Holland April 15/16th. Leaving the outskirts of Arnhem.
The Mighty Maroon Machine, what the Fifth Canadian Armoured division liked to be called, struck out from Arnhem and roared out into the countryside. If memory is correct there was an area of sandy soil and sparse pine forest not the mud of Italy and the tanks were really goin . Our advance party happened to fall in behind one of the tank columns. I on my motor bike could not get around the tank in front of me and when I did I ended up in behind another. The result was the exhaust and terrific dust fried my face and lips. The tanks stopped at a farm house and I did also. Living here looked it like a family of all girls who were hugging the tank men for liberating them. Naturally I did not want to be left out and was hugged by the girls too. One girl in particular went and brought back a basin of water and tried to wash the grime from tank exhaust and dust from my face and put some oil or something on my lips that were really chapped. I had some where the family address but that was 58 years ago and I cannot find it so I do not know how far it was from Arnhem.
Continuing on with this day I think we had one gun position and did not fire any shots but one of the other batteries did. So as far as I remember the 15th of April was mostly a fast move set up no firing and then move again and likely firing once. The 16th of April I remember well as we had just set up our gun position in a field when orders came for the advance parties to go ahead. I will certainly tell what happened in the next few hours .
