John H. Gorsline (Primary Source)

Transcript

My name is John Gorsline. And I was a member of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve and served primarily on the landing ship infantry, HMCS Prince David, which served at Normandy and the invasion of southern France and in the liberation of Greece. We had two doctors on board our ship, which meant during some of the actions, we would receive casualties from the operations. On D-Day we received about 56 of the early commandos who had landed from the beaches which were returned to the ship on landing craft coming out from the beaches. About four o'clock in the afternoon we were given high-priority orders back to Southampton with these casualties. And arrived back in Southampton about ten o'clock at night. There were 30 ambulances lined up on the docks and one berth that was open. And, as part of my duties, I happened to be one of the stretcher bearers taking the casualties off the ship for the ambulances. It was really miraculous that we were landing our Canadian troops early on D-Day. And by ten o'clock in the evening, we were already back in England with some of the first casualties. After several other trips to Normandy with support troops, the ship was sent to the Mediterranean. And on August the 15th took part in landing Free French Commandos on the coast of southern France. That was a very interesting operation because it occurred at night. Our troops landed at 01:00 in the morning before the main invasion. Again, we picked up casualties but this time, they were Germans. There had been a German destroyer along the coast which was sunk by one of our accompanying cruisers during the night. And early in the morning we picked up the badly burned Germans survivors. And, again, provided medical facilities. After the completion of southern France, we began the liberation of Greece in September of 1944, first landing British Commandos on the Island of Kithira. Shortly after the liberation, there were two Greek freedom fighters in Greece, one being a Communist Army and one being a Royalist Army. And a week or so after the liberation, which was a very happy period because of the starvation and everything in Greece. But then the two conflicting forces began a civil war. And as it turned out, we were directed to pick up airborne troops in Taranto, Italy and reinvade the Port of Piraeus which had been taken over by the Communists. We didn't know it at the time but I guess it was the beginning of the Cold War. There is one political aspect of my earlier training and so on. I joined the navy in Toronto and after only two or three days, was sent to Quebec City for our basic training. And at that time there were ships being sunk in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. And many French Canadian boys wanted to join their Navy. So, as it turned out, at that time in Canada, you could not be in either the Navy or the Air Force unless you were bilingual in English. It seems ironic that Canadians who have been here for 200 years couldn't join their armed forces to defend the country.