World Battlefronts: NOTHING TO SPEAK OF

The Dieppe story of Corporal Joseph A. Gregory, 42, as told to TIME CorrespondentB. T. Richardson in Ottawa last week:

My buddy, Silver Stewart, we worked together, and my brother Fred was with us some of the time. Stew would kick in a door while I covered it with my tommy gun. Stew sure kicked in them doors. Jeeze, he was a good guy. Then he took a wounded man down to the beach and I lost him. He got hit and died on the last boat going back to England. I worked on alone from 8 to 11 o’clock. Jeeze, Stew and I got a couple of Germans that were waiting in a doorway with grenades for some of our guys who were bringing down a batch of prisoners. Stew let one have it with his rifle and I plastered the other with my tommy gun. Same old Jerry, he don’t fight so good when you get up to him.

About 11:45 a.m. I was half way up a ridge near the town looking for two platoons of C company which we had lost. I heard the orders shouted for evacuation. I went back to the beach. There was an assault boat stuck, so I ran out to help push it off. A ricocheted bullet smacked me on the forehead, knocking me into the water. I couldn’t see out of one eye. But the boat got away all right.

Jeeze, there was a lot of stuff flying around. I got on another landing boat, but it sunk in a few minutes. I swam out to this boat, kicking off my tunic, and caught hold of a rope. There was a guy hanging to each of my legs and I couldn’t move. I was pretty goofy myself by then. The Jerries were firing at us from the top of the cliff and lots of the fellows were getting wounded all over again.

I let go that boat and made for a motor gunboat. Mac pulled me aboard, that’s Sergeant Major McEvoy, a grand guy. He told me my eye was gone and he bandaged my forehead. We got orders to transfer to a destroyer and Mac practically carried me up those ropes. I was pretty weak. He put me in the sick bay and said: “You’ll be all right now, Joe.” Then we got dive-bombed and a big hole was blown in the sick bay. The blast blew everyone around and I just about passed out. Mac got blown to pieces. The water poured in and the backwash washed me right out through that hole. Another gunboat came steaming in and picked me up. They laid me beside an Oerlikon gun and the row was awful. Jeeze, that gun left me in a daze, and I passed out. About 4 p.m. I woke up, seeing the top of a cliff. I asked one of the gunners: “Holy Jesus, we’re pretty near home?” He said: “Home be b— we’re still at Dieppe.”

I thought I’d die. That boat had to stay to pick up survivors and give protection to the convoy, and there I was lying on the deck. The navy came in then. Jeeze, they were good. Then we pulled out, and had a few engagements going home, but nothing to speak of.