names. 
 If you want to hear more of my memories, let me know,I have more to share,with those who would like to listen.

                                                                                                                                A.C.(parkie)
                                                                                                   Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry


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## Fishbone Jones

Parkie, carry on please. We're all ears (eyes ), and again, thank you very much for allowing us to be the site that gets your permanent record and remembrances.


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## Kirkhill

What recceguy said parkie.


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## parkie

From letter(withheld)
Godstone England
Dearest Sister
All is well the day of this letter.Could use more food, but there’s only so much for everyone
The Germans have been bombing London very heavily.Flights of bombers seem to never end.The night is the worst,The sky glows from giant fires burning  just off in the distance.The roar from the bombing is deafening.We are only a few miles from London, They have moved us to a staging area here.
 We dug a trench for the regiment’s biffy.We thought they were going to put in decent washes,but all they did was to put up one long sheet of canvas to the back of us.so the townsfolk all come by to watch the Canadians siting on the john’s and have a laugh,some even take pictures.So if you see a postcard with about thirty soldier’s all seated on the throne.I’m the one waving and smiling on the end.Two days ago I saw the most brilliant site, five planes coming down out of the sky at once all aflame.I can say for certain Olive that the Jerry planes take a terrible licking from the spitfire’s,When the bombers come over the spitfire’s swarm them,It remind’s me of when we were young watching ants attack something,They are all over them.There will be a lot of German plane parts for sale for those that want them, the countryside is a mess with what is left of the one’s that come down.Give my love to the little one’s and my love to all. Your loving brother
                                                                                    Parkie


                                                                                     A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

From letter(sent)
Godstone England
Dearest sister
Can not say much only writing to tell that I received a package from home,days ago.
Our younger brother Chester.You can pick yourself up off the floor now.He told you he was going to work,cutting timber,but he went and joined up,can not say who he is with,but he is near me here,I’ll try to look out for him if I can.He is well now,but for a small amount of bruising from our first meeting.I will have him write you.My love to the little one’s unless they are on their way here too.

                                                                         Your loving brother
                                                                                 Parkie

This letter was sent to Canada.You can Imagine my surprise to have my younger brother follow me overseas.He was fifteen years old when he left home,I don’t know how he got in,but he did.He tracked me down and came up behind me and grabbed me around the neck,I had him on the ground and half beaten before I realized who it was and it nearly floored me.I couldn’t be to mad though because he did join the Patricia’s to be with big brother.

                                                        A.C.(parkie)
                    Princess Patricia’s Canadian light Infantry


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## parkie

Things that one soldier will do for another,can quite frankly leave you just amazed.
My brother Chester or Cecil has we called him,contacted malaria on Sicily.He carried it with him for all of Italy.To make it worse he came down with dysentery.The doctor we had running our med unit was well known for being sauced at the best of times.And our medicine’s had become tainted from the lead stoppers on the bottles.So that men who were in need of medical treatment for anything from minor scratches to shrapnel and gunshot wounds were finding themselves getting violently ill and breaking out in large terrible sores from the tainted medicine.but getting back to what I was originally speaking of ,Cecil hung tight with five other boy’s in his company.Those boy’s carried him on a stretcher over half of Italy,because they would not trust the care of their friend to that doctor or the medicine.To some that may not sound like much,but I ran into them on about a half dozen different  occasions in Italy over about a six month period and they were always’s carrying Cecil, they would carry him until they were set down for the night and they would prop him close to where he could get to the latrine usually up against it.Mind you Cecil had a few good days,probably not many but some,but they probably carried him for two hundred miles maybe even more,and it was by no means warm weather  in Italy for much of it.I have always called what they did for him a testament to brotherhood.
                                                        A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Because of the type of things that Joe and I did, we ran into a lot of different people in Italy and we worked with some pretty, I suppose you might call, interesting folk. but wherever we were and whatever we were doing, Joe always tried to make room for the children that were left absolutely lost by what the German’s and Mussolini had done to their country. he was always bringing in little one’s to our little two man camp and trying to feed them some of whatever we had,usually not much,but still more than what the poor little buggers were getting.
We happened on four of Mussolini’s henchmen, At the time they were called black shirts.although when the dictator was losing grasp of his little shop of horrors he was running,his thugs simply evaporated into the civilian population and they did terrible things to their own people.The four we happened on had killed an entire family.but for a girl maybe in her early teens and a boy about eight to ten,they had tied the boy and were making him watch has they raped his young sister.They didn’t hear us come up on them,And they never heard anything again.I take great pleasure from that to this day.
 Anyway this was the one time when our help was paid back hugely to us. The children had a grandmother not far away and when we took the little one’s to her and they told her what we had done, she fed us like king’s, It may have only been a type of spaghetti with a goat cheese grated on top. But we knew that to these people we were being given what they themselves couldn’t afford to eat. It was one of the best things I have ever eaten.wether it was the meal itself or how we had earned it. I will never forget it. 

                                                                           A.C.(parkie)


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## military granny

Parkie nice to see back with us. Your memories of WWII enlighten all of us.


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## parkie

This is a joke  that got passed around overseas in England during the war, that the boy’s use to get a big laugh out of.
Sergeant McGhee was the toughest gut breaker there was when it came to drill instructors.
 Last time out he was giving us instruction on the use of hand grenades.
‘’Right then Lads’’He barked ‘’The most important thing to remember is…’’ 
But he gets cut short by a green recruit in the back. “ya,okay sergeant I already know all this stuff when am I going to get to kill a german.” 
 McGhee held back a bit. “just hold on lad and let me finish what I was going to say, Right, Then like I was saying the most important thing with hand grenades is after you pull the pin you count to..” 
 But again the recruit cuts him off “Ya ,okay sergeant ,but your just wasting your time because I know everything there is to know about grendes.Now when am I going to get to kill something’’
 McGhee lost it  “Right then, my boy.I can see you know just about all there is about grenades,So you just take this one,pull the pin ,count to eight and throw it,And you’ll be done for the day’’
 Well the recruit just jumps right up,snatches the grenade out of McGhees hand ‘Watch this McGhee’’ .he yards the pin out,and stands there counting 1..2..3..4.5..6..7..8 Blam!!
 The recruit disappears in a thousand pieces.
‘’Right then lads’’says McGhee. “Like I was saying,the most important thing about hand grenades is after you pull the pin and count to four,throw the dam thing’’


                                                                                         A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

we have a long series of entries from my diary in Italy,We will copy directly to here,I think you will find them interesting.


From diary –Italy

Has I write,am cold,wet,and hungry.Last night got sent out on recover or destroy.we arrived the truck was not possible to recover.driver had taken wrong road and got hung up over blown bridge with half- full munition’s load.Truck was shot up by German patrols from across river. We could hear talk,coming from across the river,We made decision to try and blow the truck.we pulled pins on a dozen grenades,not one went off.
  Returned and burned the truck.Must have had a large patrol across river,when tank blew all hell broke loose from across bank.They were waiting for  someone to come for the truck.recovered body from the site. Dead from head wound.


                                                                                                                            A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

From Diary.Italy #1


Last two days they have us in a holding area. We sleep in the graveyard for the local area 
Everyone put above ground here.most horrible smell.  Large beetles crawling out of the grave sites and into our food  and clothing. Men are having trouble eating.There are many  fresh graves here.many children around half dressed and hungry.No word from Sicily or Cecil. Miss home and wife.

                                                                                                         A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Most From diary.Italy#2

Men getting terrible sores from cactus wounds. Meds have mix called blue ointment,seems to make it worse.Body lice going through whole outfit.  no Treatment for them.Last days very hot. 90 in the day.
                                                                                                                            A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

From diary.Italy#3


 Ran into infantry with mortar today. Some faces from the boys missing.We took four prisoners ,Indian regs wanted them,Hard feelings after the ridge.This is second week of no suitable water.Men are drinking from potholes.And Tire tracks.Some have found wine,but it only makes it worse Bread has been coming in full of large beetles.It is terrible. Thrown In the back of the trucks with
 nothing on it,covered in mud and blood from boots And the poor buggers they haul out.My shrapnel wound is festered badly
 Took in belt again.

                                                            A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

I'm sorry the pages are in no particular order,has the diary is in bad shape,so we try to make has much order out of them has
we can.

                                                                  A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

This is the old guy, parkie,I want to stop for a moment to reflect a bit on what Italy was like for theCanadian’s .I know that there has to be many books written on the subject of the Italian war,but I think most came from people who didn’t really have an idea what it was like,Newsmen and journalists and such, You would see them from time to time, driving by, going god knows where, they certainly didn’t go camping with us. I suppose they had a nice comfy quarters set up for them somewhere to sit and write about how well the Canadian’s were doing.But it was anything but,  Some can’t believe that men had to eat bread that was full of bug’s,well I hate to have to tell them,we did,and lots of it.They brought the bread in,loaded in the same trucks they carried wounded or they had been using for troop transport and the back of the trucks would be covered with mud and crap from guys boots and blood from wounds or whatever,they would throw the bread in on top of that mess with nothing on it,so you cam imagine what unwrapped bread looks like when you throw it in with a bunch of slop,it acts like a sponge, whatever meat they had for us,if it wasn’t canned was rancid and covered with fly’s,but I suppose that didn’t really matter to those cooking it,because into the pot it went,mostly they liked serving a kind of mush,that was made from the spoiled meat mixed with a white liquid,that was suppose to be milk,it actually was a powder mixed with whatever water was laying around,and  I do mean laying around,a lot of Italy was nothing more than desert,so water was hard to come by.but it gathered in dips along the road and in spots where it didn’t have time to dry up right away.You knew on what day’s were the one’s that could be your last,because they gave us something the boy’s use to call the last supper,By their standards it was a kind of final feast before battle,to pick your spirit’s up.It consisted of a slice of spam(canned meat) and one or two pieces of hard tack(flour and water mixed and cooked).You know it really made you feel like fighting,just to get another feed like that.
 Lots of men got very sick from lack of water and proper food,It made them unable to fight any diseases that  they got,even minor infection’s were made a lot worse by this,and somehow the medicine they had for treating wounds had become contaminated with the lead that they used to seal the bottles,so if you needed to be treated, you would only get much sicker from the medicine itself,I don’t know if it was a type of lead poisoning or not,but guy’s who were treated would break out in large horrible sores.They used the same liquid to mix with a type of ointment to make something they called blue ointment,this was suppose to be used to treat minor wounds,and it almost killed a lot of guys,some it probably did.
 When the German’s pulled back, or run. Whichever you like,they didn’t leave much behind,So it wasn’t only us hungry,but the people were starving worse then we were,because they had to live with nothing a lot longer then we did,Children suffered the worse,there was many with no family left.And they were left to fend for themselves has best they could,many of them starved to death or just give up,It is disheartening to see a child looking for a place to bury their family,and you have to keep your mind on the enemy.
 The enemy I have killed appear has nothing but a faceless shadow in my memory,But the children I have seen dead,some I can remember what they were wearing and  others I can remember the color of their hair and their little faces.They live so vividly in my dreams,it is like they are alive,and haunting me.I like to think they come to say hello,at least thinking that helps me to survive.
 Have I Killed,Yes ,I have,I have killed those who would do harm to the weak,who would oppress ,who would force their will on others.. 
 Do I feel remorse for the men that have fell by my hand,Not one little bit,I would kill them all over again if I had too. Would I go to war if I could, to go through this again. 
   

 In a second .


                                                            A.C.(parkie)
                        Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
                       1st Canadian Infantry Division


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## westernarmymember

Thank you, Parkie, for sharing your memories with us. My wife and I check in every day to see if you have left another installment. Your memories certainly give the young soldiers of today some idea of what you, who have gone before us, went through. I salute you Sir


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## parkie

The old guy here again.parkie
I was thinking after reading through pages of my old diary,about the first day’s after landing on Italy and them putting us up in the cemetery for the local area.I don’t know to this day,why they put us in there.It was a large area,and the whole place was set on rock,So the graves(I don’t know the proper name for them) or  I guess  crypts you would call them.were all set on top of the ground,and by the looks of it,there were lots of fresh graves,But the smell in there was bloody god awful , That was where we slept and where they served us our food,many of the boy’s couldn’t eat, And large beetles  were crawling out of these grave sites,and they were all over the ground,In our food and getting in our belongings.The same dam beetles showed up in our bread later, So try and get that out of your mind while your trying to eat that bloody bread.Bad enough the stuff being full of bug’s,but thinking about where they might have came from, bothered lots of guy’s. We may have been a tough lot , But we were human.
 I imagine those of you reading through, read the entry with us all going to the john out in the open,That was in Godstone England ,just a few miles out of the center of London.a fairly heavy populated area.They put us up in the city park there.It was a nice open area.grassy and the odd tree.A nice place for a washroom,if it had walls. But there with all the people coming by and staring at us and the kids pointing and laughing,and people taking pictures,well,today it would be like  fifty guy’s all going dropping their drawers in the middle of a wal-mart parking lot and having a crap. I can remember thinking about our old cow out in the field lifting her tail and going,I suppose that’s how we looked.            Looking back that’s kind of how I felt too.


