T. Garry Gould (Primary Source)

My name is Garry Gould. I'm the Honorary Colonel of the Sherbrooke Hussars Regiment, which is the successor to the wartime regiment which was called the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment. It started off as an infantry unit, but in 1941 in Newfoundland it was changed in the field to an armoured regiment, and Colonel Gordon came in with about twelve or thirteen others to change the regiment to armoured. We were equipped by D-Day with Shermans and had done considerable training in all sorts of equipment. I must say at this point that I was a reinforcement and I wasn't there. I was taking training separately through Huntington, Quebec, Camp Borden, Camp Gordon Head, out through Sussex and Halifax, on the Queen Mary across the Atlantic, down to Aldershot to the Armoured Training Unit Number 1. We were held as reinforcements and eventually, through New Haven and over to the Juno Beach, landed with the opera. By the way, the casualties in the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment for June were 31 killed and 36 wounded. In July, it had gone up to 32 killed and 69 wounded. And during the month of July, after serving with the Lord Elgin Regiment and being under fire and taking tanks forward to the 2nd Armoured Brigade, I was asked to stay with the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment as an officer commanding Troop Number 1. We entered training ourselves because we had to immediately prepare for the attack south from Caen towards Falaise. The first and most important battle I was in was the night attack in the operation called Totalise. About a million soldiers were involved that night - the whole Canadian army - and we went south under the cover of darkness starting at 11:00 pm in columns of tanks with kangaroos carrying infantry. We were with a Royal Canadian Regiment from Toronto, and overhead there was all sorts of covering artillery fire. By five o'clock in the morning we were on target and I was the lead tank, not wanting to put any others ahead of me, and got to the objective on time. And I believe we were the only group that did get to the objective as scheduled. Unfortunately, during the morning, while trying to defend the 4th Division Infantry who were coming up on our right flank, I was wounded and taken off to Bayeux to the hospital to recover from a bullet, which is still in my shoulder. But I got back quickly, within ten, fifteen days, to the regiment and was able to carry out the fall operations through Belgium and Holland. We were assigned to the south part of Nijmegen during the winter. Once again, on the 26th of February, we went into a night push breaking through the Siegfried Line. Unfortunately, I was knocked unconscious and shot several times and the loyal and wonderful crew, led by Jim Love, came to my assistance, and unfortunately Johnson was killed trying to pick me off the ground. During all this time I carried a pocket Bible. It was donated to us by the Bible Society representing the King. George VI was not only the King of the Commonwealth, but he was in fact Defender of the Faith. So we felt very close all the time to our leadership starting right at the top and we were very strong in our faith. Certainly, I felt very fortunate that I, although wounded a couple of times, made it through the war. And I hope that somehow Canada recognizes the effort put in, the lives offered, and the overall effect they had getting the job done.