The Disastrous D-Day Drop Of The Canadian 1st Paratroopers | War Stories

[Music] I don't know I had no clue what Paras were but they were the smartest looking troops High brown boots maroon Berets and uh they look good and I said anybody that can look that good as for me so I joined the Paris I guess we felt because we were different from the rest of the army that we were it's wrong to use the word special but it's it's probably true we we were different uh and we felt it and we felt a a sense of Pride we were trained and and we were so confident of ourselves I mean there there was no way that nobody could could touch us really you know we weren't afraid of [Music] anything a small army of daredevils gets ready to jump their job is to act as shock troops capture an Airfield seize a position or disrupt Communications in the rear of the enemy yes they're tough Mighty tough and the [Music] best I was with the first Canadian parachute Battalion I'm originally from mon new bruny Toronto I was one the rare breeds that was born and raised in Toronto and in the East End mhm oh a little village out in saskat called lashburn that's about maybe 300 people well in Junction farming Community I as a farm boy didn't know anything about military history he had nothing farming that's about it I led a rather sheltered life in Toronto and the the joy to me was that for the first time I was dealing with men from British Columbia from Alberta from Saskatchewan Manitoba and right to the to the maritimes they asked for volunteers to go airborne and 20 of us volunteered but they cut it right down to six of us 41 Vol volunteered uh but only two were accepted they put you through physical tests and mental examinations to determine if recognizing that you're a paratrooper and could be dropped behind the lines whether you had enough independence of knowledge and spirit to be able to survive on your own they were looking for some brain power but the main thing would was physical drive and initiative and they they had all kinds of ways of measuring it psychologists would put together a series of questions and so on about your mother and father and particular your family back ground stupid questions you know all did you Peter bed you know what what's that got to do with it you know so when he finished with me he said you would make a good paratrooper I said that sounds good and I didn't know what you know what parro was even uh I soon found [Music] out [Applause] [Music] from the time you got up in the morning until you went to bed at night you trained that's it constantly 24 hours a day toughest part yeah I don't think there was any easy part to it you know I was fortunate because working on a farm my legs were strong one time I yawned during a lecture and they they made me do 50 push-ups during the break was ridiculous like you know you could do 15 miles on the hot Prairie sun and the sergeant say hey why don't you go over there as a truck and get some water and if you did you'd be [Music] out when you get to the point where you're doing jumps off the tower you'd hear people in the in the Hut there screaming at night just having nightmares you know they like that that was worse than Jumping On a Plane I think history hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world from the Battle of Trafalga and the revolutionary era right through to the second world war if you are looking for your next military history fix then this is the service for you we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and War Stories fans get 50% off their first 3 months just be sure to use the code War Stories at checkout first time I was up in an airplane they had to jump out of it after the first one the second one was the worst because you knew what was coming there was an aperture 3-ft aperture in the floor when you push off make sure you're trying to hit the center of the hole and look up with all you do don't look down the natural thing to do everyone is to look down but if you look down your face is going to hit the other side of the of the tur what they call ring the bell that was it you're going to ring the bell lots of broken noses and bleeding noses they hit your nose on the other side and me with my big nose is quite possible no we didn't have Reserve shoots in England you jump so low you wouldn't have time to use a second shoot the British didn't believe in the reserve number one it took up too much room on the pack the space could be better used for weapons and equipment so the Canadians were a little shocked to only get one when you jump out all this noise is gone all you hear there's a wind and we come in fairly fast onto the ground on the Drop Zone and I hurt my legs a little bit but I was too stupid to say anything because if you did they kicked you [Music] out I saw two or three that didn't open in training you couple of days after you may go over to see where they landed and all you can see was an indentation in the ground where they hit the ground that uh but they covered it up pretty good after the first day you didn't talk about it at all I was given my wings and it was a c of considerable joy and pleasure then I was now joining this special group the first first Canadian parachute Battalion and the pride of that unit to never let anybody down when somebody says this is the mission this is the target you go that's it there's nothing you could do to hold them back June 6th 1944 and the greatest Armada in military history is assembled in England or an assault