                                                                         A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Parkie wants to tell you all about the battle at the Hitler line in the liri valley.we have to tell it in parts, We will do one part, then perhaps some diary entries then another part and so on, it will be easier on him that way. 

                                                                             The lira pt1                                                  
I will tell you the story of the battle at the Lira valley. At the Hitler line. some of you know the story from command reports and regimental diaries and books. But I will tell you the story from the view of a 21 year old soldier who just wanted to get it over with, and go home, I no longer can feel any glory from that day, I have tried, but now I feel only pain, It is the final resting place of many of the remaining boy’s I had gone to war with, the rest wounded or dead, getting me there.
    Some have say that this was our divisions finest hour, I myself having pride in being a soldier, I take honour in being able to say I was with those boy’s when we went at that bloody line, but my memories won’t let me, I can think of nothing but, that it was the last hour for many of us. I know that it’s my mind doing this to me, because at the time we were a rough battle hardened bunch of veterans, some like myself the old men of the outfit, Old at 21 years, Looking back I think we were more tired of waiting for something to happen, then we were eager to go up that bloody ridge.   Lets face it, we had been through our share of fighting, enough to know that what was waiting for us was a well trained German force, that was expecting us, They were well dug in, had good defensive position, and they knew we were coming .So you have faith in your artillery crews, you know they will do their best to make the way easier for you, you know they won’t be able to get all of them. You can’t help hoping that they kill every one of them and all we have to do is walk up that line, you know that can’t possibly happen, you just hope it does.     They give you the last supper, in this case our last breakfast. And the old man comes by, to tell us, ‘meet you on the objective boy’s’. Sounds great! But looking at those bloody rolls of barbed wire all strung and marked. And knowing the enemies guns have been sighted all over that wire, there wouldn’t be to many of the boy’s making it, But it really didn’t matter, Looking back what mattered was our reputation and the Canadians had gotten a reputation for getting the job done, unknown to them many of us had already said our goodbye’s to each other, We knew when we saw what was waiting for us, and that probably none of us would make it.   


                                            A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

The Liri valley pt2                              
I can remember that day, it was a bright sunny morning, but for the men moving about and equipment readying for the attack, one would never imagine all hell was about to break loose, The companies were lined up back of what they said would be a starting point for the attack, That was probably in case of a shell falling short from the artillery barrage they had planned. The artillery started early, probably around 6 or 7 that morning.  I can still remember, the sound of those guns pounding the hell out of the enemy on the ridge.7 or 800 artillery guns! I can’t explain what it sounded like, except to say, it’s like somebody hammering with a 10 pound sledge on a huge metal drum and their hitting it about 20 times a second or more! man! They were pounding them! 
When soldiers hear artillery support, well! There’s nothing in the world like the sound of those large guns going off in your favour. Nothing in the world! When they start pounding the enemy positions. It gives you a feeling of power, you know,The adrenaline starts to surge through your body, Your whispering to yourself, Give it to them boy’s! Give it to them! At least you think your whispering, but you find that your not, And your not alone, because everyone is thinking the same thing, and soon it’s no longer men muttering to themselves, you can hear men saying out loud, Give it to them!  Blow those bas*ard’s straight to hell! Give it to them boy’s! Pound them into dust! Slowly your no longer wondering if your going to make it up that ridge, you don’t even remember thinking about the barbwire,Mines,machine guns! Nothing! All you want to do, Is get up that ridge and kill the bas*ards who killed our friends! Friends! My thoughts turn to friends I lost, and I am thinking to myself “I am going to go up that ridge and the first son of a bi*ch I come across is going to get the full mag of that Thompson, There won’t be enough left of him to fill a boot!Ya! Just wait that rotten bas*ard who shot Joe, He was the first one I was going to get; he’s going home in a bottle! Dear old Joe! I thought of Joe that day,He had been gone so long now,God! I wish he was here! I’m thinking to myself! Come on! Let’s go, what are we waiting for, let’s get up that bloody ridge and kill those bas*ards! And Planes! I can remember seeing a formation of air support coming over! more help!Good! Give it to them boy’s. Bomb the sh*t right out of them!

We need to stop for awhile


                                                                                                               A.C.(parkie)


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## Tilstonguy

Thank you very much for sharing Parkie,  It means a lot to all of us.


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## parkie

The shelling kept on and on, it had been going steady for over an hour when the old man, came amongst us, I can’t remember what his name was, I think we called him ‘Bucko’, ‘Give ‘em Hell today boy’s’, I can remember him saying. Our old friends that had shared our battles and spilled blood with us, the Edmontons and the seaforths were there, the seaforths formed up, just to the side of us. The Edmonton’s just behind ,Man! It felt good to have those boy’s with us going into battle, We were going to give those sons of a bi*ches exactly what they had coming. I can remember men muttering, ‘you’ve reached the end of your trail now, you bas*ards! This is it! Nowhere to run now Adolph! Men were saying whatever they had to, getting themselves hardened up for the attack. Somewhere from behind .I can remember somebody saying. ‘Steel up there son! Steel up! Some poor soul’s will is starting to faulter. Probably looking for some support or a shot in the arm, None to be had here I’m afraid. Everyone on that line is doing whatever he has to, getting himself hardened up for the assault. Don’t dare show a sign of weakening. Don’t you dare! Master your fear! Master your fear! I had come to know this by heart. I no longer needed to be persuaded to put down my fears! I had come to learn that by rights I was already dead, All that was keeping me alive was maybe a branch, to stray a bullet, or a gust of wind that made the difference between me dying, and the poor bugger that got hit with the mortar! ‘Alright boy’s time to make peace with your god’.I can remember a small guy from Alberta saying that morning, And we all laughed, I think silently we all made peace with our God! A whistle blows, then another!  ALLRIGHT  BOY”S!!  LET”S GO!! It’s was the old man, Bucko! And he’s taking us out, The attack is on! We move out from the line. We no sooner got going, then we started getting hit by German artillery and long-range mortar. Jesus! We didn’t even get started! The artillery rounds are blowing the hell out of men. Dam, The mortars are coming in, in batches and men are dying all through our line. I can see an arm brush by me in the smoke, and I remember the badge of the seaforths and he falls in front of me, off to the right of me a guy shouts ‘Sh*t’and he disappears has a mortar hits him. We are trying to get up through a small wooded area but the trees have become flying missiles of wood has mortar and artillery fire rain’s down on them, chunks of wood, the size of half a tree are flying through the air and going right through men, there’s screaming and the god awful sound of flesh being ripped apart, We can see one of the platoon’s from the right side of us getting the hell blown out of them by the German artillery. I think they were Infantry brigade, no matter we’re all in this together now.LEAVE THAT MAN WHERE HE LAY!! I can hear the old man yelling at someone!A quick blast of heat and I’m knocked back and down to the ground, A mortar has hit the tree I was standing beside. God! That was close. I’m okay though, I can’t see out of my right eye, but it must be wood from the tree. Just hold a second and see what the hell’s going on with my eye.  ‘Help me bud’  Jesus!  Somebody has me by the boot. It’s one of the boy’s from the platoon ‘Give me hand to get up will ya” Christ! He had no right side, his leg and arm were gone, and he slipped away in a second. I’ve got to get up and get moving, but there’s no one around, just bodies and pieces of them. How come there’s nobody to help us! ‘ Leave them where they lay’! Of course, you stupid ass! They thought you bit it and left you there! got to get up and get back to the platoon, but where do I head. I can barely see men moving ahead, through the smoke. Must be my platoon! I walk out towards them, and one of the boy’s shouts at me. ‘You with B Company’ No! I shouted back ‘I’m with the pat’s’. ‘This way’! He shouted at me. And he’s gone ahead in the smoke, Christ! This bloody eye I can hardly see where I’m going and we’re still getting the hell pounded out of us. by the artillery. I can hear somebody yelling up ahead. A way’s ahead I found one of the boy’s from the other company, tangled in the wire at the line. “Give me a hand to get out of this god dam wire’.Right!I started to pull on the wire,And I notice he’s dead.What the hell!!I was just talking to him,then I hear the thud!thud! thud! Machine gun fire raking the wire, that’s what killed him. and Zip!! I feel a hot poke under my arm; I took a round in the soft flesh of my armpit! Dam! That burnt, I stumbled only for a second and another passes through the calf of my right leg! Ouch! Jeez! That smart! I couldn’t hold myself up and I fell into that bloody wire. Well now I’m really screwed, Now I’m tangled in this bloody wire and the German gun crews are going up and down the line with machine guns raking the hell out of everything living or dead, I can see men moving maybe a hundred feet off, but that does me no good!  ‘Hang tight there’! Somebody says. ‘Don’t bloody move there’s box mines everywhere’ is he talking to me? I can see from my good eye a man moving off to my right, he’s about ten feet away when he steps on a mine, The explosion tore his leg off at the knee and threw him towards me where he lands on his back in front of me about five feet away, right on top of the detonator for another mine. The muffled explosion throws dirt hard into my face. now I can’t see a dam thing. and I have to dig the dirt out of my eye to see. There’s the poor lad lying there with his whole chest cavity blown open. Good Jesus! What a sight, I look down the wire and all along it are men hanging dead and dying and the sickening sound of lead hitting their bodies and tearing them up. Men are lying all around with missing feet and legs and worse. It looks like somebody just took boys and tore them apart.
The Canadian’s broke the Hitler line that day! We showed the world that we could take on, what some considered the best-trained troops in the world at that time and hold our own, Hell! We kicked their Asses!
The battle at the Hitler line ended for me there that day. I had been shot through the right leg at the calf and the thigh. In the right arm at the armpit and the shoulder and three shrapnel pieces in my abdomen, two I still carry to this day. My head wound consisted of my face being torn away from my jaw to my temple and from the corner of my mouth to my ear.
I managed to survive that killing field to tell, To tell the younger people what kind of courage they inherit. To tell the younger soldiers of today what kind of honor they share
My war didn’t end there though. I went on to fight in the Netherlands, but that’s still to come


                                       A.C.(parkie)
                Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry


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## parkie

The Liri

What do I think when I look back at this? You know it is hard to explain, exactly what this means to me. Something that has stuck in my mind all these years. It is like a picture embedded in my memory. When they were carrying me out on a stretcher, we went past the old lad who was one of the commanders of the Edmontons, He was sobbing, and I will never forget him repeating over and over to himself ‘All gone. All My fine fine boy’s. All gone’ That has always stuck in my mind, Has just what we meant to these guy’s. For all their hard talk, And gruffy nature. All that aside, They Loved us.
 The first division paid a terrible toll, that day, to what we called ‘The Butcher’. Out of our little group I think only, one or two men made it to the end. All tolled I think we came out of it, with about Fifty or sixty men who could walk, out of close to three hundred. Out of the casualties I don’t know how many were dead and how many were wounded. Those of us that were just shot to hell, considered ourselves lucky. Some of the boy’s got hit hard, awful hard! I remember one of my officer’s coming by has I was lying on the ground; he leaned over me and put his hand on my head and told me. ‘Well, your not so bad, eh, lad’.  ‘No’! I told him. ‘No, Sir I’m not, I’ll be ready to go in a couple of day’s’.
He told me, ‘You just rest here lad, and we’ll call you if we need you’.
                                                             
                                         A.C.(parkie)

If somebody can help me find the name of the old lad who was with the command for the Edmontons that day I would sure appreciate it, I have often thought of him and never knew his name, He was an older gent, and he wore a odd, soft brown cap. He was amongst the troops before we started the assault that day, talking with the men.
                                                                                                 Thank you(parkie)


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## Kat Stevens

"The Canadian’s broke the Hitler line that day! We showed the world that we could take on, what some considered the best-trained troops in the world at that time and hold our own, Hell! We kicked their Asses!
The battle at the Hitler line ended for me there that day. I had been shot through the right leg at the calf and the thigh. In the right arm at the armpit and the shoulder and three shrapnel pieces in my abdomen, two I still carry to this day. My head wound consisted of my face being torn away from my jaw to my temple and from the corner of my mouth to my ear.
I managed to survive that killing field to tell, To tell the younger people what kind of courage they inherit. To tell the younger soldiers of today what kind of honor they share
My war didn’t end there though. I went on to fight in the Netherlands, but that’s still to come"

Jeezus, parkie....this should be printed up and hung at the entryway to every combat arms unit in the whole damned army... Thank you for this.... 

