Before he wore the uniform of the Royal Canadian Artillery, Claude Tucker had tested himself as a merchant seaman in the fireroom on crowded passenger liners S.S. Keewatin and S.S. Assiniboia of the Canadian Pacific Railway Lines.  He learned the hard life of a stoker along the route that spanned between Georgian Bay and Lake Superior.  Trading his sea legs for army boots in July 1942, he enlisted - for no particular reason, he stated - at almost twenty-nine.  He was much older than his counterparts and had considerable experience in a variety of occupations: farmhand, handyman, and truck driver before his year at sea.  Though he enrolled in the infantry, he was almost immediately transferred into the Royal Canadian Artillery.

The 23d Field Regiment came together at Petawawa and took shape in the mud and pine of Canadian camps before embarking for England in July 1943.  The Regiment had undergone a significant transformation: it converted to self-propelled artillery, marrying mobility to firepower with 25-pounders mounted on Ram tank chassis. At Chobham, Larkhill, and other camps across England, Tucker and his battery drilled relentlessly. For the next year, mornings blurred into evenings. Mud clung to boots, oil and grease to hands. They rehearsed fire missions until the act of laying a gun, loading a shell, and punching steel downrange was second nature.  By the next summer, Claude Tucker and the men of the 23d Field Regiment were seasoned, hardened, and ready. Claude, having risen to bombardier, also had a list of qualifications for all varieties of driver, driver mech, for tanks and motor vehicles and for instructing.

Their embarkation began slowing, with days of preparation, waterproofing, and waiting.  They had enough time for a period of leave that was granted, however as so many already exchanged their currency for Francs it was almost impossible to obtain Sterling again, but they managed to get out and many had their last pint in England for some time.

<h1 id="section0">NORTHWEST EUROPE</h1>

The Normandy beaches had already been taken by late July 1944, but the allies were still within proximity of the coast and the 23d Field Regiment did not have far to go from Juno Beach through hedgerows and blown-out farms. Under a warm sun, Tucker’s 83 Battery disembarked and went into position immediately toward a theater thick with chalky dust, smoke, noise, and uncertainty. South of Caen, German resistance remained fierce.

Their guns came into line near Ifs, as part of Operation Totalize – a breakout effort aimed at tearing through German positions along Verrières Ridge. Battery positions were established at the margins of hedgerows, just behind the infantry advance. Gunners slept in foxholes or beneath the belly of their vehicles. Mechanics worked by flashlight, clearing blocked recoil systems, rewiring radios, and greasing bogies in the dust. Fire missions rolled in, one after another, and the self-propelled 25-pounder Sextons thundered across the Norman countryside. Days bled into nights under the dull orange pulse of artillery flashes. At Roquancourt and Tilly-la-Campagne, the Regiment provided rolling barrages for advancing infantry, and when the Germans fired back, it came from hardened positions.

The self-propelled format allowed the 23d to reposition at speed – to keep up with armored thrusts or leapfrog to newly liberated sectors. They broke position at dusk, clattering along shattered roadbeds beneath blackout canvas, and were laid in by sunrise, camouflage nets flung over brush, radio check already humming. As the Regiment rolled forward through Caen, Falaise, and beyond, breakdowns were constant and the Sextons required frequent maintenance. The same dust that wore at the Sextons clung to every thread of their battledress and ground between teeth.  Meals came from tins, cold and congealed. Sleep, when it came, came with the percussion of distant barrages echoing through timber frames and dugouts.

By mid-August, the Allies closed the jaws of the Falaise Pocket. The 23d’s fire supported a punishing push through narrow lanes littered with overturned half-tracks, broken limbers, and bloated horse and cattle carcasses. The regimental guns fired into village perimeters, orchard treelines, and hedgerows thick with concealed fire. The stench was unforgettable – diesel, cordite, and decay filled the air.  German prisoners, dusty and stunned, filed past the barrels they had once tried to outrun.  Eastward across the Seine at Elbeuf, into the chalky heart of Normandy, across river crossings lashed together overnight, the 23d fired on the move, laying in briefly, clearing out, then chasing the next phase line.  Through Airaines and Abbeville, Tucker caught only glimpses of towns as they passed – church spires over rooftops, women waving from cellars, boys barefoot in lanes.

October rains turned gun parks into swamps. Sextons had to be winched into firing position. Tracks snapped, engines flooded, and drivers used hollowed-out jerry cans to bail out engine bays. The flat Dutch lowlands turned to soup. Tucker’s gun position outside Breskens was built atop wooden pallets, sandbags piled into makeshift revetments. More than once, the Regiment had to winch out their own vehicles with scrounged cable and mud up to the axle. Shells landed in shallows, geysering up water and peat. The Scheldt campaign was bitter, cold, and slow. With the guns anchored in waterlogged fields, the crews waited soaking and shivering.

At times they fired 200 rounds a day. At s’Hertogenbosch and along the Maas, they supported the infantry in house-to-house fighting with timed concentrations and close-in barrages. When the new year came, the Regiment pushed toward the Kusten Canal and the Rhine.  Isolated pockets of the Wehrmacht dug in, desperate and cornered.  In March, Tucker’s section supported operations at Friesoythe, then into Oldenburg, where the fields gave way to marshland and blown bridges. German sappers had left surprises which the sappers in the Canadian ranks followed close behind, and the 23d fired to cover them.