on Hitler's Fortress Europe the Allied Forces have nearly 3 Ian troops train for the [Music] assault we were going into Normandy that was the The Objective on dday our mission was to go in ahead of the beaches we were given the area around varville about 20 mi in from the beach to establish a defensive position to destroy Bridges to take over various Crossroads to destroy every hope of the Germans from reinforcing the troops they already had to to stop the Counterattack to stop any Counterattack you are there without support you fight with whatever you land with and it's dangers they got the word to go we loaded the plane and then they headed F the coast [Music] I was most apprehensive about the jump on D-Day because we had not had any experience at jumping in the dark in absolute black and this was going to be a midnight drop well it was awful quiet on the plane there was nobody talking or nothing it was just one guy looking at the other that's about it co-pilot coming back and saying you know were 3 minutes to the Drop Zone the red light came on which is stand up and hook up so everybody stood up and hooked up so now it's getting pretty serious we stand up hook up check the GU shoot in front form line and wait for the green light to come on now doing this we're coming into France you can see out the window now a sudden you see fireworks up ahead and then you realize not fireworks it's gun shooting [Music] some of the planes got shut down some got bullet holes in them just that's all you see the little holes they took evasive action they lost where they were supposed to go the pilot to get back to England he had to get rid of the Paris so he just put the light on and we all jumped out the green light comes on and the word comes from everywhere go [Music] I was number one so you stand at the door what happened to play with like that tilt it anyway I fell out and everybody else followed [Music] me I remember I was about 6 or 7 miles away from where I was supposed to be so I don't know where the other guys landed never saw them again it was the most widely scattered drop in history everyone was scattered Hells and a half acres over miles and the Germans flooded vast areas if a guy landed over a drainage ditch he went down 7 ft he never come up so we lost a few that way when I landed I landed I thought at that that was the highest tree in France as I'm try to get out of my parachute and I can't get out because I'm hanging straight down like this and then I heard some noise mumbling look like a German Patrol to me below me they walking in fact some of them pointed up to me I just still as a well B it kept going never bother with me at all for some [Music] reason I could hear somebody walking around and I figured holy gez I I just got here and they're they're really looking for me already anyway I hurried up and got my rifle out and then I heard him he walk to another tree or bush whatever it was so I said well it's going to be him or me so I better go after him so I went to where he'd been and I waited there and then he moved again so I went to the other place where he'd been and then he didn't move anymore so I figured well so I said well this is it so I went I went out to to see if I could get him and it turned out it was a cow so so the sweat start running down my back it took hours to finally get two men three men four men in a group we were pretty relieved to be able to see daylight and look around and you know I recognized the people I was with you know even though they were not my platoon they were lost you just simply said to them this is the mission this is the target let's go were you scared all the time if you say you weren't scared you're lying you're on your own do what you can if they got through us they could go right to the [Music] beaches 500 warships lay down a withering barrage and it's the beginning of the end for Hitler's dreams of world Conquest wave after wave hits the beat casualties were heavy in those early hours but the Allies were on their way to Berlin the troops were um targets coming off the boats and our job was toh stop the Germans from coming from the East our job was to get the ore Bridge so that the Germans couldn't cross it we're blowing bridges on theep River now B company's main mission was to destroy the bridge at robol the main demolition was to be done by British Engineers who were there with us and they blew the thing in it the whole thing went crashed into the river that's [Music] it after the bridges and all the objectives were taken they were to retreat back to lonel a Crossroads set up a defense position and prepare for a German attack we dug in and we fought there at lnel the crossroads at lnel for over a week and it was tough it was the first experience we had with German snipers they were deadly accurate you couldn't get up and wander around or rattle your mess in or something because you're you're as good as did I know I had a friend of mine uh he took his helmet off like this and first thing you know he was on the ground dead a sniper hit him right through the head right in the forehead he [Music] done June 12th came along and the Germans were determined to break through to the beach 700 German regiment men put in an attack with a tank and then a self propelled 88 gun it was the main battle that we had and it was tough the adrenaline is Flowing like unbelievable it was some real serious fighting the main thing is don't let your buddies down that's the main thing so that's what we live [Music] for