CHIMO, Kat


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## military granny

Oh how right you are Kat. Imagine what it would be like to sit and have coffee with this great man. Parkie, I've said it to you a few times, Sir you are a walking hero to not only the "young" military members here but to their families as well.


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## parkie

if you would like to print this,by all means you most certainly may.I wrote this ,because for the most part from what books I have read, people only know what history tells them,I am no hero,I would not even accept my medals until 1997, and I only did so,on the wishes of my granddaughter for her to have,I think people need to understand,who those boy's were that stood with me,They walked into that field of fire fearing no man.And I can honestly say ,if there is a hell on earth ,it was on that field that day.To see things like what was happening to those young lads and have the fortitude and courage to keep going,it really truly was the stuff that legends are made of.
                                                                 I thank you
                                                           A.C,(parkie)


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## Kirkhill

Parkie, you are doing a great job of telling their story.


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## parkie

After a few hours of searching we managed to find this radio clip of the canadian assault on the hitler line.
 I hope the link works for everyone                                      

                                                             A.C.(parkie)



http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-71-1471-9860/conflict_war/italian_campaign/clip7


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## parkie

The old vet here.
Has I get closer to the end of this,I want to share with you,from time to time small stories about life,maybe what it was like for soldiers retuning from the war and such.
 For the young men and women that serve,here at home and in far away places.I know exactly how you feel my friends,exactly.
 All I can say is cling to your faith,In yourself,In your brothers in arms, And in that which you do.
All through time it has been the same for  soldiers. when trouble stirs everyone goes.. Ho!.. Hum!.. Until it looks like their butt might be on the line,then they will either support you in your struggles or spit in your face.and when the black clouds have disappeared ,there will be a big celebration then they will forget you exist.
 So you hold to your brotherhood and sisterhood,because when it comes right down to it,we only have each other,and really that is all we need.To hell with the rest.
                                              A.C.(parkie)

Don’t worry when my story is done your still going to have to put up with me,so too bad!


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## parkie

Old vet here
I want to tell a little story, I myself have put it behind me, But it will show you the indifference of people. When I came home from the war, there was little for the men coming home to do, some returned to the same back breaking work that they had put on hold to go to war, others could find nothing, and wandered to different parts of the country, in search of work, myself I found work in a mine, working underground.
 Working with iron ore, I found the work hard, but a lot easier to get along with then lead.
There was about ten boy’s with me at the mine, they had wandered to the same mine at different times in search of work. We all worked together underground(the ten boy's were vets also)
  In the dry. Which is where men come to shower and change after their shift is over,
 They had a plaque on the wall that listed the names of men who had been working in the mine when the war broke out and had died serving and it had about a dozen names on it
   Right bloody next to it, and this is no word of a lie, there was a small wood case about a foot square with a glass front. Inside that case was a watch, a beautiful gold watch.
 Some of these guy’s who worked there during the war because they were probably to (I’ll you the term scared), to go to war.
They had bought this watch for somebody, but he had died before they could send it,
So they put it in a little case on the wall, for all to be able to read the engraving on the back.
  
TO ADOLF  HITLER -YOUR INSPIRATION MOVES US ALL

And that is all I have to say about that

                                                              A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

The battle of ortona
I will tell about the battle of Ortona, I can not tell you about the whole thing because most of the fight fell to the Edmonton’s and the Seaforths, Those boy’s had the awful job of trying to squirrel the enemy out of the town. The Patricia’s didn’t enter Ortona until the fighting was pretty well over, all of the hard fighting anyway.  We held routes and such, I suppose in case the enemy tried to flank the whole bunch of us, But I can tell you from runs I made with the officers from command, who I went up with has part of a support unit to take ammunition and supplies to the town, we would go up in the evening to re-supply the units fighting in the town and the CO’s would recon the battle. So in all has far has the battle of Ortona goes, I myself had it pretty good, I got to ride for a change and I got to watch the men of the Eddie’s and the seaforths fight for the town of Ortona. Although it wasn’t like sitting watching something that you were enjoying, Most of these guy’s I had broken bread with, and been with for a couple of years, they had become like family, And you couldn’t help but worry for them. But at the same time you also couldn’t help but take pride in them, their being fellow Canadian’s and taking on one of the best German paratroop divisions.
 The Germans bombed and strafed us a few times on the road to Ortona, they were trying to hit a bridge on a road leading to the town, And generally just trying to harass us, But that bridge is probably still standing, although the rotten SOB’s managed to kill Percy, a kid from my home town and a few of the other unlucky boy’s. Unlucky! That’s how we looked at it when one of the guys’s got it, because really that’s all it is, Luck! In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time! That’s what we use to say. The difference between coming home and being a hero or spending eternity in a far away place. Seconds! Half seconds! Your enemy blinked and you squeezed by, but your buddy didn’t. Your life can come down to a grain of dust blowing in somebody’s eye.
  First for those that don’t know too much about the Canada’s war in Italy, I will tell you about the enemy we faced, Through most of Italy we faced different units of Herman Gorings divisions, The ELITE! They thought of themselves, The finest troops that Germany had to offer. Hardcore battle tested troops! What did we make of them, LANDFILL! It took to many of my friends and good young boy’s to stop your greed and your blackhearts for me to think of you has anything, but! 
 Anyway, back to The elite. German forces that I can remember in Italy were. 
The panzer divisions. The1st and 4th paratroop divisions and some of the Luftwaffe field division. All well trained troops. But for the Luftwaffe ground troops, who maybe would have faired better with their feet off the ground.
  But being a soldier, There is no nice way of telling how I feel about facing these troops, Being a soldier, one has to measure himself by the enemy he has defeated, or hardships he has endured, So being a soldier I guess I can say that we killed some of the finest troops that Germany had to offer. To harsh for some maybe, but the truth!
. In Ortona, the Germans left their 1st paratroop division, not what you would call an ill-trained bunch. They were considered some of the best troops in the world, somewhat fanatical and experienced.
  I can tell you this; I was present during the Questioning of a German prisoner. A few days’s before the assault on Ortona started. He was quite arrogant in the fact that, we were merely a small obstacle that they had to overcome, The troops who were in Ortona were the elite forces of the German army and they  would not surrender, and that in fact, Germany was going to win the war. Well! I said he was arrogant, I didn’t say he was smart.
 Back To Ortona. If you know much about Italy, you know they like their balconies, dam near every house has one, good for sitting on in the evening, also good for snipers, They had themselves hid in almost every room in that town, They would pop out onto the balcony and shoot at a few guy’s, then pop back in. They also had built themselves machine gun nests and barricades using the buildings themselves by blowing them up and blocking the streets and laying mines .So they turned the whole dam town into a defensive position. It makes clearing a large town a dangerous task; almost impossible when your dealing with a large force that is intent on holding the town.
   Since the houses were all built connected, someone came up with the idea of blowing a hole through the wall of one house and then men would enter, clear that house, then do it all over from house to house, and they cleared entire blocks doing it this way. Hard, Dangerous work, and it cost men’s lives, And anywhere the Germans pulled back from they booby trapped the hell right out of the building, and when you blow a hole in a wall, somebody has to go through first, a risky job.
 But even though it was so tedious and dangerous, those boy’s didn’t back down, Hell!! They made the enemy run from that town, They had the German’s in such a hole from getting pushed out of everywhere, they started using terror tactics on them, By waiting until there was a bunch of men in a building they had rigged to blow and then levelling it. They caught one group of guy’s nearly thirty in one building, then blew it up, burying them all, But the fellows managed to save a couple of the boy’s, even while they were being shot at by sniper’s and having grenades thrown at them while they were trying to dig them out.
I will continue this in a little while; the old vet needs a nap.

                                                         A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

Ortona pt2
 I can’t imagine what it must have been like trying to dig those boy’s out of that rubble
And the whole while somebody’s lobbing grenades at you and taking pot shots.
 But if they thought that this would terrorize the men, they were wrong, all it did was p*ss them off.
When the Germans blew up that building with all the men inside, they soon found out that the Canadian’s could play that game too. One of the units sent men out to recon the town at night for buildings that the Germans were using, they set charges on the building where they could hear German voices coming from, and blew it up. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so to speak.
 I remember men talking about, they couldn’t understand how the enemy was getting from place to place, because they had cleared buildings, and set up a position to keep the Germans out of that sector, only to find that they had somehow got themselves back in, and were using it has a fire position again, Then somebody found that they had dug tunnels from building to building, That ended with a few well placed explosives.
 I can remember, I was up with the supply unit, and we were taking rounds to a six –pounder, (an anti-tank gun on wheels), that they were using to fire on buildings that snipers were hiding in, while the boy’s were unloading the rounds, I was talking with the fellow firing the six –pound, You could hear lead pinging off the gun, has somebody was taking shots at him, he said to me ‘‘Look at this bugger in the second floor of that building, he shoots two shots from that small window, then two shots from the balcony window’ And he pointed him out to me, and sure enough you could see him, poke out and fire two shots at the boy’s down the street, then come to the other window and fire two shots at us. The gunner told me ‘‘I’ve got the bugger timed at fifteen seconds, from when he fires at me, to when he appears in that other window, the bugger doesn’t know I can see him, Watch this’’ Has soon has the sniper fired two shots at us, The gunner was looking at his watch. He fired that six pounder at exactly fifteen seconds, And the shell from it hit that window, exactly when the sniper appeared in it, Gees! the four of us there just about wet ourselves we were laughing so hard!
 The first division had it’s own machine gun unit, they were the Saskatoon light infantry. They mostly used the Bren 303 machine gun, I know some who read this have shot the bren, And by today’s standards they are considered a dinosaur, but in it’s day, in the hands of a man who used them daily, they were a formidable weapon. And in the hands of a man from Saskatoon infantry, nothing moved within 2-300 yards or it was dead.
 On Christmas that year, they planned a big feed for the boys in the town, they got a few of us to escort the trucks up, and help set it up in an old building there. They set up tables with cloth on the tables and put everything out, I think they had pork, can’t remember exactly, but they had vegetables and some fruit and smokes for the boy’s, They brought in relief to try and hold the positions, while they brought the boy’s in that had been doing the fighting. If a picture is suppose to be worth a thousand words, then one that day would be worth a million, when they brought those guy’s in, some of them just stood there and cried, they couldn’t believe their eyes. It was nice to be able to see them forget about the hell they had been going through, if only for a couple of hours, it probably took some of them back home for a minute.

 -continued
                                                                  A.C.(parkie)
edit for grammar


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## parkie

ortona pt3
The Christmas feast must have lasted for close to 8 or9 hours that day, the men would come in and eat, get to slip away to a different time for a while, but then have to go back out to relieve the next bunch of fellows. The hardest thing for us was watching their faces, has they changed from weary and battle worn, to happy and cheerful, then back to the reality of war, when they had to leave. Some of the bully’s (cooks) couldn’t understand why they were so p*ssed off and sad looking, having just had an unheard of dinner with everything. They thought of them has being ungrateful. I soon sorted them out. I remember telling one of them.  ‘You obviously haven’t been shot at before maybe you should go stick your nose out on that street and you’ll see why their so glum about going back out there’. No, Those bully’s didn’t understand, but I did, I knew what it was like to be shot at, and to be shot at for days straight could sure take a toll on a man.

It was near Ortona, about a week before that we were told to go and try to bring back a three ton truck that had gone down the wrong road in the dark, It was easy for drivers to get lost in the dark, most had no lights, at least none that worked anyway, When a convoy traveled at night, one vehicle led the way and everybody followed using a small piece of reflective tape on the axle of the truck in front of you. So guy’s got lost in the dark and rule of thumb, stay with the truck and somebody will find you.
 Four of us went out to find the truck and driver, we backtracked to where we found tracks trailing off towards the river, it was already getting near dark and we had to walk a ways before we found the truck. It was sitting with one wheel off the side of the bridge and it was very near to areas patrolled by the enemy. We sat for quite a while, listening and there was not a sound coming from the truck, but across the river we could hear men talking German, Ambush! One of the lads crawled to the truck and came back with the news that the truck was shot to hell and the driver was dead in the front seat and it was loaded to the hilt with munitions. We talked amongst us what to do and we decided that if the truck was full of ammo why not let her blow. So we all crawled over to the truck and two of us removed the driver, no doubt the bunch across the river had shot him, then they probably figured they would just wait for whoever showed up to help. I remember we could hardly keep from laughing out loud, Dam fools, some ambush. You could hear them chattering like a bunch of old hens a hundred yards away. We figured since the truck had all this dam ammo, just pull the pins on some of those grenades and it’ll all go, Okay. Two men took to humping it down the road with the body of the driver and in about five minutes, we pulled the pins on as many grenades we could grab and we run. We ran like a son of a gun, and well?  What the hell?  Nothings happening. The two of us sat there wondering what the hell to do. We figured for sure the Germans must have heard us. But no sound. So we went back to the truck and took a rag and stuck it in the fuel tank and lit her up. We went quite a ways before the truck finally blew, but boy when she blew with all that ammo in the back, Jesus did it go! Those Germans across the river must have filled their drawers! We caught up with the other two a half mile down the trail and we made the decision that the Germans were probably on our trail so we put the drivers body where somebody could come for it the next day.One of the boys from the night before went out with two of the lads from the seaforths and they  brought the drivers body in, he was a nice young lad from Manitoba with the Pat's.       Continued                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   A.C.(parkie)


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## parkie

I'd like you all to tell me what kind of stories you would like to hear(see),maybe a certain time or place,where I might have been,

                                                                              parkie


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## Fishbone Jones

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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## Mike Bobbitt

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.