Each day brought new rumors of the close of the war, new fire plans, new map sheets, or new orders to move. There was little in the way of resupply and the men had learned to keep the guns in action with whatever they had on hand: salvaged sprockets from abandoned Wehrmacht tanks, wiring from downed trucks, parts stolen from their own rear echelon vehicles.

After nine months of action from Caen to the Kusten Canal, through rain and ruin, the 23d Field’s race across Europe ended. Only ten of the original twenty-four Sextons brought over from England were still serviceable. They had run them hard – through hedgerows and across river crossings, through the chalk dust of Normandy and the sodden flats of Holland – and most had given everything they had. Just three of the original gun barrels remained in use, the rest warped, worn smooth, or cracked from relentless use. Each surviving mount had fired upwards of 12,000 rounds. Some had travelled more than 2,800 miles across training fields, mud-slick roadbeds, and cratered lanes. Tucker would have known each one by sound, by feel, by the particular complaint it gave off before something gave way – a hitch in the recoil system, a stutter in the drive train, a grinding note in the brakes when the heat got too high.  His mechanical ability and steady, dependable manner earned Tucker progressive qualification and advancement in this field as Battery Motor Mech, and Fitter A, and the rank of Acting Sergeant. An officer from his Regiment stated that “he is fully capable of assuming responsibility and is thoroughly reliable.”

Though Claude generally enjoyed the army and his trade and was willing to continue in the Canadian Army Pacific Force, he was eager to get out of Holland and back to Canada to see his wife and, for the first time in his life, his two-year-old son. On leaving the Army, he planned to return to his former employment as fireman with the Canadian Pacific Steamship Lines and, when the boats’ schedule was discontinued, seek work for the winter as a sawyer or lumberman in the bush country of the north. He preferred to work outdoors and believed living in the north country could offer the chance to settle with his family.

<h1 id="section0">IMJIN LINE</h1>

The formation of the Canadian Army Special Force came about in August 1950 in response to the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. It was a call aimed at veterans and restless men, many of whom had already shouldered the burden of war, and might, under the right circumstances, do so again. On the day following the announcement of the Special Force, Claude Tucker was among the Canadians filling recruiting offices in overwhelming numbers. He had settled into a quiet life up north as he intended, but something pulled at him. At thirty-four, he stepped forward again. This time he wore the cap badge of the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. His wartime mechanical experience made him a natural fit for the newly formed 191 Canadian Infantry Workshop.

The early months were spent at the R.C.E.M.E. School in Kingston, where Tucker trained alongside new recruits and fellow veterans alike. They drilled under frost and cloud, learned the rhythms of vehicle recovery and battlefield repairs, and prepared for a different kind of war. When the workshop moved to Fort Lewis, Washington, in November 1950, it was a shift from theory to application – from lectures to field exercise, until early 1951 when Claude was overseas once again. 

Regaining rank and responsibility, he stepped onto foreign soil as a corporal, surrounded by white hills, biting winds, and the looming uncertainty of another war. Unlike the direct violence of his field artillery days, his war in Korea was a war of maintenance and resolve, not with mechanized field pieces, but with grease, parts, and persistence. The 191 Canadian Infantry Workshop, stretched thin from the start, was responsible for keeping the mechanical heart of the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade beating.

Vehicles rolled into the Workshop area daily, many showing visible signs of battlefield damage – bent axles, twisted fenders, shattered windshields, exhaust systems still hot from the fight.  Crews worked long hours with freezing tools and limited shelter, setting up mobile repair points wherever they could. Some machines arrived too far gone, reduced to little more than charred remnants and crumpled frames, but others were salvaged with time, parts, and patience.  They handled soft-skinned transports, scout cars, universal carriers, and the occasional Centurion. It was cold, wet work pulling vehicles from ditches and culverts, tracked carriers axle deep in thawing roads, and three-ton lorries with drive train failures.  Fitters like Tucker spent their hours hammering out panels, tracing shorts in soaked electrical harnesses, and rigging gearboxes beneath makeshift awnings in the sleet. On days where operations slowed, a dozen repairs might be cleared.  The spring thaw began in March 1951 and roads became rivers. Crews welded mesh to tires, bolted on splinter shielding, and re-rigged jerrycan racks using rebar scrounged from damaged supply points.

The camp itself shifted shape with the seasons. Tents were held down with sagging sandbags. Engine blocks were warmed near salvaged stoves. Spare parts ran short: fan belts cracked, batteries lost charge overnight. They rewired damaged vehicles at night, under blackout conditions, with only shielded lamps and high wind for company. Tucker had seen hardship before – across France, Belgium, Holland – but Korea pressed deeper. It worked its way into the joints and lingered in the air. It was the kind of cold that stayed with you.

By May 1951, their camp had taken on the rough shape of permanence. The men found brief respite in the occasional movie night, or when entertainers like the Fort George show party made their rounds. There were Sunday services, too – small, solemn moments between rotations. When they were not on the tools, they were fortifying positions, stringing wire, or repairing canvas split by the wind. "Everything was better than the other war though," he reflected on his months in Korea compared to those going into 1945. "Better food. American rations. Better uniforms and equipment."

It was during this time that something changed in Claude. Somewhere between the oil-soaked sleeves and the quiet hours before dawn, he found faith. He had come to believe he did not need the church anymore, but while in Korea he began going to services every week. This evolved to helping the Chaplain and ultimately accompanying him to an orphanage in Seoul. He learned to pray again and vowed to help young people when he returned to Canada. The experience changed his life and his family.  He returned home, to his family and his job at Canada Electric Castings after he was demobilized. "I might sign up again," he smiled, "but only if it was a general war."