Victor Vic Morrison

I was a crew commander in the tank for many years. There was five people in the tank; and you told the driver when to stop and where to go, things like that. During the war, we used to, if it was in a bad area, we slept under the tank at night. And I got up in the morning and moved around a little more. We started off with [Infantry Tank (IV) A22] Churchills [British heavy tank]. They were too large a tank and too awkward, so we were lucky to get [American M4] Sherman tanks. When we were in Italy, we were going through a wooded district; and I was a crew commander in the Sherman tank. I was resting myself, hanging onto the turret; and the driver hit a branch of a tree and knocked the lid down on my fingers, and took the ends of two fingers off. So that was one of the things I really remembered [about the] Sherman tank. And I also caught my foot in the turret one time and had to, it twisted my foot up badly; and I had to have my, go to the doctor and he checked my foot; and fixed it up for me, and it became okay. Well, I belonged to the [The King’s Own] Calgary Regiment [Royal Canadian Armoured Corps] and they were very fortunate. We didn’t have too many real strong battles against the enemy. And we were lucky to not, in our regiment, we [lost] very few tanks or soldiers, so we were very fortunate. Where some regiments, they lost a lot of soldiers, but we were fortunate, we didn’t.