Polito, S.

An interesting letter has just been received by friends in Lindsay from Gunner Sal Polito, attached to the 1st Canadian Army in France.

Gunner Polito writes that he was fighting on the same front as Pte. Leonard Barnsley, who has only recently been reported killed in action. He was, he relates, less than a mile from the place and naturally knew that Leonard had been killed long before word had reached his home.

Speaking of the great advances the Allied armies have made in France, Gnr. Polito relates that he has been on many occasions the first tank driver to enter many of these towns and that they have been royally welcomed by the peasantry. “Most of these people,” he says, “Are so happy to see us that they break down and cry for sheer joy.”

In the matter of writing letters, Sal says he doesn’t have much opportunity to write as they are kept extremely busy chasing the “Jerries to hell out of France”.

He describes the fighting as tough and says that he will have much to tell when he gets back home, about life as he found it in France.

Among the earliest D-day veterans, Gnr. Polito enlisted two years ago in August just past. He received his early training in Brantford and Petawawa and proceeded overseas a year ago in August.

In his closing lines, Sal writes, I’ll say so long for now and get on my way to even things up for the death of Len and three other of my best pals I lost in my tank in the same week.