LEST WE FORGET 191 HANDFORD, Mervin Campbell (continued) We went through France and from there to Belgium. I was then in Ghent, Belgium, New Years Day, 1945. What a New Year celebration that was – not like Time Square in New York. It was no dance party, but I came through it OK. We had a few hard battles in the Dardanelles, and I came through that battle again. We then went out of Belgium and into Holland. We didn’t run into much resistance right then. We were in Utrecht where we stayed for a while. We were also in Ede and from there we went to Nijmegen, Holland where we spent the fall of 1944 and the early months of 1945. We were in bunkers like ground hogs all winter. It was very cold. We stood on guard two hours on and two hours off. There was no sense in taking your clothes off because it was too cold, so a lot of the times we even had our great coat on to stay warm and try to get a few minutes of shut eye. We were ready for the big push in the spring of 1945. The artillery shelled the German positions for 72 hours straight without a let-up. The Germans had blown all the dikes up, and the whole area was flooded. We had to go in with amphibious tanks called Water Buffaloes. I was driving one of these. We went in, and the German soldiers surrendered in numbers I could not keep track of. I used to load them onto our tanks and take them back to the Prisoner of War camp behind the ‘theatre of war’ where the action was. They were so happy to get out of the fighting they sang all the way back to the POW camp where they were held. They were then shipped to Canada’s POW camp. There were a lot of very young guys and older men. They were sixteen to seventy years of age. When that offensive was over, we went out on rest for a while on leave to England. I went to Leeds in Yorkshire County where I met a wonderful English girl who worked for F. W. Woolworth & Co. We went to a picture show and ate some popcorn. When the show was over, she took me to her mom and dad’s home where she introduced me to them. They were a really nice family. They invited me to spend my leave with them. I got to know them really well. Now it was time to catch the train back to Dover for my boat ride across the English Channel and back to the lines in Holland. They used to give us nine pounds for a nine-day leave. I never did get a chance to go back there again as army put Leeds out of bounds to Canadian troops. I sure felt bad because I got to love that young lady very much – but that’s the way things are. I got back to my regiment in Utrecht, Holland where we started off on our offensive again. After a couple of weeks on the front lines, a couple of our Bren Gun Carrier drivers were killed when they ran over some land mines. They needed to replace those two buddies of ours, so they asked for volunteers. There was a guy by the name of Leese. He was red-headed and a really good soldier. We both volunteered to drive these Bren Gun Carriers with flame throwers on them. They were used for going into enemy lines, shooting flames, and then the boys on foot would advance behind us and take up positions, going a few yards at a time. It was kind of hot in the Carriers, but it beat walking. The flame throwers had an 80-gallon tank on the back of the Carrier with a flame thrower up in front next to me, the operator. It was usually the corporal or the sergeant who operated the flame gun. With a little wind the flame would fire 200 feet and 150 feet against the wind. It contained a chemical that was very sticky when it hit its object. It was like a gooey gel. I never did know what it was until years later. This chemical was made by Dow Chemical. If you held your finger on the trigger for twenty seconds steady, it would have emptied all 80 gallons. We therefore only used it in short bursts. I don’t even like to think about it, but those memories will stay with me the rest of my life.War is cruel. We crossed the Rhine River on what they called a Pontoon bridge that was like a bunch of buoys laid side by side across the Rhine. Bridging was laid on top of the buoys. This work was done by the Royal Canadian Engineers. We all worked together doing our own assignments or jobs. (continued)
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