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Post by David Graham's Eighth Pint on Jun 6, 2009 12:59:33 GMT
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 6, 2009 13:27:01 GMT
 I spoke to an old guy the other week on this very subject ~ he is a Normandy Veteran.................. I asked him how he dealt with the fear as an eighteen year old facing almost certain death or grievous injury and he told me "son, I sat there in that landing craft watching boat after boat of the ones ahead of us getting blown out of the water, I could see those that made it ashore dropping like flies if they were lucky; or getting blown to pieces - arms, legs; heads flying in different directions and I was shaking and crapping myself..............I'm not too proud to say that. Only one in ten seemed to be making to the top of the beach and then it was our turn. I don't remember anything of that run up the beach, just the terrible noise and the physical shaking of the ground; but somehow some miraculous way I made it and the rest of the advance was a doddle after that."Young boys they were, that's all...........................how can we neglect them in their old age when many of them struggle on a daily basis to afford food, heat and lighting; fighting loneliness as widowers? Even if you do not personally know a Normandy Veteran, try and take a trip to the cemeteries that hold the tens of thousands of their compatriots ~ the ones that never came home and then you'll get some idea of just what a price had to be paid for freedom.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 6, 2009 14:34:51 GMT
I listened to the J. Vine show yesterday on BBC radio two, it was not the man himself as he was away, but a young lady doing the show on his behalf.
She was talking live to one of the few remaining survivors who was there on the very beach. This being the 65 anniversary there were few others there who landed on that day and he had gone back before on the one that marked fifty years and also once before fifty years ago.
He told a story he had only ever told his wife and his own son before and it was a very chilling story. He was in the engineers and therefore was not trained as a fighter as such, he was saying that they had not been told what the land was like there.
The radio decided to want to crackled but I think he said that his vehicle got stuck in sandy mud and he tried for ages to get it out. He gave up and by then he found himself alone as everyone else had gone further inland.
Feeling very worn out and need of sleep he went through a gap and found himself in a field on a hill that had blankets laid out in it.He thought that someone had been very kind to leave blankets there so those needing to get some sleep could do so under a blanket.
He woke up in the morning and tapped the man next to him asking where he had to go to get something to eat as he was starving. He soon realized that the man was dead and the whole field was just full of hundreds of dead soldiers who had blankets placed over them, he had slept all night in that field.
It makes you mad to think that in Torquay harbour we have two slipways that were used for D-Day, they have long been fenced off and declared unsafe, Despite the efforts of many nothing has been done to repair the slipways and you fear they are just being left to get even more unsafe, so come health and safety officer can come along and order that they should be removed.
This day we should never forget iand s just one more reason why we should do all we can to hold onto our own country and not hand power over to others.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2009 17:38:02 GMT
Seeing this thread after posting a few more items about Accrington made me think of the First World War and the story of the Accrington Pals, a volunteer regiment drawn from the town. It was one of several "Pals" regiments drawn from towns in those parts and, like many another, suffered terribly on the killing fields of the Somme in 1916. The Accrington Pals were the subject of a play in the 1980s and there is a song by Mike Harding in their memory: www.aftermathww1.com/harding.aspYou can find out more at www.pals.org.uk/pals_e.htm#intro.  |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 6, 2009 18:36:22 GMT
This day we should never forget iand s just one more reason why we should do all we can to hold onto our own country and not hand power over to others. I'm going to disagree with you (there's a surprise Dave  ) and suggest that the European Union is a wonderful testimony to the commitment and sacrifice of those millions of young men all those years ago. Yes it's ruinously over taxing us and ludicrously over bureaucratic, but in the context of post industrial revolution Europe; it has ensured an end to the disastrous nationalism and ethnic jealousy that rent this continent apart until the end of hostilities in 1945 and then the fall of another tyranny to rival Fascism ~ Communism, in 1989. No longer do Belgians have to fear Germans, Poles fear Russians, Norwegians and Finns fear the Eastern Bloc. The bulk of the Northern and Iberian parts of Europe hold no interest in getting involved in "Foreign Policies" that are disastrous both in the financial context and that of the tragic cost of young lives that still afflicts this country. That we can cross the Channel into France and then travel on through Belgium, The Netherlands and beyond without recourse to either passport or ever changing currency. That I can freely travel in the old Eastern Bloc without visa restriction is already something that is taken for granted but in reality a lasting legacy to the immense suffering and sacrifice shown all those years ago. "Holding onto our own country and not handing power to others" is not the concept it once was, living under a common consensus with other cultures within a united community has many merits. |
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) and suggest that the European Union is a wonderful testimony to the commitment and sacrifice of those millions of young men all those years ago.