three tanks came up and they were Sherman tanks we were pretty pleased that hey we can't lose now we got three tanks with us as the first one came up in front of us he was just about dead in front of us and uh he was turning his turret when he all went up in Flames the other one came up behind him started turn his turret he went up in flames and the third one so we had three burning tanks in a row they never fired one shot it doesn't stick in your mind you're killing people but in the back of your mind there is something that's going on that you don't know uh cuz I was not put thiser to kill people and kind of but you get you don't get used to it you get hardened to it you know you know do what you have to do it's either you're going to get killed or he's going to get killed and I don't want to get killed the Brigadier ordered the signal to the coast that uh we need in the shelling and he gave the coordinates it was quite a satisfaction to hear those Allied shells going overhead because you got to the point that you could identify them pretty quickly say you know they're ours they got the Germans on the open the whole 700 of them I don't know how many were killed but most of them must have got were caught out in the open by the shelling and took the heart right out of them it had to be held but it was done we did our job after a few days we certainly were reinforced by troops from the beaches that came up and and that was a big help now we were dealing with Hamilton light infantry Essex Scottish um any number Winnipeg rifles all kinds of Canadian troops and that was a great satisfaction that they had landed on the beach successfully and were coming up and of course they felt that that we'd been doing some Tas you know which which was nice to have that that [Music] camaraderie we had 340 some casualties on dday from the time we were in there till we come out that's out of 600 men [Music] yeah it was uh it was sad and in some way shocking really that uh that the drop was responsible for such a loss and at the other hand it was quite remarkable that a handful of men dropped in the middle of the night into Normandy wherever the hell they knew were able to make their way around to join up with others and finally get to the objective and accomplish it it's just unbelievable and that's that's what happened if we fail our mission then I truly believe that the invasion would have been finished they had never made it but you did fulfill your mission yep every one of them all the airb fill their missions so it's uh it's hard hard thing but you can talk a lot of people if you've not if you've not been in a war you don't know what it's like you know it's worth a million do but I wouldn't do this for two [Music] [Music] [Music] when we came back from Normandy Brigadier Hill gave orders to his Battalion commanders there's got to be greater discipline there's got to be better physical fitness there's got to be better weapon use Jeff nckin was appointed leftenant Colonel and he landed like a ton of bricks he was out of this world as far as training went because he was a hard-nosed football player oh he's a tough boy played for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League so that accounts for his U athletic ability and perception that we weren't we were we weren't up to his [Music] snuff the training became really painful 10 m runs with equipment then there was 50 m marches and it was always done at a run I can remember bringing my platoon down the road after 10 miles ran alongside them and encouraged them you know there's the gate keep going you know but nichel and as we went through the gate he was taking names of stragglers they were gone and replaced very quickly a Ply thing we had to run around the prey Square we couldn't walk on it and that was one of the things that the guys hated them for nichan was more respected than he was liked and the anger was building the veterans from Normandy felt that they had practically won the war they had done all the training they needed they had been blooded and now was the time to rest and that was strongly felt by just about every man that that came back from Normandy it got on your nerves so bad that we did finally go on strike what we did was we would form up in platoons and March through the kitchen right past the food wash our Mes in in the trough that they had for us and that was it we never touched the food we're just we're just not eating we're not eating we're you know we'll do all the training we'll parade we'll do everything we're ordered to do as soldiers but we're not happy so for three days our men refus breakfast lunch and dinner it gets up to divisional headquarters and Brigadier Hill he heard about it and he come down Brigadier Hill was the most outstanding leader and that was accepted by every paratrooper that I ever knew he wrote the book on leadership but he had a special affection for the Canadians he ordered everybody on the pre square and he got up on the stage and he gave us a lecture he just laid down the law and said he had the greatest respect for the Canadians but discipline was key to survival we would be going in again with the Battalion very soon and he wanted the men to be behave like men behave like soldiers go back to work and he would look after us and when Bri Hill says that you're listen cuz he was fair so the Brigadier said to nicklin Nick back off let's restore some sensibility to the whole thing so they did now I don't mean that the discipline went out the window