a
ef WILL never forget the day we left the shores of England embarked on the greatest
: adventure of our lives, thrilled by the realization that this was ‘it,’ the day we had

rormandy looming ahead.

|It was during the early part
- July when the grim struggle
'z Caen was, approaching a
imax. Imagine my feelings to
ind myself in a convoy of
anadian-built Victory ships,
ae of which I may have helped
' build myself during the time
worked in the Burrard ship-
ads; but whether this was so
+ net it brought a warm glow
- think of the many friends
; home who had helped to
aild these ships and who
‘ould no doubt be doubly proud
f their achievement if they
suld see the use to which they
ere being put in those critical
yUrs.

Nor can I forget the sight
iat greeted us on the shore
> Normandy. The sun was set-
‘ng on a calm sea in which
fas asembled the most stupen-
us armada of all time, hun-
eds and hundreds of vessels
all types; not far from us
jhouetted against the skyline
as the giant Rodney whose
‘eat 16-inch guns rose up and
dehed out flame as they pour—
‘death into the doomed city.

FEW days later we were in
action. I will not deseribe
‘= broad outlines of the battle,
‘% simply a few personal ex-
syieneces and impressions. f
is with the 2nd Canadian Sur-
y Rest., RCA, in a sound
aging troop; our job to lo-
‘e enemy artillery. When we
«st heard we were moving up

depley,. news had already
me through of casualties in
me of our other troops who
ad gone into action shortly
fore us, and a certain tense-
iss gripped us all.

Once in action it did not take
1g to get used to the atmo-
here. Of course we were not
mbjected to small arms fire
eh as cur infantry had to
dergo but during daylight
> were often under intense
tillery fire, and at night the
iutwaffe could be depended

on to attack, bombing and
taffing; for at that time there
re no night fighter bases in

"i

Volume 1

f

14

Vays

- The only guarantee that our boys overseas will get every pos- P
sible assistance in helping to deliver the knock-out blow, lies in

the cooperation between all democratic forces in

By SID ZLOTNIK

vaited for, with the sea rapidly becoming a wall behind us and the

France, and we had to rely on
our anti-aircraft defences.
The countryside around Caen
Was scarred and devastated, as
can be imagined with such a
heavy concentration of men and
guns and tanks in such a small
area; here and there we could
see the stiff, bloated carcasses
of sheep, cows and horses and
sometimes the swollen, gro--
tesques corpes of the would-be
master-men; the sickly stench
of death peryaded everything.
Against this background of
ruins and rubble, where even a
eat was but a moving skeleton,

SID ZLOTNIK

the Canadian soldier dug the
slit trench that was his bed, his
fortress, and sometimes his
graye.

In those hot summer evenings
we had another enemy the
mosquito. At dusk these minia-
ture fighters would gather in
Swarms and attack; we had to
smoke out our trenches, hop in,
and pull some improvised net-
ting over the hole before we
could haye the slighest hope of
sleeping. That was _miserable
enough, but I cannot help won-
dering. what it is like for the
boys over there in those slit
trenches now that winter has

_ Around this area in downtown JLondon, England,

ozens of blocks have been completely wiped out by
1emly aircraft and rocket bombs.

~

‘thud of bullets

bloody battlefield of

set ‘in; a rather disconcerting
thought for one to have as he
climbs imto his clean warm bed
at night.

T troop headquarters our

first job on moving into a
new position was to dig in our
lorry. On one occasion we had
hardly began digging before we
were under heayy fire from 88-
millimetre guns, and had to
flatten ourselves out between
every couple of shovel fulls.
We got to know those shells
quite well; a long whistle meant
you had little to worry about,
for a short whistle your best
bet was to “hit the dirt”; and
then there was always the oc-
casional one so close that there
Was no warning sound, just the
explosion blast and wht, wht
of flying fragments.

We had to work 24 hours a
day because enemy guns might
fire at any time during the day
or night, and therefore we
worked in two shifts of 12 hours
each. On the night shift we
would black out*our headquar-
ters, camouflage it, and carry
on by light of kerosene lamps;
owing to the lack of ventilation
the fumes made it very stuffy
and uncomfortable.

