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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1943-03-25, Page 7THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1943 THE SEAFORTT N 7WS Battle in the Desert We've never really dune it before --that is, the vast majority of us, There area very few who returner! from France, the then from St. Val- ery,'and they know what it was like. They've had some, and have no illusions at all. But we are new boys with our spurs yet to be won, our blood still thick from home, as yet unthinned by the desert sun. For two years we've trained and worked and champed at the bit, im- patiently eager to have a go at Jerry. And now this is it, Half an hour and the show will start. A few thousand yards up in front are all the Spandaus'(machine guns), rifles, • and bayonets with the Jerres behind them. Did they know we were coming? I shouldn't think so; the whole show has been kept secret. We didn't know ourselves until a few hours ago, It will be pretty rough when he does know, and is just sitt- ing there waiting for us. And he'll have his mortars, too. We know about those wicked things; the boys from France tell us about them. Oh, well, the hot meal was good, and that lovely warm, contented feel- ing that comes with plenty of stew in the stomach lullsa lot of impish fears. But it's funny to think it will be the last meal for some blokes—it seems a bit of waste somehow. I get under cover and have a cig- arette. The moon's getting richer in color, so bright I can read my watch easily, Nine -fifteen. Fifteenminutes and we start moving. I begin to wonder what they are doing at home. They've just finished the evening meal and the radio will be on perhaps, not too loudly though because father wants to read. They'll have a fire too—it's pretty cold at 'home by now. I wonder if they're thinking of us out here. Perhaps mother as she sews can feel this sil- ence around me at this moment. I hope they're not worrying. I climb out of my hole. It's time to get the chaps together. From out of the holes around me an entire battalion emerges. A soft murmur of many whispers comes across, and 'pere and there a clink as a shovel or ick bangs against something. We all carry a pick or shovel so that we can dig in when we get on to the ob- jective and wait for the counter-at- tack. There are plenty of whispered curses and terms of abuse as serg- eants and corporals pull the slowerr stoop as they go, others just walk• ehaps into alertness, and, of course, along as though going to the Navy- many wisecracks, Army Air Foree Institutes, It's a I check up my chaps, and am sur- fantasy. All around us horrid red i Prised at the nonchalant way words pnffs angrily belch out their lead roll out of my mouth, Trunk. God for and steel bits. Shells are dropping that—I mist put up a good show in all ;around. Now smoke spreads a front of the fellows, Poor devils! pall' over everything, They're pretty well loaded with My fellows seem O.K. It is absol- packs, rifles, ammunition, shovels, 'utely useless talking to thein, as one and some even have radio sets, voice can't begin .te compete with Mine is a signal platoon, and we this cacophony of cordite and instru- are going up with the battalion head- meats, The radio isn't working too quarters, We okayed our radio sets well. We can get only one company. eight days ago. Will they work when Something has happened in front. we open them at zero hour? These Everyone stops and flings himself radios are temperamental. down. It is spandau fire. The tracers Two companies have moved for- criss-cross in front, and bullets ward already, and we are next. I crackle over our heads, Jerry is swing in front of my chaps, using a clever. The bullets are so close to spade as a walking stick. It's like the ground that one goes through walking down the steps, of a cricket the pack on my back. pavilion with a bat in one's hand, a I look at the fellow a yard to my bit nervous. I've been whistling to left, and my heart sinks and nausea myself "Chattanooga Choo-Choo." comes into my mouth. It is the first What silly words! time I have ever seen death, and It We pass some twenty -five -pound is horrible. I lie still. The healon is ers`dug in as their crews slave away easy, I just daren't move a muscle. stacking up ammunition, "Those If only I. could go right down into buzzards will get something tonight," the earth. I feel quite • lonely and says my batman, plodding along•be- naked' with this mortar muck, and side me. I grin back at him. I'm be- there's some air burst coming over. ginning to feel fine now, and decide They're getting up and moving in to walk around the platoon. front. The radio carriers are sweating a 'Phe Spandaus sound silly, so quiet bit. We are through the gap in our and musical compared with the crash own minefield now, and still no of other explosions. A crash rings sound to distinguish this night from near . me, and someone screams, many another, Now we can deploy, "Stretcher bearer, stretcher bearer." with two companies in front going The cry goes up all around. left and right, and two behind cont- We move on. We must move on. ing up on either side of us. It feels The battle demands it. a bit lonely now. After all the Boche We are held up again and go to is only just in front. ground. I am behind a small mound. What's the time? As I look down It is six inches high, but these six at my watch the barrage begins. inches mean as . much to me as six What a noise! The guns just behind feet. us roar and spit, and shells sizzle I still have my spade with me. over our heads. I can't hear and I Mortar bits are flyinlg about, I put can't think. I turn and shout to my the spade over my head. it gives me chaps, "Come on, blokes, don't a'feeling of security. bunch. Keep spread out." An awful smell! Is he using gas? They aren't bunching really, but I I've no .respirator. No, it's not gas, have to shout something just to con- it's just cordite and sand. vince myself that the noise hasn't We're here for hours. I can't deafened• me. move. I daren't move. Yet I must. I A few more steps, and then it crawl to the radio set. Nothing do starts, Hell comes downon us. The ing.,. Jerry has jammed it. The for - Hun has started his defensive fire. ward companies are out of radio The scene is ghastly. Behind us our touch. guns spit on. There seems to be a The order comes, "Dig in: we can tongue of flame darting round in a get no further." We dig. Down, huge semi -circle. It is never still.: down in our holes. Neither is this terrible noise beating The wounded are coming back in ears. from the forward line. "Captain still forward. Some Blank's dead, sir," the man with an arm hanging limp tells me. This is my greatest friend. I fall into my our We are moving The 'Worlil'i News' Seen Through THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR As Inter,eafiortal Daily Nswspokin .