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## Centurian1985

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!


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## parkie

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


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## parkie

Centurian1985 said:
			
		

> 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!


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.
Just Everyday stuff that happened would probably raise the hair on most peoples necks.


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## parkie

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


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## Kat Stevens

You're a stitch, parkie, and thanks again.


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## Kirkhill

Ye married weel onywy parkie.


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## parkie

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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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)


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## 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


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## 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)


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## Centurian1985

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


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## parkie

On the march, we had been on the haul for a couple of days on the Arcona road, we had been strafed twice, The Germans would come in and hit and run, never staying long, just come in and buzz us, hit the odd truck, and maybe the odd guy, had my first run in with the Ghurkha’s on that road, we had been walking and we were feeling a bit weary, when all of a sudden from over the ridge, came this odd looking little track carrier with about four Ghurkha’s in it. They cut through our line and swerved back onto the road, with the vehicle coming up on one track almost tipping over, then over the other way, onto one track, Geez, you would have sworn there was a bunch of drunks driving it, they were all over the place, Then they finally got it under control, And this one little guy pokes his head up from the back, And he was smiling and laughing like he didn’t have a care in the world ‘Hi.Johnny,’he says, waving like a school kid, god that made me laugh, not a care in the world. We got up close to them. And he says ‘So, You Johnny’s got iny Jerries’, No we told him we didn’t get ‘INY’ Jerries.Not that day ‘well’ he says ‘we gots a few over de hill der’ ‘ if you need one, you cin have one o dem’And away they went laughing and smiling ‘gees we laughed for hours about that. Ya! If ye need one ye cin have one o dem. I never saw one have a bad day really.even when they were shot to hell and half dead, always looking on the bloody bright side, Joe and I happened on one Ghurkha sitting on the back of a three ton truck, probably waiting to get ride out. He had no leg below the knee on one side, Joe asked him or rather stated ‘got hit good, hey lad’ he looked at Joe and smiled and says ‘aw hell could be worse’. But that’s how they were, it must have been the life they were brought up in, I guess the war in Italy was a step up from what they were use too. And don’t ever ask one to see his knife. Christ, may have well ask him if you can sleep with his sister. Boy! They were sure sticky about their knives; I don’t remember if I ever did see one, I’ve seen what they can do, many a time. We found Germans cut from the neck bones all the way around like that, just one big slice, An guy’s said they found Germans dead from the Ghurkhas in the oddest position, some with pants their down, probably stopped to have a crap and got himself a new smile, others said they found them with their willy in their hand,dead, got caught having a leak! I could see it too. I have had them sneak up on me in the dark, And scare the absolute begeezus out of me, you can just imagine yourself sitting out in the woods at night, your already all nerved up looking for Germans and listening for any little sound, and all of a sudden somebody says HI, JOHNNY!! In your bloody ear. good god! You almost crap your pants right there, holy smokes, it scares the hell right out of you. When it started to get dark they would wrap themselves up tight so there was no loose clothing and off they would go into the bush, For us a evening of night patrol could be nerve racking, for them, it was an evening of hunting.but, in terms of a soldier, you couldn’t ask for a better guy to have on your side. Hi!! JOHNNY!!

                                     A.C.(parkie)


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## Hunter

Hi Parkie,

I printed some of your stories and took them in to read to my grandfather tonight.   He's got creeping dementia and he's not very expressive, but he listened with rapt attention as I read to him.  He's usually pretty withdrawn and not very expressive, but his eyes followed me as I read, and I could tell he was listening intently.  When I finished I asked him if he wanted me to bring in some more stories to read to him.  He broke into a big smile and nodded his head - a big reaction for him.  He was a mosquito pilot during the war and did a full career as a naval aviator, retiring as a Lieutenant-commander.  I visit him a couple of times per week at his nursing home, and I want to tell you that your stories brought out the biggest reaction from him that I have seen in a long time.

God bless you, Sir, and thank you once again for sharing you memories with us.

Hunter out.


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## parkie

This piece has taken me three days to write. It was the first time I engaged in hand to hand with an enemy soldier, It changed me forever, it showed me how primitive man was, and when they say kill or be killed, they mean kill! No bloody question! We had been forcing an attack on a ravine near the Moro, at least I’m pretty sure it was the Moro, This happened about two weeks before Ortona, The Germans had set up a strong defensive position across a ravine, The 1st was given the duty of clearing them. CO’s were arguing about something, and the men were picking up on it. When the CO’s have a disagreement, more of us die then need be, usually. Who knows, we just do has we’re told, because that’s who we are. One of the other regiments started an assault on the ravine, but they were so fast they ran into trouble from their own artillery. The pats went in with another unit, we got so dam close to the German’s .we could have hit them with a stick.
 We were lying in bushes on the top slopes of the ravine, No more then a few yards away a German machine gun crew was firing on the far slope, they must have heard us, because they turned the gun on us. Hot lead was flying over our heads like swarm of hornets, One of the boy’s threw a grenade, but it did nothing, it only made it worse because now they knew how close we were, three of us made a decision to skirt under their fire using the slope, and the rest would hold their fire. We were fumbling through the bushes. Getting close, how close? We literally fell into their gun nest. The first one was the gunner on the MG. I pointed my Thompson in the general direction and let it do the rest, from ten feet away it literally made him explode from the waist up, a mistake! I had emptied my mag.Behind me I could hear somebody Grunt and say you son of a Bi*ch. The next thing I felt a sharp pain in my left breast. One of them had swung a knife at me with a backstroke and it hit me in the top pocket, it was stuck in small metal case in my shirt pocket. I kicked him in the groin has hard has I could and he was on me, trying to push that bloody knife into me, All I could think to do was to try and take out his eye. But in trying this, he latched on to my thumb with his teeth and was trying to bite my bloody thumb off, Jesus H Ch**st that hurt, I tried to yank it free and did, but Fell back with him falling with me,I landed on something soft and only recognized it has a uniform, whatever it was it wasn’t moving and this bloody German was still trying to kill me. With me lying on my back, he reached down and grabbed me by the testicles and squeezed, Jesus, it felt like my guts were going to explode. In desperation I took my thumb and drove it into his eye has far has it would go, He screamed, and let go of my bag. He tried to clutch my hand I had in his eye, but I had him. With both his hands trying to pull my thumb out of his eye, I grabbed him by the back of the head and pushed my thumb in has far has it would go, I can still to this day remember the feeling of holding his skull between my thumb and my hand, He was making a strange whimpering noise, but all I could see was red, And the smell of hot blood in my breath, he was done, I held him by the back of the head with my thumb still buried in his eye, and pushed him back onto the ground, his knife was still dangling from my shirt pocket and I tried to pull it out, the whole pocket came off, he had stuck his knife into my small metal smoke tin, I twisted the knife out of the tin and finished the fight, I had become Parkie the killer. From then on I would think of myself has a killer; if I had to I could kill.And would


----------



## William Webb Ellis

Wow, thank you....it seems a little hollow and insufficient, but it is all I have.


----------



## parkie

Hunter said:
			
		

> Hi Parkie,
> 
> I printed some of your stories and took them in to read to my grandfather tonight.   He's got creeping dementia and he's not very expressive, but he listened with rapt attention as I read to him.  He's usually pretty withdrawn and not very expressive, but his eyes followed me as I read, and I could tell he was listening intently.  When I finished I asked him if he wanted me to bring in some more stories to read to him.  He broke into a big smile and nodded his head - a big reaction for him.  He was a mosquito pilot during the war and did a full career as a naval aviator, retiring as a Lieutenant-commander.  I visit him a couple of times per week at his nursing home, and I want to tell you that your stories brought out the biggest reaction from him that I have seen in a long time.
> 
> God bless you, Sir, and thank you once again for sharing you memories with us.
> 
> Hunter out.


Hello hunter
Thanks for taking my stories and reading them to your grandpa, He will enjoy these, because being a soldier is all us old vets are, for a lot of us it’s what we hold onto to keep us young, or at least to feel like we’re young, it’s funny that us old guy’s, share these stories with each other, but not with the younger generations, Some I hear, ‘oh.the younger people, they don’t unerstand’. Well! How the hell are they going to, if you don’t tell them everything? They enjoy the stories, so tell them what you did; it’s not like their made of glass or something.
 I’ll bet your grandpa smiles when he hears stories like this! The war is the most amazing thing that many of us did, It made us who we are, I bet the war is the most important thing, that your grandpa hangs onto, I know it’s that way with me,
 Hot dam! A mosquito pilot.eh! We use to get stories about them down through the ranks, I never got to see one fly, sure would have liked to though, saw a bomb for a mosquito once, the boy’s called it a cookie. I think it was made for bunker busting. Great big thing, must have weighed probably a couple of tons or more. Supposedly they were all explosives, real thin skin. The boy’s use to write TO ADOLF.on their big bombs, who knows maybe he got one,? Say Hello to your grandpa for me. Tell him I miss those times too.
                                             parkie


----------



## parkie

I was reading a note from another fellow about an old army truck in military history, and into my old mind popped something that had been buried for years,
 In the fall of 1943,we were on the march and we had received a couple of days leave, Joe was still with me then, and we went to see the sights in one of the small towns there
 A bunch of us went in on the back of a three-ton dodge, troop truck. Joe and I, we weren’t much for drinking and carrying on, well, not too much anyways! We went to see the old buildings and a few things like that, We were near where we had been dropped in the town, when a young women, she couldn’t have been more than 25 years old, came running up to us waving her hands and making strange noises, Joe tried getting me to ask her what the problem was, but she couldn’t talk right, She scribbled a note that was I was hardly able to read, that said something about a bunch of orphans. I told Joe that the note said something about orphans, and well, Joe being the mother Theresa of the first division he went banana’s, he was just frantic about us helping her and trying to get me to communicate with her, but it was hard to do, So we went with her down a couple of streets and in a dirty little room on the second floor of a building, she had about twenty children, of all ages from about 1or 2 years old to about 9or 10.most looked like they hadn’t eaten in days and they were severely malnourished. One of the older kids was able to relate to me that they all came from about six different families in the country, their parents had been captured has part of the Italian resistance and executed, Before that, their parents thought they were in danger of being caught and they had sent all the children to live in the town to be safe, but apparently the children of anyone connected to the resistance were worth something to the nazi’s, because the Germans had been looking for these kids for some time before the area fell to the allies, this young woman had been hiding them on her own, everyone else that had been connected to the kids had been caught and who knows what happened to them. The kid told me they thought maybe they still had some sort of family left in the country, but it was quite a ways out, has near has I could tell at the time somewhere between Rome and Naples, We couldn’t just leave them there to starve and we didn’t have a truck anyway, The army frowned on the use of their trucks for such things. Joe went looking for some sort of transportation while I kept watch, You have to remember that while the Germans were out of parts of the country they were still in control of a lot of places, and going near Rome would be a risk, also, many who were connected to the resistance had enemies, and revenge would be brutal on the children if they were captured by the wrong people. About an hour or so later, Joe came back, and he said he had a truck big enough for everyone. We snuck the kids down a back ally, and Holy! Hell! Joe had the truck we had come in on. I asked what the heck did he do? Well he says I just walked back to where the driver let us off, But I couldn’t find him anywhere so I just brought the truck anyway, well;okay. I figured what the hell. A little crap will be worth it to get these kids out to where they might have family, We flipped open the tarp on the back of the truck and there was the driver passed out on the floor of the truck. Drunk! We loaded all those people in the back of the truck and away we went, it took us some time, If I recall it was about 6-8 hours before we came across a guy standing on the side of the road selling wine, He had a sign up that said Italian Champagne. (They use to take just horrible red wine and they put god knows what in it to make it fizz and they sold it to the troops has Italian Champagne). The girl we met in the street, started waving her hands and banging on the truck. One of the kids recognized this guy standing on the road; it was an Uncle or something. Anyway, we got all those kids safely into the country on our side of the fighting, And I think all went well, except maybe the driver might have wondered how he got to where he was when he woke up, because we left him with the truck about fifty miles from where we took it.
The people in the country gave us a whole slew of stuff for bringing the kids to them, one thing I’m holding in my hand has we write this, A small black clam shaped case, and inside a small silver statue of Jesus on the cross with Rome written on it,
A treasure, for saving someone else’s treasures.
                                                 A.C.(parkie)


----------



## Hunter

parkie said:
			
		

> And I think all went well, except maybe the driver might have wondered how he got to where he was when he woke up, because we left him with the truck about fifty miles from where we took it.