With meticulous regularity
the Jerry planes would come
over at 11 p-m.; it gave one an
uneanny feeling to be inside,
unable to se anything, yet hear-
ing the menacing whistle of
the bombs climaxed- by ex-
plosions; and the roar of a
fighter as it swooped low to
strafe; the risine staccato of
machine-gun fire and the dull
hitting dirt.
Sometimes when it got very hot
we were ordered to turn down
our lamps and make for’ cover
in nearby slit-trenches, where
you had the advantage of at
least seeing what was going on;
searchlights sweeping the dark
skies for enemy aircraft; great
streams of tracers making col-
orful patterns; bomb-bursts;
and the odd ammunition dump
ablaze continually flaring up

and dying down. a

N that bitter struggle of Caen-

Falaise our infantry and
tanks went through hell, having
often to advance over open
wheat fields against heavily de-
fended and well-concealed ene-
my strongholds. Bitter experi-
ence proved that German wea-
pons and morale were still
good, but our superior weight
and strategy finally told. ‘Whe
Germany Army collapsed in
Normandy, and we rolled rapid-
ly up toward the Seine. The
highways were littered with
wrecked burnt out Tiger tanks,
staff cars, half-tiracks and lor-
ries, while on the roadsides one
could see many smashed guns;
most of this the work of our
murderous rocket-firing  ty-
phoons. Despite this the stub-
born resistance of the Nazi

Canadian
in 1943.

troops,

garrisons in Boulogne and CGa-
lais, and the fierce battle of the
Leopold Canal proved that the
German Army was far from
beaten.

[¢ WAS a pitiful sight to see
the civilians in the wake of
our advance trudging wearily
back to their onetime homes,
carrying what was left of their
belongings on their backs; I can
recall one old couple saying pa-
thetically, “What is there for
us now? Our house is in ruins,
we have nothing left. Young
folks can build again, but for
us there is no future.” :

[I also recollect a conversa-
tion I had with a middle-aged
Wrenchman during the seige of
Boulogne. He showed me a
photograph of a very beautiful
girl, his sixteen year-old daugh-
ter; he-said she had been xruth-
lessly shot down with a num-
ber of other French civilians by
the Nazis, who were forced to
evacuate a village by our ad-
vancing infantry. He also show-
ed me a picture of his son who
had been in the French Navy,
likewise killed by the Germans;
Fast of all he produced a photo-
graph of himself taken in the
unifcrm of the French Army in
1940, very handsome indeed:
the change in this man was al-
most unbelievable. His hatred
for ‘the Boche’ was fierce.

It seems to me that a dis-
torted picture has been drawn
by some reporters of the atti-
tude of the French people to
the -allied armies. Could we
expect people who were suffer-
ing from shock as a result of
being: caught in the centre of
severe battles, and who were
half-starved and had perhaps
just recently lost dear ones, to
throw their a-ms arcuisa “Wr
necks and shout with joy? Zne
fact is that despite their misery
we were warmly received by
the great majority of the
French people; also we should
not forget that many allied sol-
diers owe their lives to the
self-sacrifice and heroism of the
resistance movement.

eS

BS in England things were

looking pretty grim, despite
the fall of France. People had
hoped that with the capture of
the flyimg bomb-sites the air
War against them would be re-

our nation.

2 ERE,

Pictured above the Queen Elizabeth loaded with
approaches

the shores of Eneland

laxed; but the Nazis found new
methods of launching, namely
carmier planes; and added to
this were the new rocket sites
in Holland.

It is impossible for those who
have not seen with their own
eyes, to realize the conditions
that the English people have
had to endure, and the wondex-
ful fortitude they have shown.
Millions of homes have been
destroyed, there are queues for.
everything, at no time are they
free from the new terrifying
weapons of air-warfare. a

On returning home, one can-
not help but make a comparison.
with some folks who think it is
a terrible imposition to have to
line up for a box of chocolates,
and I can only believe that too
many people are remote from
the war in thinking as well as
in being. .

They forget that geographi-
cal remoteness was only an il-
lusion made rea] for them by
millions of men, who erected. _

‘With the material of their own

dead bodies an impassable bar-
rier to German ambitions of
world conquest. é

In conclusion, it is diseustine
to see how petty partisan poli-

ties is interfering with our
fundamental duty of winning
the war. The only guarantee

that our boys overseas will get
every possible assistance in
helping to deliver the knock-
out blow, lies in the policy of
co-operation between all demo-=
eratic forces in our nation; that
is the read of least casualties,
of least grief, and of best pros-
pects for the post-war welfare
and happiness of our people.

(Editor’s Note) Sid Zlot-
tick, writer of the above
brief description of some of
his experiences overseas, is
well-known im the progres-
sive labor movement on the
Pacifie Coast. From the time
he left Kine George High
Schoo] during the “Hungry
Thirties” he played an active
part in the struggles of the
pecple for better living condi-
tigns and against the mount-
ing threat of war and fas-
cism.

Joming the Young Com-

—Continued on Page 11.