Audio: Nelson Langevin, RCNVR and Comb. Ops, N. Africa

"Lots of Snipers in North Africa" November, 1942

HMS Glengyle, Landing Ship Infantry, Large; LSI(L) in port

Photo Credit - Roland Black, found at The Memory Project

Introduction: 

Readers 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 WWII photos and a written transcript.

The audio file presented below relates to Nelson Langevin, a former member of RCNVR and the Combined Operations organization. He began serving his country in 1941, trained in Halifax, and travelled to the UK (e.g., HMS Quebec near Inveraray, Scotland) to learn how to handle landing crafts before participating in the Dieppe Raid, the invasion of N. Africa in 1942, and Operation Husky (invasion of Sicily) in 1943.

Please link to the audio file of Nelson Langevin at The Memory Project.

The transcript contains the following details and more:

"But what we were carrying is a bulldozer and some of these rolls of wires.  Now, we were supposed to be there before the trucks and the tanks and that were supposed to be.  So they could put this wire on the sand, so they wouldn’t get stuck in the sand.  That was the idea."

"But this bulldozer, I remember this fellow who was an American, and I guess he was nervous, I suppose, but he kept breaking the cable.  This wire was on a sleigh, a wooden sleigh, and it was attached to the bulldozer. But when he’d leave, he’d keep jerking.  Yeah, he did keep jerking and that would break the wire.  And I remember, of course, they had showed us how to splice, and I remember going underneath there and fixing that wire.  I think I fixed it three times.

"And my hands were all bloody, you know, from trying to hurry up as fast as I could.  And I’d keep stabbing myself in the fingers and stuff like that.  But that didn’t matter.  I wanted to get out of there."

Photo of three Canadians in Combined Operations with wire mesh and machine guns in their landing craft:

Chuck Rose (left), Al Kirby, Lloyd Evans. S. England, circa 1943

Nelson Langevin and myself, G. Harrison, taken at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, 2014:

 

N. Langevin served as volunteer at War Museum bookroom.

Nelson Langevin passed away on February 18, 2018.

Please link to Audio: Robert Garand, Navy, D-Day in an LCI(L)

Unattributed Photos GH