That's some funny stuff Parkie!

Thanks for your kind words about my grandfather.  I regret not taking the the to get a permanent record of his stories before the curtain of dementia started creeping over him.  It may have been a futile effort anyhow.  I can count on one hand the number of times I heard him speak directly about his war experiences.   Mst of what I know is from reading his letters to my grandmother, which he wrote many, and the immaculate mission logs he kept, an research I've done on his career.

One letter in particularly stays with me.  Dated May 9, 1945, he wrote about a big day of conflicting emotions.  The day before had been his 25th birthday, and it was also VE-Day.  Lieutenant Hunter the big day by riding a motorcycle through the mess hall, and then his flight crew 'pantsed' him - they took his pants off him and ran them up the flagpole. He got a mild rebuke rom his CO.. 'Lieutenant I realize you've got a lot to celebrate today, but you are and officer and all that sort of thing, think of your example to the men.'  My grandfather elnisted as an ordinary seaman at the outbreak of the war and got a commision from the ranks - he absolutely HATED the snobbery of the officers at the time.


----------



## Jacktheknife

The story will go on. We’ll either write seperatly, or sometimes in the same letter, since we hang together pretty tight, anyways. And since for right now, we all use the same computer. For reference for those of you reading.parkie is pappy, buster is preacher. Jack is cuts. Those are the names we grew up with and called each other, always will.
Jack Here.
Three soldiers, first, three boys’s growing up in the same small town in Manitoba. We were raised in the bush, all of us; we came from dirt-poor families that for the most part barely had enough to eat. Many around that time did not. 
 We three grew up not five miles apart, easy walking distance in those days, well! Walking distance. It wasn’t like you could catch a bus down to parkie’s or busters. We all had big families. Parkie’s had about 13 or 14 people. Mine I had five brothers and three sisters.Buster.well I think Busters family found him on the doorstep or something like that. Probably ate too much where he was. Growing up he was always telling us right from wrong, that’s why we called him preacher. I was always playing with knives when I was young, use to try and make them out of old scythe blades; So I got the handle, Jack the knife, pappy called me cuts, because my hands were usually covered with them. We called parkie  Pappy, He was two years older, and though he never admits it, he was a tough has nails pot licker when he was young. He would haul Buster and I, up into the hills for sometimes three or four days. Moose hunting, we started doing this when we were so young that it took three of us to shoot the old rifle we used. Two with the barrel on their shoulders, one sighting and firing. Shoot moose, deer elk.bear.Hang it, and go up on horses and pack it out.If you never ate bear,well,it tastes just like chicken,That’s if the chicken your eating tastes like the dump,something like that. Actually it was pretty good,just god awful greasy.another we use to really enjoy,was beaver tails,cut the tail off,throw it in the hot coals,until the skin blistered then peel it and fry it,or eat it just like that,absolutely delicious.pappy use to make a mean squrrel stew,and he still does,when he can get the squirrels,hope there’s no big squirrel lover’s out there,If there is sorry! But their even tastier than they look.

                                                               Jack


----------



## preacher

Buster wants to have a try at this.
Buster
hello.
I am not use to this yet, so I’ll just speak a bit until this gets easier for me, I think most everything Jack said, is pretty close to how life was for us growing up, there was always lots of hard work to keep the home fire burning, so to speak, my family, I had six brothers, And no. I wasn’t found on the doorstep, but they did call me preacher. I guess somebody had to keep these other two in line, not that they listened to me, But I do think the life we led growing up, made our life has soldiers, easier, if that’s the right word, it didn’t hurt anyway. It was amazing, when we were signing up, just how many boy’s there were from the country that had made the trek into the city to enlist, from places we never even heard of, something I remember about being in the city, when you went to a social gathering of any kind, there sure use to be lots of fights. All it took was two or three guys after the same girl, and the scrap was on. Never anything to serious, mostly just the usual bloody noses and black eyes, boy! That was lots of fun. You know .I see something that parkie and Jack didn’t mention, when we were about 10 or 11 years old. Pappy found an old bike, It had no seat on it, and not much of a bike at all, But to us it was really something, One day pappy was riding it and the old pedals broke off, and that steel seat post went about a foot up into his guts. Tore him up like hell. We took him to a midwife’s house and she tucked his guts back in and sewed him up. He went all through the war with his insides hanging down into his scrotum.Boy.that must have been painful.but, I don’t know, maybe this helps tell you the type of guy parkie was.
                                                                      Buster


----------



## parkie

Something new. Us old guy’s sit and talk with ourselves quite a bit, So we want to include you in the coversation, we’ll give it a try. Maybe you’ll enjoy it.

*Parkie*-I see the boy’s talking about mortar attacks, man, I use to hate those dam things, specially when they brought out that bloody thing that shot off about a dozen at once,

*Jack*-oh, ya, you mean moaning Minnie, that’s what the boy’s use to call it. I think they held ten rounds, I’ve seen where the Germans had about thirty of them going off at night,

*Parkie*-Jesus, hard to imagine getting hit with about 2-300 mortars at once.

*Jack*-ya, they could blow the hell out of a lot of guy’s in a hurry. They liked those long-range pot lickers too. They were the worst, at least the moaners you could hear them coming down,

*Buster*-ya, they sure shot the hell out of us in Holland with the mortar crews, just blew guy’s right to rat shyte, up on that dam canal we went across you could walk on a dam carpet of bodies.

*Jack*-ya.they had you guy’s marked good for that one.
*
Buster*-Can’t remember but man we lost a hell of a pile that first couple of days
*
Jack*-Ya-I know buster, us too, in the first few minutes for us,

*Parkie*-no bloody kidding, every time I think of that bloody liri, I think Jesus the whole dam regiment gone in a few minutes. At least somebody got a medal out of it I guess. Better than what most got.

*Jack*-Ya I suppose beats the hell out of pine box, hell pine, I guess more like a dam garbage bag. Some way to get sent out.
*
Buster*-I always thought those bloody rail guns were a kicker on the guy’s
*
Parkie*-holy, jesus, you wouldn’t believe what those dam things will do to a group of guy’s in short order,

*Jack*-So that one they used on you, that was that dam Anzio annie the boys use to talk about after the war,
*
Parkie*-no.I don’t think so.maybe.I think it was further south from the one that hit us a few times. That one they had in the hills by us was about a 240mm I think that Annie was a little bigger maybe not, we got one used on us one night down in the southern part of Italy, maybe that was her, whatever it was it shot a dam small car across at us.

Sure had a wicked effect on guy’s nerves, up near Ortona they hit us with that bloody thing every night for a couple of days, jesus, the younger guy’s that were fresh in, use too cry themselves to sleep at night poor buggers.then have jerry snuff your lights out with a bloody full scale long range mortar attack,oh ya,nothing like getting clobbered by about 500 mortars in about an hour to make you closer to god.
*
Jack*-I still think about that story you wrote about percy,I think his wife would have liked that,at least to know what really happened to him.I guess,
*
Parkie*-I couldn’t tell her that stuff Jesus jack that would bother the hell right out of her, maybe not now, but man, back then with a new born baby, jesus. I still have problems with that one, man, to end up standing in him like that, turned that poor kid into mush, he was a nice kid too.real chipper,
*
Jack*-so you never told her anything about how he died.

*Parkie*-No, well, his sister came to see me about 5 years after the war, I just told her, she would have been proud of him, he died standing up, like a man, and he did too, so it was no lie, helped her out a bit I guess.
*
Jack*-I remember that kid you use to hang around with when his dad use to come to the fire station,
*
Parkie*-ya.Elmo.he died on the windflower just off the shore of Newfoundland in there somewhere, got hit by a supply ship or something, I think they lost the whole dam works on that ship.

continue-


----------



## parkie

*Jack*-ya, I remember his mother moved away right after she got word that he died

*Parkie*-say Jack before you went out west did you ever meet the sister of the Anglican minister here

*Jack*-no

*Parkie*-She was a church worker, in china when the Japanese invaded. Real nice girl, real quiet.

*Jack*-no. I never did meet her, real quiet was she?

*Parkie*-well, ya she was, but not by choice, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.

*Jack*-Why, what did she do?

*Parkie*-well.it isn’t so much what she did, but, it’s what the Japanese did to her, they cut her dam tongue off,

*Jack*-What!!

*Parkie*-Ya-The bas*ards cut her tongue off about half way down, poor kid; all she was doing was working for the 

ministries.

*Jack*- Jesus .man they were cruel bas*ards.well didn’t her brother serve overseas,

*Parkie*- ya, he was a sniper in one of the outfits that landed in Holland a bit before buster did

*Buster*-oh.ya that’s right I can’t remember what that outfit was,

*Parkie*-well, anyway’s that’s what they did to his sister, bloody heathens anyway.

*Jack*-may has well forget about that parkie,

*Jack*-That guy you were attached to in England that your wife said years ago did us all a favor, that time,

*Parkie*-Military Intelligence.Ya, I worked with him, well sort of worked with him for about three years, he was quite the guy, could sure get you what you wanted to know, sure did us some good in Italy. He got me mixed up with those two guys’ that worked for Volkes, man. That was one guy I couldn’t take much of.

*Jack*-That guy you knew in England

*Parkie*-No, Volkes.

*Jack*-ya.how do you think I felt when they changed the sentence of Meyer, after what he did.

*Parkie*-oh.ya.well they went around and said you guy’s shot them. After they surrendered.

*Jack*-man. I’ll tell you pappy after what they did at the abbey, that was a bloody shame what they did to those young guy’s, and those young guy's from town here, bas*ards just took them and shot them.

*Parkie*-well look at it this way jack at least it wasn’t a four foot fall on a three foot rope for that son of a bi*ch, he got to sit and watch the world go by,

*Jack*-never mind I seen a guy on here say that your outfit did some bad things around Ortona.

*Parkie*-What!

*Jack*-ya, I guess, he was at some library in Germany and there was suppose to be some real bad stuff you guys did or something,

*Parkie*-well, that would be the place to go to read about fair deals that the Canadians gave, eh.

*Jack*-ya, that’s kind of what I thought,

*Parkie*-ya, I can just imagine what they would have to say, bunch of crap. Still can’t get over that picture they showed around years ago about that young SS soldier that the sherbrookes roughed up a bit.

*Jack-*ya, can you bloody imagine, Look what the Canadians did to our fine young soldier after he surrendered,Dam thing should have read, murderer gets slapped around a bit after murdering unarmed men. What a bunch of a A#1 Ass*oles, throw people in an oven and burn them up like garbage, and complain when some boy’s show up to put a stop to your bullshyte.

*Jack-*I remember watching this clown from the panzer division that was in France on television, saying, no! Malmedy didn’t happen. It simply did not happen.

*Parkie-*ya, I seen him to on one of the history channels, some nerve eh, Jack.

*Jack*-Christ. I remember watching that, and thinking to myself. Man I wish I was there with just one good round of hardball ammo for that ass*ole.

Continue tomorrow.


----------



## Roy Harding

Parkie:

I'm glad you and your friends are still here, Sir.

Please keep the stories coming - half the time I can't cry for laughing, and the other half of the time I can't laugh for crying - you are a living testament to everything that is good and true about soldiers and soldiering - past and present.

Please keep the memories coming - we need them.

Respectfully,


Roy Harding


----------



## parkie

*Jack*-pappy tells us about Eril, You never spoke much of him. But I see you wrote a little about him in your story, how did you meet him and what happened in Poland,

*Parkie*-geez jack that’s a long story, I met him in about 41,it was just around the time of the killings at a town called Lwow in Poland, eril had been a member of the polish scouts before the war, In English they were the grey rank, he had been studying in Scotland for something to do with literature, I met him through him being in contact with military intelligence and the home guard scouts in Poland, when the war broke out in 39 it really got to him, I think he knew exactly what was going on over there, how I’m not really sure, perhaps I knew once or was told but I’ve forgotten now, he came from a section of Poland that was not far from Warsaw,

*Jack*-So what did he work for the army in Scotland or something

*Parkie*-No, he was a scout. Like a boy scout. He was trained has part of home guard army, I don’t know what kind of training they got, but he had quite a network of friends in Poland. Or at least he did before the war broke out. I think a lot of them were killed by the nazi’s, or sent to the camps.

