155 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca He started out in Salerno, Ebeli, and Avelino along with hundreds of other troops. Every hour of the day somebody was going somewhere. He was to go to the West Nova Scotia Infantry Regiment. Then they came and told him to get in his jeep, where to, Hayward didn’t know, but off he went. He was taken to the 26th Light Aid Detachment attached to the 1st Survey Regiment, R.C.A. He was a replacement for a casualty. In this, L.A.D., they were nineteen men in all, including a captain, a sergeant major, four sergeants, corporals, and privates. And everybody worked. Their job was to keep the Regiment’s equipment in top repair. They had Thompson submachine guns, one bren gun, as well as rifles. They could be infantry if necessary. They didn’t get many shells close by but could hear them going over head. They all moved up together. They tried to stay together but it didn’t always work out that way. He remembered one night when they were close to a fuel supply, a plane came over and tried to bomb it. They could hear the screech of the bomb; it was that close. It made a hole that you could put a small house into, and dirt and debris fell abound them. They were all spared as they were in fox holes. Next day, they moved on. One can’t explain it, but survival was a lot of luck. You just never knew when or where you were going to run over or tramp on a mine. The Survey Regiment was part of the artillery. It was sort of a reconnaissance unit and was made up of Flash Spotters, Sound Rangers, and Surveyors. The Germans had many of their guns dug in and camouflaged. They couldn’t quite spot them, so the Sound Rangers took microphones through the German lines and hid them on the ground, each one quite a distance from the other, and the sound was recorded back. Then the Flash Spotters (who were in a building of on a high hill – again quite a distance apart), would watch for the flash in the vicinity of the microphone closest to the gun being fired, and in conjunction with the sound the location of enemy guns could be determined. This information was transmitted to Battery H.Q. for appropriate action. The 1st Survey Regiment was a new regiment of World War II, half of it was down in North Africa and Italy and the other half was up on the continent – it was the 2nd Survey. They were 1st Corps troops operating under General Montgomery’s British 8th Army, later under the command of General Alexander. They wore a red diamond on their upper sleeve and were pretty much always on the move supporting infantry divisions – the Hitler Line especially, and the Battle of Monte Cassino where the Monastery was up on the top of a high hill. This was some battle! To start with, the British tried to bomb it so did the Americans. Finally, Montgomery, or perhaps Alexander, moved the guns up, something like 2,000, and they all went off at zero hour, 11pm on May 15 or 16, 1944. The ground shook and the air lit up with a red/yellow glow. Next morning, the whole area was blue with cordite smoke. The noise was like continuous heavy thunder. Hayward was on the Gustav Line, the Liri Valley, the Gothic Line, Rimini, Salerno, Avelina, Campobaso, Cesenatico, and numerous places in between. They were also up the east coast of Italy by Ancona, Richioni, Cesenatico, Balogna and Rossi. He had Christmas in 1944 in the field somewhere in Italy. During the Italian Campaign, he came down sick with hepatitis and was in the 14th General Hospital at Perugia for a couple of months. The hospital was a converted tobacco factory and held 400 beds, men with all the same illness. There was only one nursing sister to look after all these men. HOPKINS, Hayward Charles (continued) (continued)
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