Ronald Allaire (Primary Source)

Transcript

I was trained as a medic.  I was an infantryman, but I was medic trained.  And when I wasn’t running around with the rifle companies and going out on the grenade ranges and things like that, I would work in the regimental aid post which was where the sick parades and all that sort of thing went in the mornings and that sort of thing.  But when they, if they had range work or any of that sort of thing, I would then go out with them in case something went amiss.

When an attack came on, a company attack for instance, Charlie Company [1 Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment] put in an attack and then my job was to follow out with the company.  We had a stretcher-bearer in each, almost in each section if we could do it.  They used to come back and I used to train them and then send them back up and then each fellow had a basic first aid course as such.  So they knew what to do if your buddy got winged and you could help him, well, you had an idea as to what you were doing.

So my job was to go there and as we were trying to take them out, if he went down, then I got to him and assessed the seriousness of the thing.  And you have to appreciate that you’re into a fighting situation so you can’t utilize your people to take people out and still fight that battle.

So it was a pretty tough situation for the guys to handle to get these people out because in some instances, depending on your situation, it would take anywhere from six to eight hours to get somebody out of the hill.  It was not an easy chore because you would have to, for instance, on Hill 355 [major position held by various Canadian battalions during the war, site of multiple significant battles], it was 355 meters high.  And it was like the Laurentian Hills in as much as they were hills with flat sides.  They were almost straight up.  So when you’re trying to get out of there, the fellow on the head end of the stretcher, for instance, would be carrying the stretcher with his hands at his ankles.  Where the fellow at the other end of the stretcher, his hand would be over his head trying to get someone out.

So you couldn’t go very far and then you were up to your knees in mud a lot.  So two steps ahead and one step back and then you would have to change these people around quite frequently because you can’t stay in that position very long.  And what I did is, I found a bunch of machine belts and made slings out of them and handed them to the guys to the best of our ability so that you could put it around your neck and over your shoulders and hook them on the stretcher so that if your hand slipped off or something like that, the sling would still hold it in position.

So that’s how we got people out, so as I say you would get hit at night and it would be daytime by the time you got back out.