Memoirs of Gordie Bannerman - World War II

• Stuck in a snowdrift on HWY#43 four miles west of Neville Sask. about midnight, January 1946. Try as we might with shoveling and pushing we could not get out of the snow drift. It looked like we would be here for the rest of the night. Paul and Mary Wells and I were warm enough clothed but their Aunt was from Florida and the nephew was a Marine just returned from the Pacific. Neither of them were clothed for warmth, so the decision was to run the car motor at intervals, and while the motor was running to provide us with heat. We would take turns in digging out the exhaust pipe so we would not get carbon monoxide poisoning.

  I was not too worried and in my army great coat and battle dress and wool shirt and wool underwear was quite warm and would have curled up and went to sleep. Paul kept saying to Mary do not let Gordie go to sleep. Well his intentions were good and even with only running the car motor at intervals the gas tank went dry.This was a about 5AM. Outside temperature about -30 Fahrenheit and a strong west wind piling the snow deeper around us. If this had been earlier years there would have been at least four or five families on farms within a couple of miles now no one and here I was within two miles of our farm and stuck in a drift.Of course nobody was living there either. So we just cuddled a little closer and waited for day light. When it was light Paul and his nephew walked to the nearest farm folk which was the Hamm family. Mr Hamm came to the rescue with a team of horses and a sled. Mary, the Aunt, and I clambered through the drifts to the sled and back to the Hamm farm house. Here hot coffee, a bowl of soup and we were ready to face the day. Thankful that we did not freeze in the drift.

  I thought I had one up on Orme as we had gone through the war together so when we were taken back into Neville I saw Orme and said I have one to tell you we nearly had a tragic ending in a snow drift last night. His answer so did I! Glenn Davis and Orme were coming from a dance at Pambrun on the east side of Neville and they were stuck in a drift as we were.

  The time came that I had better get out to the coast and finally get home. We had our regimental crest rings presented to us as I had mentioned before. We had been welcomed like heroes. Why? We thought we were the same. Before leaving Neville I called a school friend Lucienne who had written to me during the war and before the war we had gone to the old prairie school called Titanic.

  On the train to Swift Current I had the company of Bob Murphy a great story teller and a homesteader like my Dad. When overseas Orme and I used to tell the Bob Murphy stories and when we ran out of them we made them up. I stayed in Swift Current that night and the CPR transcontinental train would have been west bound about midnight and I was on it without any of the other battery members. I was on my way to my folks. I checked in with the sleeping car porter and it was into my bunk and soon asleep to the JACK"S and SIX"S of the wheels truly on my last leg of the journey that started almost six years ago. The circle was almost complete. GOING HOME .