Doug Roy Steeves

After about two or three days in Sicily [Italy], the fighting got pretty severe and it was the same on the landing were both fairly easy but they were pretty rough fighting after that. Like Ortona [Italy, fierce battle between German paratroopers and Canadian infantry and armour from 20-28 December 1943, noted for its close-quarters combat] and Cassino [township in southern Italy, location of the Battle of Montecassino from 17 January 1944 to 18 May 1944], they were pretty grim, pretty near wiped our division [1st Canadian Infantry Division] out.

At Ortona, in November and December, it rained all the time. Everything, we were bogged down in mud, the tanks couldn’t move and that made it so much rough. And the weather got quite cold too and a lot of times you had no shelter, you were soaking wet, cold. Yeah, the weather didn’t cooperate very nice.

The Germans, they put up quite a fight to hold Cassino, because it was, once Cassino, the road was kind of open to Rome. And our, I know the Vandoos [Royal 22e Régiment], we supported the Vandoos [Royal 22e Régiment]regiment, our battery when they wanted artillery fire. And I know they were about three or four days up waiting, they could have walked into Rome but it was the orders I guess for the Americans to take it and we were up at Rome, South African armoured regiment relieved us and then we went into a rest area down at Piedmonte [region in northeast Italy, capital Turin]. And we had quite a long rest then.

They put us in a rest, we were taken out of, quite a ways back and there was no fighting or anything. I think we were out for about a month and a half pretty near down there and we just done a lot of, not much of anything. A little training and we got our equipment, we’d lost a lot of that, was to replace and stuff. We got ready for the next and then after that, we went over to the Florence front [Arno Line, set of German defences established around Florence, fighting in the area in July 1944], but we never went into action. And then when we come back, that’s when the Gothic line [last major set of defences set up by the Germans in northern Italy, multiple battles between 25 August to 17 December 1944] started. That’s where I got wounded, up at Coriander Ridge [Coriano Ridge, Canadians successfully attack ridge from 3 to 12 September 19 1944 despite heavy fighting].

We were bombed one night and they dropped down the personal bombs [also known as butterfly bombs, a type of German cluster bomb]. There was three killed and about five of us were wounded. Damaged a lot of our vehicles. Really, after I was in the hospital for quite a long time after that.

I done three months I think in the hospital in Italy and then December, it was 1944, September the 4th I think when I got wounded. I was looking through some stuff I had here and I was in the hospital about three months. I landed back in England in the hospital in December 1944. When I come out of the hospital, they categorized me, I think I was down, I couldn’t return to my unit in Holland. Because I was switchboard operator, I had that training, they kept me, instead of sending me back to Canada, they kept me back in England for seven or eight months. So I didn’t get home until yeah, it was 1945 I got home for Christmas. But I spent four Christmas overseas.