*Jack*-so when the nazi’s caught him they knew he was with the resistance, or what the hell happened that he got caught over there.

*parkie*-I think somebody recognized him or something, I’m not sure, I know his sister was executed by the nazi’s for something to do with the Warsaw uprising, I think she was part of the grey ranks too, like a girl scout.

*Jack*-so that Lwow was some sort of thing that the Nazis did, or what happened there

*Parkie-*well, the SS took everybody with an education out and shot them, you think that’s bad, near a town called khatyn the Ukrainian’s under the Russians nailed little kids to the trees and wrapped them in barbwire. I’m not sure how many died there, I think around fifty thousand

*Jack*-You know how the hell, do you know who your friends are in those places. Christ, life doesn’t mean anything to some.

*Parkie*-ya that’s right Jack, it means nothing to some and everything to others. Like Eril told me once, The only way you survive, is you have to turn into an animal just like the one’s running the show, if your weak they use it against you, So,you tell us what we want to know or we’ll kill all these people. Eril said you just have to come to terms with it, and say go ahead, your going to kill us anyway.

*Jack*-that’s some bloody way to have to live. Dog eat dog.

*Parkie*-well the worst is he didn’t know who to trust to help him find his family. You know before the war broke out there was Gestapo in Poland, different forms of it, a big portion of the Germans who lived in Poland belonged to these different organizations, and they almost all had something to do with the Gestapo. I still have all these papers of Erils that he left with me years ago. He had a whole list of places that were under investigation for war crimes, He gave me these papers that he carried all those years, here’s some of them here that he wrote down. Palmiry, wawer, khatyn, Lwow, Vilnius, Odessa, Kaunas, Simferopol, Babi -Yar, Bialystok. I don’t know how many were suppose to be the work of the nazi’s but a lot of them even if they weren’t done by them, it was under their supervision or using their weapons and such, quite the killing operation, mass slaughter, mass produced.

*Jack*-So, where did they have him when the Gestapo got hold of him,

*Parkie*-I’m not sure anymore, I use to know, but I’ve forgotten over the years, one place they had him for awhile was a place by the name of chelmno.i think from there they took him out somewhere into the eastern provinces there, like Latvia or something like that, he told me that one place was near or in Russia, where they buried a whole hospital full of children that had tuberculosis. Something like that, anyway it was like a sanatorium for sick kids and the nazi’s did away with the whole works, and to save lead they had the slave labour they picked up, do the digging and the burying of the kids, Alive.

*Jack*-christ.pappy.why the hell would god put such vile people on the earth,

*Parkie*-I don’t know jack, I really don’t. I look at it this way; god put that scum on the earth so I would have somebody to shoot.

*Jack*- (laughing). Ya, I guess, never thought of it that way, now that I do though, it was pretty decent of him in that respect, if nothing else they made good landfill. Like you said,

*Parkie*-ya, I guess hey Jack, You have to use gravel to build roads, so if you have to fill the holes back in, why not use nazi’s.

*Jack*-Jesus that’s funny parkie, Christ I like a good laugh.

*Parkie*-better laugh jack, if you thought about all the crap those buggers did to innocent people you’d cry for the rest of your life.

*Jack*-well. I cried enough at the end of the war has it was

*  Parkie*-ya me too, me too.

*Jack*-so, how did eril get away from them to make it out?

*Parkie*-they moved him back to that chelmno, because I guess something blew up there or something, and when they were done the repairs the nazi’s were moving them some other place and he managed to slip away, just pure luck. I guess, I think it took him over a year to get back

*Jack*-so he made it back to England, or he went somewhere first or how did that work.

*Parkie*-no.he ended up somewhere in northern Scotland and made his way south from there, I was already in Italy when he made it back. But I guess he told all he knew about what went on where he was, they told him that his information helped hang a few of those sadistic pr*cks anyway, whether it did or not who knows, poor bugger suffered enough it’s nice to think it did anyway.

*Jack*-well, still it’s nice that the poor bugger found some family, must be tough when somebody, just decides to wipe out everyone you know.

*Parkie*-aw, hell Jack you know, I use to look at that poor guy, only one eye, and could never have children or a family because of what they did to him, At least in the forty’s sometime a doctor in Glasgow. Fixed his tongue up for him, enough of this Jack, let’s talk about something else, let the poor bugger rest,

*Jack*-ya I guess pappy, Rest in peace Eril

*Parkie-*Yup, rest in peace
Continue-


----------



## parkie

* Jack*-so, I see mrs.gray just a waving at you, what’s up there

*Buster*-ya, pappy’s got a girlfriend.

*Parkie*-no, nothing like that, she had come over from England to get away from the invasion, if the German’s took England, you know when I got back from the war that women came to where we were living and fell to her knees in front of me, sobbing and thanking me for saving England from the nazi’s, it was the most humbling experience I’ve ever had.

*Jack*. -It’s funny, when you meet people who were civilian’s in Britain during the war, some are so happy that somebody went to help them out, it just makes me feel so dam good about myself.
*
Buster*-when we went over to Holland a few years ago, boy! You want to see people who appreciate what we did for them. Jesus that makes my old heart proud to have helped them out. I couldn’t believe, even after all these years, they still treat us like we’re heroes or something.

*Parkie*-well.you are buster. What’s wrong with being somebody’s hero?

*Buster*-ya, Iguess, it’s just kind of embarrassing, man! All those people giving you flowers and that, cheering for you and running up to you.
*
Parkie*-well, it’s nice that they teach their children what they suffered through under the nazi’s, and they should remember that, lots of them lost family in the camps,

*Buster*-Something I found kind of sad. You know you hear so much about the camps behind the lines in Germany and Poland and those places, but some never even knew there were camps in Holland, 

*Parkie*-it’s not the fault of anyone though buster, There’s just so much of that stuff that any sane person can handle,

*Jack*-hell, with all that happened in that war, and what it cost to stop it, man! I see these people standing in little groups on TV, waving their dam signs and spouting off at the lips about our boy’s being in Afghanistan, what a bunch of bloody idiot’s,

*Parkie*-well, I guess it’s nice not to feel that anybody else should have the freedom of speech and religion, while your exercising yours.

*Jack*-Kind of like old man,*******, who told us Canada would have been better off if the Russians took over

*Buster*-can you imagine, What the hell is that about, Guess he doesn’t realise that if they would have taken over, his type would have been the first one’s gone.
*
Jack*-ya, no doubt. He was the perfect age for going to war, but we never saw him over there

*Parkie*-he told me once that he couldn’t go to war because of his kids

*Jack*-well geez.if everyone who had kids would have stayed home we would have been a lot smaller bunch

*Parkie*-sure,only he never had kids until the early sixty’s.his son’s are 46 and 51 years old.

*Jack*-what,their that young

*Parkie-*ya I guess he figures everybody’s as bad at math has he is.

*Jack*-well,he must think everybody’s stupid to go around and say you didn’t go to war because of your kids when you didn’t even have any yet.

*Parkie*-well I guess he must have meant the thought of having kids kept him home from the war.

*Jack*-HA! Ha! That’s a good one, well wasn’t he one of the one’s giving us a hard time about talking about joining the army years ago.

*Buster*-sure he was. I remember him telling everybody that there was a better way then going to war, didn’t you have a go with him years ago pappy?

*Parkie*-ya, him and I had a good one after a dance one night. Because all the girls knew we were going to join up and they knew he was a coward.

*Jack*-what was it that his sister told us about him

*Parkie*-that he lived the last three years of the war in her old chicken coop in case somebody came looking for him. Well I got a surprise for you guys. We have to go take the dog’s out to the community pasture, their having problems with wolves and coyotes after their sheep out there. Won’t take but a couple of hours

*Jack*-so what are we going to do with the dogs?

*Parkie*-you’ll see.





We all just returned from coyote hunting with my six Great Pyrenees hunting dogs 

*Parkie*-so, what did you think of that you guy’s

*Buster*-holy shyte, those dogs are something, when we ran into those two coyotes out by the community pasture, man! That is something to see, those dog’s are sure made for hunting coyotes.

*Parkie-*well, their suppose to be herd dog’s. Their made for guarding flocks and herds, so coyotes and wolfs are just fair game to them, With the problems people have around here with the coyotes, We get quite a few, calling and wanting us to take the dog’s out to clean things up for them.

*Jack*-what size of gun do you guy’s use there.

*Parkie*-338 Winchester magnum

*Jack*-boy.it sure shoots nice for that distance

*Parkie*-ya.I don’t shoot it though,to much kick for me

*Jack*-jesus those dog’s can sure work a hunt.

*Parkie*-ya, my son raised them from pups.he got them in the states when he was working there and raised them on his acreage, they’re sure bred and trained for hunting.

*Jack*- so how big is that lead male that heads the bunch

*Parkie*-he weighed in at the vet at 195lbs,when we had them there last. But they all sit around 150-200 lbs,

*Parkie*-what were we talking about before anyway’s

*Jack*-Ah.hell with that pappy,Iwant you to tell me about the liri.,you tell me about that,what it was like and I’ll tell you what it was like when we hit the beach,maybe it will help me  talk easier.

*Parkie*-okay.lets continue this tomorrow

*Jack*-promise?

*Parkie*-ya I’ll talk about it tomorrow.If you do.

*Jack*-Ya,I promise
Continue-


----------



## parkie

*Jack-*well pappy, here we are,where do you want to start

*Parkie*-I guess, in the morning of the attack.

Jack-That artillery barrage they let off, must have been something

*Parkie*-jesus  jack .it was like nothing you can imagine,being close like that with all those guns going off,I thought for sure that nothing could survive that,But.They were well dug in. with pillboxes and those dam machine gun nests they had hid away,

*Jack*- can you remember if the boy’s mentioned the offensive in france,did anybody know anything if it was going to happen?

*Parkie*-No.we knew nothing of that,at least the guy’s on the line didn’t.we thought we were the big offensive, has far as we were concerned we were going straight through to berlin,
*
Jack*-Sorry,continue pappy

*Parkie*-That was the most peaceful feeling I  have ever had in my life.That morning.For some unknown reason I knew I was going to Die.it must have been looking at that line of barbwire,and thinking back to the old guy’s from the first war talking about curtain fire at the wire,and how men were mowed down like grass. I don’t  know what it was,but,I was just totally at peace with myself,The only thing I thought about was that my wife, who I had only been married to a little while would have to be alone.
*
Jack*-what were the other guy’s saying

*Parkie*-well,hell,we all knew we were going to get it good,we talked about the fight we had at that ravine before ortona,And we knew that if it came down to it,we’d be sent in no matter how bad it looked.Lots of us who had been together for the whole time in italy .we said our goodbyes to each other and exchanged words to pass on to each others families if we fell.

*Jack*-you guy’s must have been short  handed then or were you at a decent strength

*
Parkie*-no.we were in bad shape all the time.I don’t know if there was ever a time when we were at our full strength.there was times when we were probably close to it,but one good mortar attack,and everybody that had been brought up that day would be gone.

*Jack*-So,lots of  men were brought up from the pool.

*Parkie*-oh ya,sometimes twenty would be brought up,and by morning hey would be all gone,some you didn’t even have the time to say hello.that’s what bothers me a lot today,that those guy’s deserved more than that, somebody should be able to say,ya,I knew that guy.but I didn’t.All they were was fresh mounds in the morning when they were buried.

*Jack*-the line. Pappy! Tell me about the attack.

*Parkie*-sorry about that.kind of slipped away there for a second

*Jack*-you want to stop

*Parkie*-No.Just give me a second here.

*Jack*-Okay now?

*Parkie*-ya better now.

*Parkie*-Where was I. Ya In the morning before the attack I remember seeing a formation of planes coming in,And I think everybody there thought maybe they would bomb them to hell,I know I did,But,hell what they dropped didn’t amount to nothing.or at least it didn’t seem to anyway.You  would think that with 700 or so artilley guns going there wouldn’t be anything moving after they were done

*Jack*-  so, the germans had artillery on the ridge  with the mortars.

*Parkie*-ya  they had a lot of artillery going when we left that line.lots of mortars too,I think the dam mortars raised more hell than the artillery did,boy,when we got up into that grove of trees,jesus it was raining stuff down on us.

*Jack-*laughing-So it was raining cats and lead then

*Parkie*-ya,I guess,ha ha,I needed that little laugh.

*Jack-*You remember when you fell on that bloody seat post on that old bike.

*Parkie*-sure.of course I do.Why?

*Jack-*just trying to change the subject for a while.remember buster runnin around screaming .pappys going to die. pappys going to die

*Buster-*Aw,shyte jack I was not.

