Showing results for "Oral History" in Military

When 3 Para began their assault under cover of darkness on Mount Longdon in June 1982, nobody knew what to expect. The three platoons of B Company each approached the mountain silently, treading carefully through a series of defensive minefields. But following an explosion, fighting quickly escalated with shocking speed and severity, resulting in some of the bloodiest close hand fighting, terrible injuries and shocking loss of life experienced by British troops since the Korean war.

"After the battle, we picked up a German soldier who had been wounded. He had been shot in the leg with a .50-caliber bullet, and had lain out overnight in this freezing, subzero weather. Both of his arms and both of his legs were frozen stiff as a board. He begged us to shoot him. I couldn't do it. I asked for a volunteer. But these battle hardened soldiers would not volunteer. One soldier lit a cigarette and held it to his lips. Another soldier brought him a hot cup of coffee and held it so he could get coffee until we got the litter jeep up there...."

Hal Mapes was a waist gunner on a B-17, and was one of only two men to survive the collision of two bombers in the sky over Chartres, France. As a POW, he took part in the 80-plus day march across Germany near the end of the war. "Best diet I was ever on," he would say more than 50 years later. "We didn't have anything to eat."