it didn't but it made a great deal more sense in February 1945 it seemed that the European war was nearly over the Allied armies had reached the r but here they halted faced with the greatest river obstacle in Western Europe if they could cross the Ry their war was one the Allies planned the largest single Airborne Landing of the wall operation vars the objective in the Ry was to cross the Ry River for the final Advance uh through Germany this was the final big push and and battle of the war and we were lucky to be taking part in it we were to drop the Manpower by division strength we're now talking 20,000 30,000 men to drop them by Parachute with the troops landing on the German side of the river and then hold the enemy in check until the troops came across the Rind and joined up with us when we were told where we were going into Germany loud cheers and when when the guys heard daylight 10:00 in the morning there was another cheer went up and somebody said to me we're not going to have another [Music] Normandy as the attack gets underway at an Airfield in England men of the first Canadian parachute regiment impl they joined their British buddies of the sixth Airborne Division and their cousins of the 17th US Air airborn div in the mightiest air invasion in history Veterans of D-Day fly to the Grand [Music] assault the aircraft flew at the required level of about 850 FT 900 ft the Air Force guys they were not happy about daylight drops of paratroopers because of the level if you're on the ground as an enemy that's a big Target that's there so a lot of aircraft were hit the plane I was on was hit by um by Flack and uh caught fire there's a very steep dive and I had to climb up very quickly and as I was getting out and soon as my plane my my shoot opened I looked back and saw the the crew coming out after me and they all got killed um cuz I saw them bounce on the [Music] ground it was absolutely massive it was the largest parachute drop in history it'll never of course be repeated never in God's world I could hear the zinging of the bullets and you could see the the holes in my shoot where they they had gone through a German Battalion was in the trees they surrounded the field they knew where we're were going to land they just didn't know what time of day we were coming in uh so they were they were ready for us we're being fired at there were several of us but we didn't know where the bullets were coming from at the end of the field there's a white Farm house and I saw the farmer come running out and looking up at all of the parachutes that were dropping and as I ran into the woods I saw him run back into the house he got in to get a shotgun and he was shooting the guys that were in the trees we formed up for an attack ready up let's go and so we just all the men got up wherever they were firing from the hip attacking these various pill boxes and God knows what all far arm houses houses whatever and with the machine guns grenades and with the friend guns that we had uh it it made quick work and the ger Germans just came out and surrendered by the dozens they didn't fight much they knew that the when you see thousands of paratroopers coming down so they were surrendering to us without any trouble at all [Music] we come to this plowed field got into the bush and Jeff nickan was still hanging up in the trees he was killed he dropped practically over top of a German implacement who simply opened up on him and that was it it didn't take very long at all [Music] we saw a movement under this big tree Bo this big around and here a German tried to surrender somebody behind me shot him I don't know who it was and uh I guess he figured that it was him that killed nichan [Music] after a few days General Ridgeway who commanded the Allied Airborne Army crossing the rine he had word from Eisenhower that Stalin the Russians advancing from the East were not going to adhere to an agreed line they were going to move further into the Western Zone ignoring any barriers that had been agreed on so Bridgeway went to Brigadier Hill he said I've got to have a force moving fast as hell non-stop to get North to Halt the Russians and he'll said I've got just the outfit that can do that and they're Canadians they are Cowboys like you wouldn't believe if anybody can do it they can do it so I'm going to put them on tanks and we'll go like [Music] hell men of the first Canadian parachute Battalion Forge ahead into Germany riding on British tanks the force strikes out in a general northeasterly direction their goal is the German North Dort we were ordered to go night and day to weismore and get there before the Russians but on the way up if you were fired upon you jumped off the tanks and cleared it out got back on the tanks again but the Germans were running they they were hard to keep up to you knew something was up because you were not getting the heavy fighting or anything real you know something was going going on and to us we thought BBE the war is getting over you know I was on the lead tank suddenly we're seeing this barbed wire enclosure on our right I can remember it vividly because I have nightmares about it today this Barb Wire enclosure with guard towers I never seen anything like this before suddenly the tank I'm on came to an absolute halt because people came flooding P not prisoners victims of the Holocaust came out of the camp and threw themselves in front of the tank and at the side of the tank just clutching and screaming you know they were the most emaciated