Topic: The Field of Battle
Bayonet Fighting
"I never saw a bayonet fight. And I never took part in one. I've walked a long way. I've been shot at with a variety of deadly weapons. And I was wounded in the Hitler Line. But I don't know anything about bayonet fighting."
The Long Road Home; The Autobiography of a Canadian Soldier in Italy in World War II, Fred Cederberg, 1984
For the next few days, with Scotty watching curiously, Albert and I hammered home our points. "One more thing," Albert said, "most of you guys think your weapon is your key to survival. Well, it isn't. And don't laugh when I tell it's your friggin' shovel. Don't go anywhere without it." He grinned crookedly when the seated men laughed. "Hell," he held it up, "it can be a weapon, if that's all you got."
"What about when you're bayonet fightin'?" a round-faced kid named Robbie Crawford asked in a high-pitched voice. "Whatta you do then? Just stick an' jab like the pamphlet says?"
I pointed to a sallow-skinned one-time Loyal Edmonton private whose thin lips barely masked a perpetual small grin. "You tell 'em about bayonet fighting, Alex, you came in with the Eddies 'way back in Sicily in July of '43."
Alex Greenwood, a thirty-one-year-old general store owner, father of three and graduate of the University of Alberta, laughed lazily.
"I never saw a bayonet fight. And I never took part in one. I've walked a long way. I've been shot at with a variety of deadly weapons. And I was wounded in the Hitler Line. But I don't know anything about bayonet fighting."
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