‘I kept the tank constantly moving so we wouldn’t get shot down’
Garry Gould was a 20-year-old accounting student living on West Hill Ave. in Notre-Damede-Grâce when he signed up to serve in the Second World War. The young man who had never seen the sea boarded the RMS Queen Mary troop ship with 15,000 other soldiers, sailing out of Halifax and zigzagging across the North Atlantic to avoid being torpedoed. He served almost two years in a war that took more than 47,000 Canadian lives.
On Aug. 7, 1944, he took part in Operation Totalize, part of a movement of one million soldiers meant to drive the German forces back from their stronghold near Normandy, France. He was in the Lord Elgin Regiment, moving from Caen east toward Falaise.
“The two biggest attacks I was in were nighttime pushes. Up to that point, there had been tremendous casualties of the infantry trying to move forward on their feet during the day against enemy positions,” Gould said.
“General G.G. Simonds came along with a new idea of putting infantry into armoured vehicles called kangaroos, and under the cover of darkness bordered by tanks and artillery, put a million soldiers forward to assault the enemy position without any possibility of the enemy being able to thwart them.
“My troop (of four tanks, with five men in each) was chosen to lead. I directed my tank driver to proceed, along with the kangaroos with the infantry inside. We were on target at first light — the target area was located a whole night’s march south of the breakout(nearCaen)towards (the city of) Falaise, maybe 15 miles away.
“Once we got there, the enemy were positioned under trees and bushes. The Fourth Division (of more than 10,000 soldiers) was coming up on foot towards our position. I got the tanks out to keep the enemy’s head down and to let the Fourth Division proceed.
The gunner and loaderoperator was firing one machine gun, the co-driver was firing another and I had mounted a third machine gun on the turret. I kept the tank constantly moving so we wouldn’t get shot down.
“That’s when I suddenly found myself on the floor of the turret, because I’d soaked up a bullet, which puts you down pretty quickly. We withdrew to the two other tanks, but managed to protect the Fourth Division.”
Gould was operated on and sent back into battle within a week. Doctors weren’t able to remove the bullet. He would only find this out 25 years later after he suffered a broken collarbone while bicycling on Gouin Blvd.
Gould also took part in the Battle of the Bulge offensive, and was wounded again, this time in a shell attack. One of his crew members was killed trying to save him. Once out of the hospital, Gould was sent to Buckingham Palace to receive the Military Cross medal from King George V on behalf of his unit, for the valour the soldiers had shown.
Gould, 90, would go on to have five children. He has lived in Dorval for 61 years.
“You were thrust into a role that was more important and more senior, and with more being depended upon you by people, than you ever had even thought about in your life, and you were trying to do the honourable and correct thing on time and smartly. Not for self-aggrandizement, but just to get the darn job done because that was what was needed.
“It wasn’t just the soldiers and seamen and airmen — it was the whole civilian population. They were working four shifts a day to put the ammunition together. In Montreal, they were producing tanks down at the Angus shops, producing antiaircraft guns. There was an ammunition-stuffing place in the east end. Grandmothers were knitting socks, ladies were becoming nurses in record numbers. Some of them didn’t come back. ...
“I see Remembrance Day as an acknowledgement of the gift that 118,000 Canadians have given us.
“We have, and you must know it, probably the best country in the world. The enemies have been taken care of so that future generations could have a life that is unparalleled elsewhere.
“So should they not be recognized and given homage for giving up their lives — 118,000 of them — so that we and the others around us can live life to the fullest?”