*Jack*-sure you were buster you were scared shytless that parkie was going to die.

*Buster*-well weren’t you

*Jack*-well,I have to admit.you don’t see somebody do that everyday.

*Parkie*-jesus we were way out by the old river bridge then too,

*Jack-*ya,close to four miles buster and I pushed you on that bike,with that dam thing stuck up inside you.

*Parkie*-man.that makes me hurt down there just thinking about that.

*Buster*-I still can’t get over that midwife that sewed you up,Christ they had that bloody pig on the table beside you sewin it up too.

*Jack*-ya,that’s right,they had that pig that got stepped on by  some cow,and it’s insides needed to be sewed in,

*Parkie*-jesus,how do you guy’s remember this crap

*Buster-*well it isn’t everyday a guy turns himself into a Popsicle like that.

*Jack*-laughing, oh Christ, I cant quit laughing,

*Parkie*-thanks for that one buster,you pair and your dam jokes

*Jack*-well,you have to admit,it was pretty funny.

*Parkie*-laughing,ya I guess it was at that.

*Buster*-remember when we told your old man about the pig,he said we would have to watch you didn’t start turning the ground with your nose in case she got things mixed up

(Now all three are laughing like mad).

*Jack-* you know I never thought they would have let you in the army with that bulge you had hangin into your sac like that.

*Parkie*-believe it or not,they didn’t even know I had it,until in Italy,when I got wounded there,That old doc they had working on me.saw that rope I had going from my neck down between my legs holdin my guts in,and he thought I was nuts or something.

*Jack-*well,you were,who the hell would go around the country in a war, with a dam string holdin’ their insides up.

*Buster*-That must have made him wonder.

*Parkie*-well,I got a shrapnel wound once before that down in southern Italy,and the old  doc we had runnin things down there,found it to.but he was so drunk,all he said was, ‘my boy I can have that fixed in a jiffy’

*Jack*-well,why didn’t you

*Parkie-*ya,Christ,would you want some guy with a bottle in one hand and a knife in the other cutting you up. Cut my dam head off or something.

(Now they’re all laughing again)

*parkie*-okay,now where was I.ya,that dam grove of trees we had to get up through,you know jack,by the time they got out of the woods,there was hardly anybody left of the regiment,we were cut right to hell.

*Jack*- I think they say that about two made it to the line

*Parkie-*wouldn’t doubt it. There was bodies everywhere from the boy’s.we went from 2-300 men to nothing in minutes.

*Jack*-D-day dodgers,eh pappy

*Parkie*-ya,the D-day dodgers.

*Jack*-well,that’s enough for me pappy.let’s do mine a little later tonight

*Parkie*-sure  Jack

Continue


----------



## Rackemup

Lads,

I can’t tell you how much I read this thread with rapt attention. My wife was saying, “What are you reading?” 
“Nothing you would be interested in.”
“Stop wasting your time!”
“It’s not wasting my time, its learning!”

Geez!

I’m not a CF member, nor a Vet. I grew up with a deep interest stemming from my Father and “Canadians at War”. Yep, that encyclopedia set my Dad had bought many years ago. I read every volume, I think over 24 of them. Lot’s of other books as well. Why? I don’t exactly know, maybe it was because in the early part of the war, when a great debate was going on about Quebec’s involvement or non  involvement, was a dividing issue at that time. I have a photo that came from the Ottawa Citizen, it has 5 of my uncles and my Dad and it came from a front page story. These six Quebecers joined at a time when many in the rest of Canada questioned, Quebecer’s will to fight. Two joined the Army, two the airforce and two the navy.

One of my Uncles’s, Clement Bowie, was in the Artillery, he was in for the duration, and served in North Africa and Italy. My Dad was in the Navy, based in Halifax, on Coastal duty. He was young and could only join in 41. The rest were in from the beginning. Uncle Cletus was in the Airforce based in Burma for a good part of the war. Uncle Griffin was a Navigator on bombers, based in England. Uncle Ray, a Seaman, on a Corvette, running with the convoys for most of the War. Uncle Charlie, based in Ottawa, operations. Six of the eight boys joined, the other two were too young. The second youngest joined in 46 and left around 48.

 I guess that’s why I’m so interested. They didn’t talk much about their experiences but a few stories came out

Uncle Cletus was a “Card”, I remember as a young lad around 6 or so in 1968, he was shuttling me from one of my relative’s houses to another, in Ottawa. It was one of the get togethers that my Dad/Uncles had all through my childhood. Uncle Cletus and I, driving along in that huge car. My little frame in the passenger seat, he a huge man, well over 6 feet and heavy, along side. . He reaches under his seat and pulls out a bayonet, saying something like; “look at this Tommy Boy” you see this, pointing at some stains on the blade. “This is the blood of a Jap!” 

I later learned that was probably not true, as Uncle Cletus was a bit of a Card! Most likely it was rust on the blade. Haha. 

Anyway, Parkie, Jack and Buster. Thank you very much for allowing us into your private thoughts and memories.

Tom Bowie
Edmonton


----------



## parkie

Old vet here.
we are just taking a small break from the story,Jack is feeling a bit glum, of late. His ghosts are coming back.So,we'll give him a few day's to  settle and we'll continue.
 Thank you for the messages and all your support,it sure helps.
                                                 parkie


----------



## NadineR

hey, 

Hope jack is going to be ok...just tell him 
to drink a glass of water each day and he will be fine!
you too parkie if your feeling like jack. 

Nadine


----------



## NadineR

if i have offended anyone im sorry. 
Just meant have a glass of water cause thats how 
i make myself better. 
sorry :-[ 

nadine


----------



## parkie

nadine
No.you did nothing wrong,Jack is just feeling down a bit ,from the war.he will be fine in a few days.such is the price that us old guy's pay for you to enjoy your youth,Talking to you makes jack very happy. he'll write again when he feels better,
                                                                          parkie


----------



## Franko

Hope Jack feels better soon.

Regards


----------



## Jacktheknife

Jack here.thanks all for your support of me.I had some trying times of recent.We will write again.I have spent a few days writing a entry for parkie,this being an important day in his life, 

Trial by Fire.

For parkie
May 23 1944
  Having successfully broken the Gustav line. Allied troops now  must breach the Hitler line, The final obstacle lying between the Allies and the Rome.May 23 1944 is the day it will be assaulted. Canadian troops have been given the toughest part to crack; a barricade of steel, concrete and barbed wire 20 feet thick. The roar of 800 Allied guns lasted more than an hour. The Adolf Hitler line was a German fallback position a few kilometres north of the Gustav line. Its strong points were at Aquino and Piedimonte. If attackers got through the minefields and barbed wire, they faced fortified pillbox machine gun emplacements and crossfire from tanks, artillery and mortars. Soldiers from the Canadian First Infantry Division successfully attacked the line on this date, supported by a tremendous artillery barrage. Tanks from the Canadian Fifth Armoured Division then poured through to attack the waiting German Panther tanks.At a cost of 879 casualties.The line fell.
God bless you old man ,you’ve always been there for us.
         Your brothers in arms and in life
                        Jack and Buster


----------



## NadineR

Hey 

that story sounds familar ...well names I mean 
I am going to see if my grandmother knows anything 
and i have the proof for my grandfathers file so 
I will mail it soon as I can. 

Nadine


----------



## parkie

parkie here.
 God! 
The fight of my life.
 I thank you for remembering Jack and buster.
To all the souls left there,who didn't come home, 
I salute you my friends.
  A.C.(parkie)
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
1st Canadian Infantry Division
2nd Infantry Brigade


----------



## Jamie.Young

Parkie and Company,
 I just wanted to let you know how I enjoyed your stories. The things you men have gone through and braved through are astonishing. I would just like to say thanks for fighting for our freedom, I hope to get  chance to fight for it aswell, as I have enlisted, and stories like these are great inspiration. (wish I could say more but I'm at work 

 Your heros to us all! 

 Jamie


----------



## parkie

Hello all.
I just wanted to pass a note along that we haven’t left you.we are just going through a bit of a rough spell,We tried to get a start with telling a bit about what Jack went through in the fields at Normandy,But,it’s been hard for him.Don’t worry though we’ll tell you some more of our stories,we’re just having a bit of a rough spell,we’ll be back
                                                                Parkie,Buster and Jack


----------



## Franko

Take your time gents....we'll still be here waiting     

Regards


----------



## parkie

hello everyone,This is Jack,  I know parkie has been letting on that there is nothing wrong,But.
We have just got back from the hospital ,And we wanted to be sure before we said anything,but,parkie had a stroke,a small one,His thinking is fairly clear and he can talk but he is a bit confused,He is doing really well,but he will be in for awhile so they can keep an eye on him,I know you will all be thinking of him,And he asked me to pass this on to all of you this afternoon.
                                                                                                                                            Jack


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Tell him to get well soon and not to worry. Hell, I'm confused most of the time and I don't even have an excuse. You guys just do what you have to do and don't worry about us. We'll still be here when you get back.


----------



## military granny

Jack And Buster

You guys take care and ask N About the promise I made to Parkie.


----------



## Jacktheknife

Hi everyone
An update for all of you,parkie is doing great.he has the use of his hands back,he can stand ,but he can’t walk yet,His son bought him a brand new motorized scooter,so he’s all over the hospital grounds,(until they locked it up till he goes home).
 Late Friday night they brought in a fellow and put him in the bed next to parkie,And would you believe it,the two of them served in Italy together and never knew each other until Friday.The staff had to move them to a section of the hospital where they are away from everybody else,because the war stories were getting to loud and they won’t go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.I have never seen him this happy in years,he has found somebody that was everywhere he was, just a couple of days behind.All for now
                                                                 Jack


----------



## therev

Parkie, 

Thank you for " your letters home" - a historical perspective.  I was enrolled 01 June as a padre and your words about mastering fear hit home.  I am sure over the next 6 years I will have opportunity to reflect on their meaning.  

As a minister I am always looking for life stories that I can use for sermons, etc.  &  I would like to ask your permission to use some of your letters.  Get well soon.

The Rev


----------



## Centurian1985

cuts said:
			
		

> parkie is doing great.he has the use of his hands back,he can stand ,but he can’t walk yet,His son bought him a brand new motorized scooter,so he’s all over the hospital grounds,(until they locked it up till he goes home).



Glad to hear it, and nice to hear he has found an old comrade.


----------



## parkie

Hello Everyone
my name is nick.parkie is my father.This is one of the hardest letters I have ever had to write.I am the Author of this story of my father.I have tried to relate to you the story,has it came from the mouth of the man,And I tried to relate to you his anguish and pain,The same pain felt by many during this war,When he started this story,he did it, so that some may be able to find what it was that this country lost.That it could defeat it's enemies of the past. and yet become so divided when we are needed again to help our fellow man.Being A soldier was first and foremost his whole life, he once told me that it's a sad thing that everything good that comes into your life is overshadowed by the memories of this dam war and that nothing in life could ever compare to what they did has young men.
Parkie has had a number of strokes starting yesterday morning. And there is nothing there to remind me of who he was.I have tried to hold this small group of old friends together,but it was too much for Buster,he couldn't take it and had to leave to live with his family.Jack is trying to hold it together,God bless him! But I can imagine it's killing him,watching parkie disappear before his very eyes.
I managed to get a few words out of him on Monday night,i asked him what he wanted me to do about his story.
he told me'Tell them to carry on''
                                           For-A.C.(parkie)
                           Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
                                1st Canadian Infantry division
                                      2ND Infantry Brigade


----------



## Kat Stevens

I have no words, this saddens me deeply.  Small comfort, I know, but I too know what it's like to watch someone deteriorate rapidly, in front of your eyes.  Be well, best to Parkie....


----------



## military granny

Nick to you and your family and your Dads small band of brothers, my thoughts and prayers. To your Dad, Parkie, Sir I   you.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

His posts have been a true gem here. Please keep us up to date with his condition, and our thoughts are with him.


----------



## Kirkhill

Nick, you and your family should take whatever small comfort you can in knowing that your father is a great man.  His tales have served his country at least as well as did his years in uniform and his wounds.

God keep him, you and his friends.

Chris.


----------



## parkie

Hello Everyone
I thank you for your thoughts of parkie(dad), I have A few pages that we were working on when this happened,I will try and make some order out of them and in the days to come I will post them.Some from Jack and some from Parkie.
 Jack left also,before I could finish some of his story. I don't blame him.The three of them spent most of their life together.
 Within the next day or two,I will get a photo of parkie and some others,that will put faces to the people in the story.
       I thank you all for giving them a home, I can only say,that for myself,to be able to sit in the company of a group such has this It,is something few have the privilege of being able to do.I wish more did.
                                                      For Parkie Jack and Buster
                                                               - Nick


----------



## parkie

A.C.(parkie)
                                                           1940


----------



## parkie

From Left Tom KIA-Liri Valley 1944,Joe KIA Liri Valley 1944,Parkie WIA Liri Valley 1944


----------



## Jacktheknife

Hello Everyone,
The brotherhood has grown smaller by one, Jack passed away on Thursday.
At 1:00 AM in the morning,
I have a last letter from Jack; He left it to be put on the boards, when he passed.

