Audio: Carvil J. Ritcey, "Our Worst Engagement"

The Smell of Death was Everywhere

Carvil James Ritcey, Army

Carvil Ritcey landed on the beaches at Normandy in a landing craft

like this one. June 6, 1944. Caption credit - The Memory Project 

"But nothing stopped the shoreward movement. While men fell, and while

the morning air shook with the cacophony of exploding shells, the landing craft

methodically went about the job of disgorging men on to the sands of Normandy.”  

Credit for above quote and photo - G. Milne, RCN photographer (from H.M.C.S.) 

Introduction: One will find hundreds of audio files related to the experiences of men and women associated with many branches of Canadian Armed Forces and Canadian organizations (e.g., Red Cross, CWAC, etc.) at The Memory Project. Most audio files are accompanied by authentic WW2 photos and a written transcript.

Please link to an audio file at The Memory Project (Page 95) related to the activities of Carvil James Ritcey, Army, that touch on his memories related to his war time experiences in France after disembarking from an LCI(L), manned by Canadians in Combined Operations, in Normandy, June 1944.

A portion of Carvil James Ritcey's transcript follows:

When I got out of hospital, my regiment had moved to Italy and because I was F5 when I got out of hospital, they left me back in England. So instead of going with the Royal Canadian Regiment, I rejoined the Highland Light Infantry, and on D-Day, I went ashore with the Highland Light Infantry. We had quite an event there for the first month, because we were in combat practically every night. If you were lucky to get back, you were doing great. On July the 8th, we had our worst engagement. It was called 'Bloody Buron'.

[More about Bloody Buron can be found at Canada at War.]

We lost about two hundred and eighty men and practically all our officers in that engagement. Our unit was with the 12 Platoon of the Highland Light Infantry. We were attacked by eight tiger tanks, and if it hadn't been for the help of a self-propelled seventeen pounder, we would have been eliminated. They knocked out three of the German tanks, and the rest retreated. So that was our worst engagement. Then we went on to the Falaise Gap, and at the Falaise Gap, our Canadian corps was roughly about a hundred thousand men, and we captured over three hundred thousand Germans. It was the worst scene I'd ever seen in my life. There was nothing but dead horses, dead Germans, and broken and crippled tanks all over the place. That was about the worst memory I had during the war, because the smell of death was everywhere.

Please link to Audio: Ronnie Taylor, Navy, Utah Beach, D-Day 1944