They Gave Me a Tank

My parents, my mom especially, have always taught me to take Remembrance Day very seriously. My Grandfather on my mom's side was a tank driver who fought at Dieppe and was taken prisoner. I had always heard that he had kept a journal while he was at war, but have only read part of it. For what I have gotten through so far it is very apparent that he was an amazing writer. There were many others who fought besides my Grandfather, many who died. But, there were many who lived the rest of their life under the shadow of the war, like my Grandfather. It is him that I think of every Remembrance Day. Thank you Grandpa. Below I have a very large excerpt from the beginning of his journal.


Time And Future
Time hangs heavy on the idle hand,
You’ve heard that said before.
By thinking not, and caring less,
Because it really matters not.
We lived our lives – enchanted,
Loved – were loved – Drank wine from priceless pewter
And troubled not to recon with the future.
And then one day we tasted of the other sort
Of vintage, not so pure or proven
The kind that sears the brain and burns the heart,
Yet chills, and almost Kills the very soul
And leaves you – sort of standing all alone, without
A friend – without hope
And TIME the healer of all pain and sorrow
Says this must end, and shows to you
A different morrow, but better still I think,
A brighter future
With life served straight, in priceless pewter.
Oh yess, times change as they must change
Just like the ebb and flow – there’s none can stop it.
And now we’ve TIME to meditate upon
The things we’ve done – and should have done.
But TIME will come again one day.
And what we’ll do there’s none can say.
But I think we’ll love – be loved.
Drink wine from priceless pewter
And trouble not to recon with the future.
- Sgt Forbes Patterson P.O.W.

They Gave Me a Tank – Troop Ten, Ed Bennet was in Command.
Eve of Aug. 18, 1942.
Even as we drifted silently from the harbour an atmosphere of catastrophe seemed to hover about us. I sat as eager and careworthy as the rest of them, on the turret of my tank drinking orange ale with the rest of the crew. “Bloody” was ready for the battle, a mighty monster of steel, even amid the crowded deck of soldiers, she seemed to offer a challenger unbeatable.
The twilight was fastly fading but still you could see the people waving to us from the shore, hundreds of them. “Of course no one knew anything about it” So our officer told us. Soon the shore grew dimmer and in the calm of the channel we could see scores of other boats with us. What a surprise the Jerry was going to have. Soon the drone of voices died down as men in their blankets lay down to get the much need rest they would require in a few hours. I think that very few of them slept. They probably were trying to picture what they would be doing at dawn in the gloom that confronted them. I think a lot of them prayed for the first time in their lives. And most of all dreamed of their homeland, and ones dear to them. Some wondered if they would be afraid, others felt they wouldn’t return, others felt a guardian over them, others didn’t know, they were the victim of circumstances and confined their odds to fate.

Aug.19/42.
Early in the morning I awoke in my hammock by the stir and bustle on board. We would not land for a couple of hours, but in the distance could be seen streaks of tracer filling the sky. No Guy Faulks day ever competed with the picture that was being set up on the French Coast. “Boy! Are we giving them Hell,” said Tosh as he stood on his tank. We stowed our hammocks and blankets on the T.L.C. and attempted to eat a bit of breakfast, The effort was useless. I didn’t take much notice but I doubt if anyone did eat much. They were better than I if they did. The excitement of it all was too much, a fellows stomach just seemed to have a sickly feeling and speared to be right at the back of your throat.
Soon we were getting the first news of the battle on the wireless. Some troops had landed and met no opposition for about five minutes. Then they were getting action and plenty of it too. Now and then the opparator was having trouble in receiving anything at all. While privates and sappers downed their equipment and shouldered many a weighty rook sack, And planes roared to and fro overhead amidst a distant rumble on the coast, we crawled into our tanks and warmed the engines. Carefully trained eyes scanned the instrument panels, anxiously satisfying themselves that all was well. Soon we would feel that familiar crunch as steel met gravel and sand. Then the ramp would be down. Nothing must fail then.
Now the roar of battle was becoming greater. I could discern the familiar rat-tat-tat of the M.G.s and above all the mighty blast of shot and shell. Then the familiar Pom-pom-pom aboard us was going. The Sgt. informed us over the I.C. that we were getting close. Then the T.L.C. was lurching to the tune of the Gerry shells. “We may have to evacuate” said the Sgt. “they are firing on us.” Then came the most hectic time of the battle, the boat gave a mighty lurch, we had been hit. A shell had come through the side and set the first tank afire, wounding the officer (BENET). The gunner exclaimed wildly as the Co-driver and I began to think of evacuating. “Get down” Hurry” This is war” We’ve got a man wounded.” As my comrades extinguished the fire, my one ambition was to be able to see what was going on! Ausey and I were as rats in a trap. Then as the Gunner re-handed me an empty fire extinguisher, came the familiar forward lurch with the grating of steel against gravel. I knew the ramp was already down. As my trembling foot pressed down on the clutch pedal, and my hand automatically grasped the change lever, my nerves steadied. I viewed the rev-counter mounting five hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand. Then came the familiar words. “Driver Advance!” My foot gradually released the clutch pedal and I knew we were rolling off the T.L.C. It was not my hand but one of invisibility that guided me as my fingers touched the tiller bar. “A little left! Steady! Driver right!” Something was making me calm and stealing my nerves. Perhaps after all it was the hand of Fate. I felt Bloody proudly sway to and fro as she mounted the ramp and then defiantly plunge down onto the beach. Over the wire came, “Driver halt, blow your cortex.” Calmly amidst the din of the already raging battle I grasped the plug that would blow the water tight sealing and open my vision hatches onto the scene off Hell.
What I saw I have not enough words to describe but I shall always remember. These two poems are enough.

