European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

It was an operation for covering people we wanted to rescue.

They weren't experts, they shot like idiots with the machine guns, they shot a lot,

whereas they were supposed to fire two or three shots and then alternate them

in order to keep the enemy under pressure while we were passing underneath.

Instead, we turned up running with the bullets from machine guns in our back.. These moments ...

The enemies were experts in war, whereas our guys were there but didn't know anything.

For instance, there was "Jack", a friend of mine, who died some time ago,

whose machine gun got stuck one time. So I told one partisan colleague:

"Drop the hand grenade!" and he dropped it without the safety catch, like a stone.

Throwing a hand grenade is not such an easy thing, you must count, you have to ...

You have to be prepared to drop a hand grenade,

you throw it and then you have to get cover, you need protection,

you can't just throw it like that because it goes up like this.

And then you have to estimate the distance, the force you use,

you have to throw it at least twenty or ten meters away, otherwise you get hurt yourself, too.

When I was a soldier I taught the guys from 1921 and '22 the war tactics,

how to shoot, how to be a sniper, how to throw hand grenades, because they were no experts.

Once you pull the catch you have to throw the hand grenade, otherwise you get blown up together with it.

The enemies were well prepared, the Germans were warlords, they were trememdous.

I remember one episode up here.