My job was to blow up the gate

Interview with Mr Fred J. Bragnallo - continued -

He could talk perfect German, he was of good help to us, so we sent him to the major, Major Carrvel, he was the company commander. So he talked to him, but he let him go.  He says, “ get rid of him.”  But he wouldn’t leave, he stayed with us, so he had come beside with me, we were sitting on this bank in the morning, and I was a section leader at that time, this is when we found out everything about him, and he wanted to stay with us, so we let him stay.  He became a good interpreter for us and he ended up with a uniform too.  We taught him how to use a Stengun and everything. He helped us a lot, but he got too wild, you couldn’t trust him.  Once he interpreted, and he’d shoot them. His hatred was bad. I’ll tell you a story about him.  I hadn’t seen him until I got discharged and came to Canada.  He came to Canada, he got wounded, you see. The Canadian government had an immigrant, a Canadian soldier who was not supposed to be, not a Canadian citizen, and they didn’t know what to do with him, so they had him in the hospital here in Winnipeg, and finally the Legion helped him out and they got him Canadian citizenship, and he became a Canadian citizen. He was in university and graduated from the university of Manitoba, he continued his studies.  And then the last I heard, he was in Boston, he was a professor there and he committed suicide.  That was an odd thing that happened in that particular period. Right after that, we were committed to the Leopold canal, it’s on the border of Holland and Belgium, because our advance was going that way.  The reason for that was because of  the Scheld, we had a lot of fierce fighting in there, let me tell you. The 7th Brigade was to form a bridgehead across the Leopold canal.  They were going to attack to make a bridgehead, because there was a lot of Germans, don’t know the number of the German army that was in there, but there was a hold-up in there, and they had to be cleaned out because they were shelling Antwerp. They had to get supplies in through that area because they were going to put on the drive right  into Germany. So crossing the Leopold itself, we had to form this bridgehead, and our brigade, which consisted of the Winnipeg Rifles, the Canadian Scottish Regiment, and the Regina Rifle Regiment, formed the formed the 7th Brigade and the 3rd Division. We were in reserve, our battalion at that time, and the Canadian Scottish and the Regina Rifles were committed to go across first, which they did, they got across the canal, and they ran into real, real, real trouble. Then we were committed during the night in support of them.  A footbridge was made by our engineers so we could get across, and for 9 days we had a terrible battle in order to form this bridgehead. It would take me too long to tell you all the little stories that happened in the fighting there, because it was a rough go, there was a lot of casualties and we didn’t get any breathing room.  9th Brigade attacked form the flank and relieved our position.  The 9th consisted of the Chaudières, we used to called them the Chaudes for short, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Toronto, and the New Brunswick Regiment. They attacked from the north flank, that kind of relieved us, we formed the bridgehead, and the rest of the army passed through. There is one little story that I can tell you, that I was personally involved in, with machineguns on a corner of a crossroads, the shots were covering the road completely. The terrain was pretty wet in there, there was a white house across the road that the Gerries were in, and we were trying to get that, to take that, and for a long time we couldn’t get anywhere with it. Sgt Mouflier, he asked me to take 2 volunteers, and they’d give us covering fire, with smoke across the road, and to run across the road, and get to the building and try and get in.  Well, we did that, there was only one volunteer with me at that time, they gave us good covering, and the shelling of the 24 pounders were hitting the crossroads where the machineguns were, and our mortars were working on that. We ran across the road, over a fence and into the building, and this other guy,

he was a pretty fast fellow, he beat me to the door, actually, he went through the door, and there was a big living room window that was all smashed up, so I went through there, he went through the hallway, and he ran into the Gerries in the hallway itself, and they  gave up.  There were some civilians and Gerries in the basement, got them out of there.  We were holding up there for about 3 days, the snipers were sniping like crazy. We were hungry, and one morning, there was an orchard outside of the house, so I tried to get out there.  There was a pear tree about 25 feet from the building.  Our company had headquarters in there, for protection. I crawled out of the kitchen area, crawled out towards that pear tree, I wanted to snare a couple of pears off there, and as I’m reaching up for a pear, a sniper’s snipin’ at me, so I had to pull away, head down.  I went four times, and the bugger was really trying to nail me.  The last time I managed to catch one pear, and that was all I could do. That was in the village of Graafjan. The other thing I’d like to mention after that, after we left there, we had to go to another part of the Scheld, and that’s where I got wounded,  in Boerenhol, on October the 24th. I went to a field hospital in Belgium. From there, I was operated on there, the next day I was sent to England with a ship. I was at the Canadian general hospital there, for a little while, about a week, then a 9-day leave, then a refresher course, and then back to the unit.  I got hit in the arm and leg and shoulder, that’s all, they weren’t really serious wounds.  Got back there, went to 8th Platoon, and it was for the push, crossing the Rhine. The first thing we hit was quite a few big battles we had there, especially the Mooijland wood, a high piece of ground that we had to take before we could cross the Rhine. I had the platoon then, my officers got killed there and by this time I’m a sergeant, and we had a real, real rough time in the Mooijland wood, our casualties were really great. That was the Rhineland campaign, we really took a lot of casualties there, we lost 7 officers and 165 other ranks.  Anyway, why I’m saying is this, is that after that, we went into Germany, into Emmerich, after we got through the Hochwald.  After we got across the Rhine, the first city we had to take was Emmerich, and we were successful in there. I had a little skirmish myself as we were going along the road. On our right flank we got hit by some guys, small rear-guard action of the enemy.  Of course we were able to take them out, and we ended up near a cemetery.  We rested the battalion, were able to get through, and get back into Holland.  On the way back we got into quite a few battles, but they weren’t really big skirmishes.  And the first city that I was involved in was Deventer, and I led the Platoon. 
Our Winnipeg Rifles were on the west side, and the Regina rifles were on the other side and our brigade took that city.  It didn’t take too long, our casualties really weren’t that heavy. There’s one person that I became friends with, Jean Oltlammers in Deventer.
Every November 11th  on Armstice day, and also at Christmas, I get a card, and she always says, “We remember” and I think that’s really cute and nice, all those years she’s sent that to me.  We still keep in touch.  For years, she’s always sent the card to me in Canada, and all it says is “We Remember.”  Isn’t that something!? Fred Bragnallo My service number was H43201. After Deventer, there was an old gentleman, I cobbler, he made a pair of shoes for me, the same day we attacked the place.  I don’t know his name, but I still have those wooden shoes!  He made them right there for me, he did it fast too, he was a very nice gentleman. The last battle we had was in Appingedam, and then we had the ceasefire.  But in Appingedam, our last major battle, I lost my company commander, he got wounded and he died 2 days later, major Brian Robertson.  He was a very nice major, good leader, and a very young guy, too… It was unfortunate, he was the last man from our regiment to be killed in action.  He was a D-day man at Normandy, and he was the last to go. Murray Chisimore from Thunder Bay was killed on the 7th of April.  He’s at Holten cemetery there.