LEST WE FORGET 169 where they spent the nights and part days. The ground roared all night from exploding shells and bombs. Some mornings the basement was full of soldiers. After about three days their shelling and bombing softened up, they must have been running short of supplies or their defenses were too much for them, they retreated farther back into Germany. Harry was a driver mechanic for heavy artillery. A gun is rated by the type of ammunition it fires. Heavy artillery is generally for long-range battles. You can hear a shell or see a bomb coming for eight or so seconds; gives you a few seconds to dive into a hole, or deep ditch where the shrapnel flies above you. You listen for each shell. After about two days you learn to tell by the different sounds if they are coming straight for you to drop and explode, ahead, behind, or on top of you, or to one side or the other of you. The Germans had a 4-inch 88 mm shell that travelled faster than sound. You heard nothing until it exploded. Also, a short range 8-inch Moaning Minnie shell that came with a dreadful deadly scream that was supposed to scare the hell out of them and did. During this time, the Allies convinced the Germans to allow them a clear free path to distribute food to the starving Hollanders by plane and truck. First day 1 ton, then up to 8 or 10 ton a day for a period to survive. The German Armies were now getting defeated from every side.The British and Poles from the north, Canadians from the west, Americans from the south and Russians from the east.The war was falling apart. On April 29, 1945, Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler were married. On April 30 they committed suicide. By the first of May, Hitler’s armies were collapsing and by May 8, 1945, the war was over, and peace was declared on the Western Front. By May 9, Russia had reached and taken Berlin and it was all over but the cleaning up. In the latter part of March and April they were sleeping on cold and damp ground. On about April 20, Harry began to feel quite tough so went on sick parade to see a doctor. This Army doctor did not even take his temperature. He said he was just trying to get out of the front lines and put him back on duty. Two weeks later Harry was in a coma part of the time, much sicker and passing a lot of blood. Some of the gun crew must have gotten him on a second sick parade to see a second doctor. He took his temperature and right then had him on a train headed for an army hospital near Lille, France. He was carried down an aisle between wounded soldiers to an admitting room. There an elderly nurse took his temperature. She said to another nurse, “His temperature is 106 degrees.Two more degrees he won’t be going anywhere.” So, 108 degrees must be the end of the line. Harry was in the hospital when the war ended and for about five more weeks.While in the hospital a young solider from Ontario was carried in on a stretcher holding a letter. He asked the nurse if she would read to him his mother’s last letter. Before she finished reading the letter, he raised up and dropped down a couple of time and was gone; unable to live long enough to hear the last words of his mother. His chest was so full of flying shrapnel (scrap metal) he did not have a chance. Once out of the hospital Harry was sent to guard German prisoners in a compound. One day they got 25 prisoners to dig a ditch to bury garbage. The next day they got 25 more prisoners to bury the garbage.The German prisoners were lined up along the ditch waiting for the garbage trucks to arrive but the trucks were late. The prisoners talked amongst themselves saying that they thought they were going to be shot and buried in the ditch. One of the Canadian soldiers could talk a little German explained that it was for the garbage not for the prisoners. The prisoners happily buried the garbage when the trucks arrived. From Germany Harry was sent back to Britain and then onto a ship to Canada arriving in Halifax. From Halifax he came back to Maple Creek and was discharged in February 1946. He worked at various jobs when he came back to Maple Creek. In 1948, his father bought a ranch in the Cypress Hills and he managed the ranch for his father. On December 29, 1948, he married Norma Anderson. They lived on his father’s ranch and later purchased part of that ranch and raised three girls. Years after the war, an old war companion hunted him down and came to visit him at his ranch in the Cypress Hills. His last heifer was in the corral ready to calf. Harry is right-handed and on the way to a branding his saddle horse had stepped into a gopher hole, fallen down and he broke and dislocated his right-hand thumb, and he had a large cast on that hand. His friend knew nothing about cattle, but they made a deal. If the heifer had trouble, he had both hands. He was going to be his vet to take care of the trouble. Harry was going to tell him what to do.They got into a few refreshments while visiting and sort of forgot about the heifer for about three hours. When they went to check on her, she already had her calf, she was not taking any chances for help from them. Harry is a Life Member of The Royal Canadian Legion Maple Creek Branch. FORBES, Harry (continued)
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