The Battle of Dieppe
The Calgary Reg’t (Tank) Aug.19, 42.

I You’ve heard many a story
Of battles of glory and fame
So now I’ll tell you a story
Of a battle much the same.

II The channel was lovely that evening
As boats sailed out on the blue
Some of the boys sat dreaming
Their fate they never knew.

III The soft breeze off the ocean
Seemed to refresh you for ever more
As you saw in the dim light of evening
The last of England’s shore.

IV Time seemed to fly so swiftly
As we sailed along the deep
Some of the boys were singing
Few were fast asleep.

V Just as the sky was dawning
The sky seemed to turn blood red
We all sat looking and listening
To the roar of the planes overhead.

VI For we were on an invasion
Of a town on the coast of France
We were told of its easy taking
The Jerries didn’t have a chance.

VII We sat on our Tanks quietly waiting
With radios tuned on for a sound
Soon we heard them saying
Some tanks had landed in France.

VIII It was soon our time to get going
So into our Tanks we got
Soon of the boats we went rolling
While Jerry was making it hot.

IX The sight my eyes first saw
As we landed that terrible day
God but I’ll never forget
As I turned to look away.

X So many lives seemed wasted
As you looked at the tatored and torne
You thought of the things you hated
As you fought on that terrible day.

XI Ten hours we fought like devils
Ten hours hardly able to breath
Amid smoke and the roar of explosions
While above the sky seemed to scream.


XII With the guns in our Tanks still roaring
We were told it was time to retreat
With hope our spirits went soaring
As we returned to that hell on the beach.

XIII It was then that we saw how hopeless
Was our chance of returning home
For our boats were sinking and burning
While a few were headed back home.

XIV We waited for our rescue
On that blood soaked beach at Dieppe
The R.A.F. seemed missing
As Jerry bombed and straffed us to death.

XV We looked and hoped for the sight of the Navy
“The Boats” they said, would come soon
Minutes seemed to drag like ages
It was hell on the beach that afternoon.

XVI Swiftly the tide came nearer
The wounded we couldn’t help
We knew we must soon surender
We were trapped in that terrible hell.

XVII After the guns stopped roaring
While planes still dived overhead
Jerry marched us away from the seashore
Strewn with wounded and dying and dead.

XVIII The Huns shot many a soldier
As we surrendered that day at Dieppe
For they couldn’t hold their hands up
Their shoulders seemed filled with lead.

XIX But now we can say to each other
The few that came through that day
Good work you Canadian Tankers
You gave Jerry Hell at Dieppe

XX Some unloyal person had sold us
Jerry had found out our plan
For days he had waited our coming
And boasted we never could land.


XXI Those that are left shall remember
We do not ask for fame
We gave all we had for our Country
God knows we’ll do it again.

XXII Those that fell in battle
Shall be showered with honor and fame
Their names shall live forever after
For the cause and the life they gave.
- Cpl. J.K.Nash M25266

BATTLE OF DIEPPE
Second Canadian Division

I It was the eighteenth day of August in the year of forty two
We sailed away from England
Though no man knew where to
We had received no orders
No friends were there to see us leave
The second Canadian division
With the blue patch on their sleeve.

II Early the next morning
When everything was still
We saw those tracer bullets
Coming to us from the hill
But we kept right on sailing
And no man will ever forget
The morning that we landed
On the beach there at Dieppe.

III The enemy were waiting
And had taken up their post
We met a hail of bullets
As we landed on the coast.

IV But every man landed
Or at least he tried
Though many of them were wounded
And many more of them died.

V It was early in the morning
When we started in to fight
The mortar shells came at us
From the front, the left and the right.

VI They shelled from the cliff
And bombed us from the air
But the second Canadian Division
Were not so easily scared.

VII We fought hard for nine hours
From five A.M. till two
Our losses were terrific
But there was nothing we could do.

VIII The Navy came to help us
But their boats they couldn’t land
So at last we had to surrender
At Dieppe on the sand.

IX What is left of us are prisoners
Beneath a foreign flag
Here in the heart of Germany.
In this Camp they call Stalag.

X Many of our comrades fell
But we never will forget
They gave their lives bravely fighting
In the battle of Dieppe.

XI When this war is over
And once again we’re free
To our homeland we’ll be sailing
To the land of Liberty.


XII Though many have a battle scare
No man will er’e forget
The morning that we landed
On the French coast at Dieppe.


I felt strange, oh so strange as I sat by my tank on the beach. The din of the battle was over but for the odd stray mortar shell about us, and a few stray cracking bullets overhead. The sea was calm, oh so calm, not a ripple disturbed it. A lone T.L.C. sat with her nose out of the water some distance out trying her best not to flounder. The sky was heavenly blue in the bright sunshine. Was this after all to be the end? Would they come and shoot the lot of us, or send down another hail of mortar and bullets. Yes perhaps this was going to be the end. After all it would not be so hard to die. But what would those back home be thinking. Such a cruel world this, to bring such sorrow upon them. But no somehow I didn’t feel as if I were going to die. Yes! That was it we were going to be prisoners of war.
Just then I awoke to a series of activities. Men were throwing away and destroying their arms, wearily rising as if in a dream and staggering up the beach. Down the beach I beheld a group of men with a white flag. Unconsciously I undid the buckle that secured my belt and holster. It dropped heavily into the sand.
Then I turned my back to the beach of hell, and walked to the promenade. Past dear old “Bloody” for the last time. Battered and beaten a bit, but nevertheless the same old “Bloody”.
They gathered us up and after searching us marched us away to the hospital as the R.A.F. still were straffing and bombing the town. At the hospital the wounded and injured were taken from us, after we were all again searched and counted we began a march. To where, no one knew.