From Jack.
I have been feeling very poorly of late, and I know that my time has come to an end.
I go to be with the one true brother I had, Parkie.
I know that Buster will not be long to follow.
To all my friends, I say so long, if I missed saying goodbye to any of you, it wasn’t my intention.
 I have been fortunate in my life to have done things, that, I myself can’t believe I did.
And I did them not just because I had to, But also, because I wanted too.
 To parkie’s son, for bringing us three, together again and giving us a place to be the old soldiers that we are.
 For living the war all over again with us.The good and the bad, You made me feel young again.
 And for giving me his new Hummer to drive, I can go a happy man.
To the grand daughter of a brother in arms, I hope you find everything that your looking for and you live life to the fullest.
 Good-bye everyone, remember, Jack loves you.
                                                         Jack

When the last of this small brotherhood is gone, The ashes of all three will go with me on horseback, up to West Ridge where they use to go and hunt has Kids, And only I, alone, will be coming down, I think that is what they would have wanted.
                                                                                               Nick.


----------



## Centurian1985

Nick, 

We are all poorer for his passing.


----------



## Kirkhill




----------



## military granny

Nick

Thoughts and prayers to all that knew this great man.


----------



## Franko

Thoughts and prayers to his family.....

Please let them know what he did on this site and the positive impact it had on so many people.

I don't suppose you have a recent photo of them together to post?

Regards


----------



## C/10

Centurian1985 said:
			
		

> Nick,
> 
> We are all poorer for his passing.



And the expierences that they shared with us are priceless. 

Godspeed


----------



## JBP

I cannot fully express the saddness that has become of me reading these last posts after being away from here for so long. I read the stories of all these great great men and what they've done for us all, it made me proud and humbled at the same time. I will remember thier history as it was written here and use it to give me courage shall the time come that I am called upon to do my duty. 

Even in the end, these men rose up to the memories of thier younger years and challenged the demons of thier past to share all they could with us, more sacrifice for our benefit.

It does give me great joy to have been honoured with thier memories and I cannot thank them enough for sharing it with us. I will never forget, never forget the true heroes that walked amongst our ranks.

They are an inspiration to those that serve today and thier accomplishments serve as a source of fear for any would-be enemies.

May you all rest in eternal peace with you're fellow brothers in arms and thank you, for everything...


----------



## Jamie.Young

R031 Pte Joe said:
			
		

> I cannot fully express the saddness that has become of me reading these last posts after being away from here for so long. I read the stories of all these great great men and what they've done for us all, it made me proud and humbled at the same time. I will remember thier history as it was written here and use it to give me courage shall the time come that I am called upon to do my duty.
> 
> Even in the end, these men rose up to the memories of thier younger years and challenged the demons of thier past to share all they could with us, more sacrifice for our benefit.
> 
> It does give me great joy to have been honoured with thier memories and I cannot thank them enough for sharing it with us. I will never forget, never forget the true heroes that walked amongst our ranks.
> 
> They are an inspiration to those that serve today and thier accomplishments serve as a source of fear for any would-be enemies.
> 
> May you all rest in eternal peace with you're fellow brothers in arms and thank you, for everything...



 Amen to that, couldn't have said it better myself!!


----------



## GaelicSoldier

R031 Pte Joe said:
			
		

> I cannot fully express the saddness that has become of me reading these last posts after being away from here for so long. I read the stories of all these great great men and what they've done for us all, it made me proud and humbled at the same time. I will remember thier history as it was written here and use it to give me courage shall the time come that I am called upon to do my duty.
> 
> Even in the end, these men rose up to the memories of thier younger years and challenged the demons of thier past to share all they could with us, more sacrifice for our benefit.
> 
> It does give me great joy to have been honoured with thier memories and I cannot thank them enough for sharing it with us. I will never forget, never forget the true heroes that walked amongst our ranks.
> 
> They are an inspiration to those that serve today and thier accomplishments serve as a source of fear for any would-be enemies.
> 
> May you all rest in eternal peace with you're fellow brothers in arms and thank you, for everything...



HERE HERE


----------



## Jacqueline

Thank you for sharing your experience. This helps alot of people. Respect for real.


----------



## Cardstonkid

Loved this thread, thanks so much.


----------



## Alea

In my quest to know more about the history of the Canadian Army and its men and women I have searched this forum and found a thread dated 2006. 

I know that the thread is an old one. So is this story: Canadian soldiers fighting for freedom during Word War II. 

_"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!"_

But it moved me to a point... I could not imagine. Having grand-parents who went through WWII (Grand-mother implied in the French "Résistance" and Grand-Father in the navy) of course, I have heard stories but like a lot of us, I tend to forget.  

In reading Parki's story not only did I learn more about a Canadian point of view of that war but also about bravery, courage and strength... along with wisdom and patriotism.

I think of Parkie's story to be one of Army.ca's treasures but also Canada's history through the eyes of men who truly stood up for their country:

_"WE'RE NOT TOMMIES,WE'RE CANADIANS AND YOU'LL BE BLOODY LEAVING IN SHORT ORDER.who the hell do they think they are, go home!"_

I am hoping that many new members of this site will take the time to read it and make a point of honor in remembering and thinking about Parkie and his friends along with the thousands of others who went through these dangerous times. 

Through out this story, there is a hero. A kid who wanted to make a man of himself and lived through it all with one motto: Master your fear!

_"we would take some ground and lose some ground and at night when you were dug in the germans would bring out a large rail gun they had in the mountain's over looking us and the silence of the night would be broken with the low drone of the engine on the locomotive bringing that damn thing out and it sent shivers down your spine because you just knew hell was coming and where are you going to go.nowhere.master your fear!!master your fear!!out to the left some poor souls crying because he knows what's coming to!master your fear!!master your fear!!Whump the ground would vibrate when that bloody thing let loose and Incoming!! you hear someone shout.no damn kidding, you think to yourself, how could you miss that,it sounds like a freight train coming in has it passes over head and you thank god.Their shelling about a mile down the road,you just know that some other poor buggers getting it,your only glad that this time it wasn't you and now you have about a minute to think of home or somewhere, anywhere but this bloody foxhole with that thing going off over my head,and Whump!!Incoming!!!Master your fear!! Master your fear!!"_

Through out this story, there is this man who had to eat what ever it was even if this implied eating bugs.

_"We only eat at night ,the flour they have been using has been filled with Bug's about 2-3 inches long with long feelers you know ,like the spruce beatle we have here in Canada.great big bloody things,bad enough food is short,very short.we have to eat them anyway so we toast the bread over a small fire,no use trying to pick them out if you do there won't be anything left, you know.so you get probably five or six in every slice plus all the bit's and pieces from the one's that got broke up in the mix,so toast them at night and pretend their raisins ,you know."_

He would get sick for oranges because his stomach could not take "normal food" anymore

_"The oranges were  delicious,but we got the runs so bad could not eat any more"_

Having so many moments when he felt powerless in helping his brothers in arm...

_"man crawls to you in the night,crying for help with two feet of wood sticking out of him,what can you do,you know.how can you pull two feet of wood out of a man's innard's you know,some tried,All you do is pull the poor bugger's intrail's out,god,bloody god awful!"_

Through out this story, there is this man so proud of his country, so proud to be a soldier... he was a soldier in soul his entire life:

_"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."_

Parkie shared his war diary and memories with members of Army.ca. and I find this to be absolutely amazing. He just did not want any of us to forget.

_"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."_


Please meet Parkie, the young kid who made a man out of himself.







A.C.(parkie)
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
1st Canadian Infantry Division
2nd Infantry Brigade


http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/41265.0.html


Alea


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## Franko

I was reading that thread not more than a couple weeks ago.

Still miss the guy, even though I never met him.

Regards


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## kratz

He has set a standard that we want to meet today.

I have not met him and feel the lose of him.


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## Greymatters

I never got to meet him, but did exchange emails with him occasionally.  Great guy.  He wrote a book prior to his passing away, and if its anything like his posts I hope his family gets it published one day.


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## eileenrhoward

Dear Sir, I would give anything to have heard the memories my father had, he just could not deal with the memories of WW2, He was a BlackWatch Canloan officer, Leuit. 22 CDN Eric Barton Howard, He ended his career an RCR 1st Battalion, last tour of duty 1966,67 cyprus. He was also a Princess Pat, of which he held close to his heart, the only memory he kept was his wooden place with the Pat's insignia on it.  He was taken off the field of battle in WW2 after 36 days in battle, hysterically blinded, from seeing his comrades blown out of the trench with him, but they died, he only died inside.  He was entered into a physchiatic ward on 20 July 1944, he was sent to Guys Hospital  but first to 175 field ambulance on July 13th, then after Guy's hospital to BAsin. Neuro.The medic who wrote his notes when my father was taken from the field, wrote good notes as to the  fact he was a brave man who had had not rest in 36 days, as rest area being shelled constantly, then blindness likely brought on by the minds unwillingness to see his comrades being blown to bits.  the medic made sure no one would think 22 Lieut. Howard was a coward, the medic also put as the first line on my fathers report, that his father is a colonel in the Canadian Blackwatch, also doctors notes say Howard is very eager to return to his battalion, they could not allow it ,as he was jarred by every sound, bang or loud noise.  but he wanted to go back to fight.  I thought to myself how wonderful it was to make sure his Colonel father would not think his son was chickening out, trying to get back to canada.  It is also nice for his daughter to know how badly he wanted to get back to his comrades.  He never even told us he was in WW2 let alone anything about the war.  He did mention Korea the odd time, but we always wondered why he would watch a Bridge to far and say bad things about Montgomery, and how far off the movie was from what really happened, he talked as if he was actually there.  We just assumed he was dealing with stories his father told him. We only found out about his WW2 involvement, this year when I recieved his military file.He joined the blackwatch in 1941 at the ripe age of 17, they correct his age a year later when he can admit he lied to get in. When he was in WW2 he was with 21A grp canloan 5th battalion 51st highlanders, with all this info I cannot figure out from all the sites on this computor if he jumped in Arnhem or normandy.  I am proud he went to keep his country free, but I would like to know if possible where he was. it says on his papers he left U.K for NWE on June 3 1944. and on July 13th admitted to fieldambulance hospital discharged from Bas. Neuro. Aug 30th  to 3 infantry depot. he get struck off strength of canloan 25 oct 44.  I can't figure out what he did from Aug30th until oct 25 44 and he doesn't have any more entries till he gets to montreal in july of 1945.  was he still fighting, his doctor notes say they feel it unwise in July of 44 to put him back on the front lines and then nothing. I was hoping as you were a Pat  and in WW2, you might have Known my dad and might be able to tell me something about his WW2 involvement.  His medals and anything to do with his military career are gone, and I can't find anything out from my siblings, as they prefer to forget that they had a father.  I chose to find anything good out about him, as no matter what, he was a soldier and I am free thanks to him and the men he saw die beside him.  I want to have proud thoughts, He was very damaged and I can tell from all I read why and it helps me to know he did good things, even great ones, so if anyone can help me with his WW2 career I would be grateful. Eileen Howard Fralick


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## chrisf

Greymatters said:
			
		

> I never got to meet him, but did exchange emails with him occasionally.  Great guy.  He wrote a book prior to his passing away, and if its anything like his posts I hope his family gets it published one day.



Parkie wrote a book? I'd buy that.. also here's hoping it get's published.


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## eileenrhoward

in my last post, I hadn't realized Parkie was already gone, he is with my father now, and I send my deepest regrets to his family, I have not read all the posts as of yet, but I will continue to enjoy and appreciate the wealth of knowledge he left behind, as my dad was unable to talk at all about WW2.  I still want to know about my dad's service, but I may have to live with what is in the posts Parkie left us, and maybe his family could publish his memoirs. Eileen


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## Canadian.Trucker

I am sad to see that Parkie, Jack and others that contributed to this thread are now passed away.  The whole time I was reading I had goosebumps.  I am truly appreciative that the time was taken to provide us with these stories.  Even though it's now 3 years after the last post was made in this thread, hopefully new members will take the time to read and gain a better understanding of what these brave men and women went through.  Words cannot do justice to how grateful I am for their service and the lives they lead, but from the depths of my heart I thank all veterans and in particular Parkie and his family for writing these stories down and sharing them with us.

Thank you so much Parkie, Rest in Peace, job well done soldier.


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