Veterans Interview - Ken Mott - 19 August 2003

I was with 17 Platoon, D Company, supposed to go on 17 Platoon's boat but just before we took off from the mother ship took me and Fred Pyle and we were to go on the Company boat, but it blew up.

Kornblum survived - in a steel box with a machine gun, and the officer, he'd already got the door down and he was standing on the beach, he got both eyes, his eyes were hanging down on his cheeks, and after the war he was head of the blind in Toronto

When we got back, I was told to join my regular platoon but there was no regular platoon left, they were all gone,

All the officers around us, they were dead in the first five minutes.

We were supposed to use bangalores to blow up the wire, but they were what blew up when they hit the boat, that's why they all died.

I lay on the beach there for quite a while, I fired now and again but most of the time I never saw who I was firing at.

John Foote, who got the VC, he wasn't supposed to go, the Colonel told he he couldn't go but he went anyway, he carried the bodies.

I had two holes through my coat and one through the crotch of my pants, but around 4:30 in the afternoon they told the guys who were in the assault landing craft, they were going to come in a take us off, one guy came in too fast and he too far on the beach, and we had to push him off...

I had to take the back of one guy and we were pushing and he got shot in the back, I don't know how because I was behind him.

We finally got on a boat, I got on another boat, it was meant for 30 men but there was about a hundred on there, with a shot of water coming up about 20 feet in the air through the bottom...

A lot of them starting jumping off the back, and by this time the boat had floated out bout 50 feet and in 20 feet of water, and I managed to squeeze out but I couldn't let go because I can't swim... but then one of them life preservers came sliding down the deck and I grabbed it but I couldn't get it on and the Sgt Major came down and he helped me, and I heard he got killed later.

I tried to paddle out but the tide was coming in and it was a losing battle.

And I saw they were shooting where the crowds were and I kind of went by myself, when a bullet came by my ear... and this went on about five times, and I had a sniper...

I made out a few times like he hit me. I was out about 350 yards out. but I couldn't stop paddling because I was drifting in and I didn't want to give him a better shot.

Altogether he fired 24 shots at me. but I drifted out of his view, he was firing from this slot, and it was the only thing that saved me. but in a way he was the one that saved my life, after I started counting.

I couldn't figure out how he kept missing but I didn't figure it out until too long ago, but there was a wind blowing but he couldn't feel it where he was and he didn't think to allow for it.

I kept paddling out and there was this pier and this Englishman came along and said he was dead tired and could he rest on my life preserver.

He asked me if I thought they were taking any prisoners, I said no, there was a Red Cross boat and it was sunk.

So he says what do you think we should do and I said it's getting close to 7 p.m. and I thought they'd come out in boats and shoot us, didn't want us to get away under darkness so I said we might as well go in.

And we did, and I walked about two steps and fell flat on my face, I wasn't used to walking.

And one of the German soldiers was about 50 feet away, and he told us to stay down there but the stones were hot and so bout after 10 minutes I got up to walk, and he told me to go to the cliffs.

I had a bar of chocolate, they gave us, and I began to eat and a soldier came by and asked me to put a bandage on, I put my chocolate down on a rock, and I proceeded to bandage him and got the bleeding pretty well stopped, and I ate my chocolate bar, and it wasn't till that night till I realized I ate the other half of that chocolate bar and my hands were covered in blood, and it never fizzed on me at all.

They took us to the hospital and they took that famous photograph and the guy in front of me was Sharpe and his guts were hanging out and an hour later he died they told me and the picture was taken by a German officer.

They took us to a factory and the next day they marched us down to the trains, 40 to a car, and I saw Fred Pyle, and I helped hold him up and we hobbled down together and get into the box cars.

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