they they were skeletons some of them were just crawling I can remember seeing one man come out stumbling out of the gate and he was no no skin on him at all and he fell and he was crawling you know and I'm still sitting on this tank and I said get off give these people a hand you know find out what they are and then somebody came along and said this is a concentration camp it was Bergen bellson concentration camp did you see Bergen bellson yes is that I I ate to even talk about it it's just bones and skin and piled up like you see when somebody tells me about Holocaust they don't believe in it I feel [Music] like the medical officer came up and said to me we've got to get we've got to get some divisional help up here real fast so move your tank get your tank and this whole company V company and get [Music] moving I just remember going by it in the middle of the night I I remember very clear it was about midnight and I could hear the moans and groans from the from the encampment and I was informed at the time that it was I didn't know it was bu son I just knew it was a a um a concentration camp once we were across the elb we could sense that the German Army was collapsing surrendering by the by the company on either side of the road fully armed but we couldn't stop to take the prisoner they were filling the roads with their weapons still in their hands were waving us on come on get past me soon as they knew they were they were going to be facing the Russians they want no part of them we were engulfed by hundreds of citizens German citizens carrying everything they owned and they were frightened to death of the Russians who were m massacring that's what we could gather further up in the Eastern Zone they were massacring the Germans the stories they were telling of the brutality that was going on was terrible but somebody said to me after I was getting pretty angry about it they said look at it from the other side those people have been these Russians have been brutalized by the Germans their Farms burned to the ground their women and kids massacred so their feeling about the Germans is more violent is more retaliatory than ours because we didn't have that at all we arrived in weismore and made the second uh two hours before the Russians arrived we quickly dug in there we brought up a Churchill tank and put it all down we got it into a ditch there with with just the the gun showing and so we had a pretty substantial roadblock waited and waited and waited then the Russians come they had tanks and everything one of our men Sergeant Warick he could speak Russian so he understood what they were saying and they the Russians said they had orders to go and take this from us and they were going to go through our division to do it it was a major I don't know some big wig from the Russians they kept with a car try to get through and we to so he started to go ahead so I said fire burst over his head with a machine gun they did he to around go back he went back and uh would let him in we were there to hold them back if they had have fired on us we would have fired on them and it would have been third world war right there so finally on day four our company sergeant major came up to the barricade where we were my platoon was and he said we've got to have a patrol go in into the Russian Zone and make some contact in there at a fire level we took an interpreter a young lad by the name of D he was a Polish kid from the Prairies and we went in about 20 miles and we were finally sent to a headquarters off to the right just off the main Highway and out came a bunch of ger Russian officers beautifully dressed and this one fellow with breaches and one thing another he looked about 21 years old but he was a full General he said come in come in they had a big table set up with some finger food but the main thing on the table was great jugs of vodka tremendous jugs of vodka and of course you know Winston Churchill they knew that they could Winston Church okay winon Church great great you know now that meant Marshall Stalin Marshall Stalin and it went down you know President Roosevelt and Eisenhower zukov I couldn't drink anymore it ended up I had to drive back Pete couldn't drive he was too far gone we would go back to our headquarters and report to our general that there's Peace So It was friendly from then on yes we did socialize with him perhaps to excess I'm afraid because for us the war was [Music] over we were the first active Battalion from the war zone from actually from Germany to arrive back in Canada so everybody wanted a piece of us the city had a prepared a parade up Bay Street to welcome at City Hall which nobody had ever experienced before my mother and father were both there and they were very careful it was heartwarming it really [Music] was it was great to be home I just looked at my dad and my mother and I said hi Dad I made it that's for some you just hit you like a ton of brick but uh life goes on the thing is that with the paratroopers you look after each other you can't describe it it's just one of those things to this day we're still airborne and I you know and I'm proud that I'm a Airborne if I was a young fellow today I that's where I'd be jumping [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 189,207

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary, ww2, D-day, war in europe, eastern front, allies, paratroopers, normandy

Id: 9SX9lpMaXuQ

Length: 44min 29sec (2669 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024