Hautie Crick - Phosphorus bullets

Transcript

There was a bit of action down on that road there, I said, on that map that I've got.

The Germans were, there was a caravan there and we saw that and there were a few trucks and they were running backwards and forwards to this caravan.

So anyway, I don't know who give the order but somebody gave the orders that 'Open fire.' So anyway we started shooting off in there and everything and these Germans were still running backwards and forwards.

So anyway, I was posted with another chap behind a bit of a brick wall.

We found a box of ammunition, I don't know, this ammunition, I don't know who left it there or what but anyway I had a look at it and so forth and he had a look.

We said 'These bullets look like ours.' Our size, you know, on the gun. So anyway we loaded them up in the gun and we fired them back at them, at the Germans.

We didn't know on the end of the bullet was a little ring of holes and inside that there was phosphorus. That phosphorus when the bullet split it burnt. It burnt your hand or anything or wherever the bullet went.

So at any rate, it was a few days later on there was orders came back down from, I don't know, Geneva or somewhere, came back to the Battalion. We were ordered not to use those bullets. We didn't give a bugger because we were short of ammunition ourselves.