• ie Truthful—Conrtructive—Unbiseed--Free frost Seeestlonel- ieat — Edisorlelo Are Timely asci Iaetraceive:' snd:. Ile. Doily Peeturee, Together with the Weekly,tMa[iyne. Sscdesy 111ab!t tate Meritor An Ideal Newspaper fon the I lei , ,; ,.. The Cliristhut Seism. One, Norway Swat, Bots ° t aL�htote Prise $12.00 Yurly, o* O i lign Saturday Irue, including MageolanSection, 01.60 n Year. Introductory Offer, 6 Sstu,T,y I 0 1L C n* '.___i -jiff � Address SAMPLE COPY ON REQUEST Po011icoce Monthly Statements We can save you money on Bill and Charge Forms, standard sizes to flt Ledgers, white or colors. It will pay you to see our samples, Also best quality Metal Hinged, Sec- tional Post Binders and Index The Seaforth News PHONE 84' hole. I can't realize Tommy's gone. Only a few hours back we were talk- ing together. I must have a fag. I take a terrific mouthful of smoke right down into my lungs. Will Jerry counter-attack? What is it like to be attacked? Dawn begins to break. We seem to be isolated. Then there is a rumb- ling noise from behind us. Our tanks are coming up. Oh beautiful, big, shining tanks—lovely tanks! So this is war. Now I know it. The Mail From Home r By Flying Officer R. A. Francis, RCAF Public • 'Relations Officer ,Overseas. Just as life for the folks at home Is a routine broken by certain ups and- downs, so the day to : day pro- ' ,gram for an airman on active service becomes a round of well established duties, punctuated by moments of high exhilaration and of despondent loneliness. These two states of mind may stem from precisely the same origin - the mail from' home. How small a matter this may ap- pear to some in Canada is evidenced by the few letters which they write to their sons or brothers overseas. Its importance in the minds of others is likewise shown by the steady flow of letters, cards, clippings from the home town newspaper, which turn up at base post office overseas and are sent on to the addressee. The importance of mail to a man who may have 8000 miles of water and another 3000 miles of land be - Itween himself and his family, is diffi- cult to assess. It is a fact however, which Air Force authorities• will sup- port, that morale that mucll abused word which means roughly the state of mind of your men — is unmistak- ably bolstered by a regular stream of information from home through the nails. A few hundred words of family news and local gossip on a sheet of paper may not look very important to the person who is home and close to the things of which he writes. But to the chap who is far from home in some lonely outpost — or the biggest bombing station in the land — it means that he can think for a mo- ment about the things he left' behind, and about the things he will some day return to. It means that he has not been for. t gotten, that somewhere people are thinking of him, that someone misses • him, is praying for his safety, Wish - i ing him good luck, BONES TO SCRAP HITLER Scrappy, who takes his wartime duties very seriously these days, pauses a minute for the photographer on his daily trip to turn in a bone he's been saving to the local salvage collection depot. He has decided to help National Salvage in their drive for salvage bones and fats in every way possible, and let the fun of burying bones and digging them up again wait until the war 13 over. That is what it means to him, whe- ther lie's an air marshal or an AC2, and whether he admit's it or not, It means somebody has remembered — remembered he would, like to know whether the kid brother made the second base spot on the sandlot team. Remembered he was anxious about his brown cocker spaniel, who had caught her foot in a gopher trap. Re- membered that he used to go down to the foaming river. Remembered how he liked to be the first in the 'spring ,to notice that the days were getting longer. He thinks about them and all they stand for because they are his way of life. They represent what he has had before and what he wants to have again. There is only one way he can know about them. That's, when the kid sister, or the folks or the girl friend Hazelton, Coleman or Chicoutimi, it makes no odds. If the mail bag comes bulging into the orderly room and there is nothing in it for him, he is the loneliest guy in the world. A dozen lines from any member of the family would have done the trick, or an airgraph from the fellow he used to work with down the street, but he gets nothing and he wonders if anybody ever thinks about him at ;all. Some other fellow gets a fistful! of letters, a carton of cigarettes, an- other gets a parcel with chocolate and chewing gum, maybe some socks and a tin of pork and beans — not 'much at home, but the difference be. tween existing and living to a man on active service station. Oh sure, some will be torpedoed on the way. An airman overseas is the write and tell him, first to admit it. He also suggests, Whether he is. from Halifax or tactfully, that a few more letters dis- patched from the point of origin would take care of the margin. Back Is Fractured. In 25 Foot Fall — Norman McDonald, while working with John Hunkin inside a silo on the farm of B. W. Williams, of Deborae, fell a distance of about 25 feet to the ground and suffered a fractured•`baek, a cut on the head which required several stitches to close and' seine broken ribs. Mr. McDonald and Mr. Hunlcin were doing some cement `$e• pair work to the silo and were stand- ing on a scaffold. The former 'was handling a large-sized chunk of de- ment when the plank on -which- he was standing tilted and he and the cement were precipitated to the bot- tom of the silo, on the floor of which were pieces of the dislodged cement. Fortunately the large piece of cement landed first. The injured man Was taken to London for an x-ray. It was found that he had suffered a crushing fracture of the bock. He will be sev- eral weeks in a plaster cast. "Dear me," do I loolt like that ?" A little dubiously, the new mascot of a Pacific (leak lighter squadron of the R.C.A.F. examines the bull -dog insignia which distinguishes the squadron. The mascot is Queen, a 14-mouths•old English bulldog who holds the rank of Airwoman First Class, and whose promotion to corporal or sergeant is expected soon. Queen was adopted into the Bulldog squadron after the death of King, a full-grown bulldog for whom the unit was named.