John Richardson’s story will be featured Nov. “I can’t think of a more needed activity than to celebrate - if you can call it celebration - both wars, the first war and the second war, when you consider the number, of the thousands, of the best that Canada could produce, who fell,” he said. Now 94, Richardson says Remembrance Day is a crucial time to remember the men who never returned home. He studied business administration at the University of Toronto and worked as a salesman for General Motors, retiring in 1980. “When you see the faces of the happy people, like we did with the Dutch, and a good many Italians - it was worth the price.”Īfter the war, Richardson returned home to Oshawa, where he married and had three children. “I think all of us have that sense - that we accomplished something,” Richardson said. A shell landed almost on top of him in the middle of the night, shrapnel tearing into his arm.īut for all the losses he saw, Richardson said he is proud of Canada’s wartime efforts. Richardson was wounded himself in the winter of 1944 in the hills east of Florence. “That was one death that I can’t forget.” Such a bloody waste,” Richardson said, tears running down his cheeks. “He was the finest guy you ever want to meet. Hawkins was shot in the thighs, and he bled to death before help could arrive. “I hadn’t gone three or four bloody minutes, and a shot came in and killed him, right where I’d left him,” Richardson said. He remembers the last time he spoke with his friend Bud Hawkins, a 22-year-old from Ontario, standing in a field near Lake Trasimeno. One death stays with Richardson to this day. More than 76,000 Canadians fought in Italy, and almost 6,000 were killed. Richardson’s Ontario Regiment fought in the same brigade as the Three Rivers Regiment from Quebec and the Calgary Tank Regiment. But that didn’t stop him from joining the tank corps.įor the first year of the war, Richardson battled bugs - first mosquitoes in northern Ontario, escorting German prisoners of war to Espanola, and later earwigs on England’s Salisbury Plain, his first overseas posting.Īfter a year at Britain’s prestigious Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, Richardson finally arrived in Italy, where Allied troops had gained a foothold in Axis-occupied Europe. Richardson had only ever seen tanks in photographs from the First World War. “I don’t think I could look myself in the face had I missed it,” he said. When Canada declared war on Germany in September 1939, 20-year-old Richardson leapt at the chance to serve. It was a long way from home for a boy raised outside Weston. Richardson would continue north to meet them, fighting the Germans all the way to the Netherlands. Less than 48 hours after Rome fell, Canadian troops landed on Normandy’s beaches on D-Day. He ordered his tanks to take cover in a hollow behind the airport’s burned out buildings and shot back, biding time through the day until his men could retreat under cover of darkness.īut the Allies would prevail, cracking the Hitler line and pushing on to capture Rome on June 4, driving past the ancient city in the middle of the night. “We were left to hold that whole area, out in the bloody flat airport,” Richardson said. Their commander killed, the infantry melted away, and the Canadian tanks found themselves alone, exposed on an airport runway. “They could put a hole through us like nothing, like cheese.”Ĭaught off guard, a lightly armoured vehicle carrying the infantry’s colonel and officers was obliterated in minutes. “We didn’t know the bloody things were there,” Richardson said. German engineers had dug a fortified line of Panther turrets into the grassland, fearsome long-barreled 75 mm guns reinforced with steel and concrete. Then the fog lifted, and the shooting began. Scouts had told them the area was lightly held. Richardson’s tanks were supporting British infantry. “We’re in fog so dense that I was probably touching the tank in front of me and I couldn’t see it,” Richardson said.Īhead of them lay the Hitler Line - the last German defences before Rome. Richardson, a tank commander, was riding in an M4 Sherman, driving north toward Rome in the early morning. John Richardson had never seen fog so thick.
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