Remembrance 2020

Remembering those who gave their lives in war, that we might be free.

This year I have taken part in BBC local radio's Remember Together campaign, in which you upload a photo of yourself holding up the name of a person remembered.  The photo will form part of a giant poppy mosaic, which will go on display in the REME Museum at MOD Lyneham in Wiltshire, and hopefully online.

I know of two people in my family who have died in war.  You can read about John Frank Turner and Wilfred Roy Major, remembered always, on my blog.

Mandalay

As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of VJ Day and the end of the Second World War, this blog pays tribute to those who risked - and in many cases gave - their lives for global liberty.  I for one am thankful, even if the British Broadcasting Corporation is not.

Mandalay

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"

Come you back to Mandalay,

Where the old Flotilla lay:

Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! 

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,

An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat - jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, 

An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,

An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:

Bloomin' idol made o' mud 

Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd

Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! 

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,

She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"

With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin my cheek

We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.

Elephints a-pilin' teak

In the sludgy, squdgy creek,

Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! 

But that's all shove be'ind me - long ago an' fur away 

An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;

An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:

"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."

No! you won't 'eed nothin' else

But them spicy garlic smells,

An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,

An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;

Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,

An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?

Beefy face an' grubby 'and - 

Law! wot do they understand?

I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,

Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;

For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the old Flotilla lay,

With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin'-fishes play,

An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

Rudyard Kipling

Remembrance 2017

I Remember Summer

I remember summer when the breeze blew soft and free

And I had plans to marry you; and you to marry me.

We dreamt in endless days of youth, but when the church bell rang,

There was no tale of love to tell, instead, of war, it sang.

I remember summer, how we parted on the morn.

A day of breathless sunshine, radiant fields of endless corn.

You wept into your handkerchief, and I into my heart;

A whistle shrill; a guardsman's call; announced the time to part.

I remember summer, tin pot hat and heavy gun

In training where we'd smash through bales of hay we labelled Hun.

The muster of our regiment, all brothers born of chance

Embarking on a boat to hell, the onward march to France.

I remember summer, days of cricket, days to dream,

Days of butterflies and ladybirds and picnics by the stream.

We'll someday reach our summer, when these bastard guns will cease;

I'll see you at the altar, come that distant summer peace.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army.

In 2008, I had the privilege of shaking the hand of Walter Kammerling at a Holocaust talk.  Walter, an Austrian Jew, was 14 years old when Nazi Germany and Austria united in the Anschluss of 1938.  Walter witnessed the Kristallnacht, a name he believed was far too romantic for the horrors on the 9-10 November, when Synagogues, Jewish-owned shops, businesses and homes were attacked across the country, and hundreds were sent to Dachau concentration camp.  Kristallnacht translates as Crystal Night or Night of Broken Glass.

Walter Kammerling (source: Holocaust Educational Trust)

In a very loose sense, fifteen-year-old Walter was lucky - the war had not yet been declared, and Walter's parents were able to send him to Britain on the Kindertransport, a series of rescue efforts to bring refugee Jewish children to Britain from Nazi Germany.  On arrival, he was sent to a camp at Dovercourt, Essex, before being moved to Northern Ireland, where he worked on a farm for three years.  In 1942 he met his future wife, Herta, in London, marrying her in 1944, whilst on embarkation leave from the British Army, with whom he was serving in Belgium and the Netherlands.  Like Walter, Herta had been a child of the Kindertransport.  When the war was over, Walter and Herta returned to Austria, where they had two sons.  They moved back to Britain in 1957, the country they now called home.

Walter left behind a mother, father and sister, whose terrible fate he would discover at the end of the war.  He has since spent his life giving talks and educating people on the horrors of genocide, and the need to resist prejudice and discrimination in the modern world.  His story has been written up in the Bournemouth Daily Echo in 2015, and is well worth a read.

Walter's British registration certificate (source: Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation)

Remembrance

To Germany

You are blind like us.  Your hurt no man designed,

And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other's dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other's truer form
And wonder, Grown more loving kind and warm
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

Remembrance

Today we stop to pause and give our private thanks to all of those who fought and died in the armed forces.  Seven members of my family were involved, in some capacity, in the First World War.  Six survived their theatre of war - one was killed in action.  This blog is a tribute to all seven, in my thoughts today, along with the countless others who fought and died in that bloody conflict a century ago, and all wars since.  Cecil Major, William Button, Arthur Button, Tom Button, John Frank Turner, Walter Sillence, Frederick Sillence.  Remembered always for their service and sacrifice.

Poppies from a Battle-field

What where those red petals came?
Which burn their great, eternal flame?
Them from that place where fate was sealed,
Out yonder, on that battle-field.

And how got there, them crimson stars?
Where galloped once them brave hussars!
Seeds mingled with the blood of men,
What never made it 'ome again.

Them scarlet blooms, what gleam like ghosts,
Like tin-hat spectres, by their posts,
Or soldiers hidin’ in the trees,
What sway like spirits on the breeze.

I see a gunner; R.G.A.
A sapper on the railway,
A fresh-faced sergeant, Surrey-made,
Back ‘ome a grocer by ‘is trade

A young mechanic, oilin’ brakes,
Whose tunic now, a private makes,
An ‘orseman ridin’ 'cross the line,
In France, in Malta; Palestine.

I see infantry, rifles high,
An’ bay’netts pointin’ to the sky,
They charge, and pushin’ wave-on-wave…

I see a wreath laid on a grave.

What men were these what soldiered here?
What gave their lives – what paid so dear?
What scribed with history’s mighty quill,
Two words for us; “remember still.”

I see whence those red petals came,
Which burn their great, eternal flame,
A century on, this mem'ry sealed
By poppies from a battle-field.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army.

"Hurbinek was a nobody, a child of death, a child of Auschwitz, he looked about three years old, no-one knew anything of him, he could not speak and he had no name; that curious name Hurbinek, had been given to him by us, perhaps by one of the women who had interpreted with those syllables one of the inarticulate sounds that the baby let out now and again. He was paralysed from the waist down, with atrophied legs, as thin as sticks; but his eyes, lost in his triangular and wasted face, flashed terribly alive, full of demand, assertion, of the will to break loose, to shatter the tomb of his dumbness. The speech he lacked, which no one had bothered to teach him, the need of speech charged his stare with explosive urgency: it was a stare both savage and human, even mature, a judgement, which none of us could support, so heavy was it with force and anguish.

None of us, that is, except Henek; he was in the bunk next to me, a robust and hearty Hungarian boy of fifteen. Henek spent half the day beside Hurbinek's pallet. He was maternal rather than paternal; had our precarious co-existence lasted more than a month, it is extremely probable that Hurbinek would have learnt to speak from Henek; certainly better than from the Polish girls who, too tender and too vain, inebriated him with kisses and caresses, but shunned intimacy with him.

Henek on the other hand, calm and stubborn, sat beside the little sphinx, immune to the distressing power he emanated; he brought him food to eat, adjusted his blankets, cleaned him with skilful hands, without repugnance, and he spoke to him in Hungarian naturally, in a slow and patient voice. -After a week, - Hurbinek could say a word, what word? It was difficult to know.

During the night we listened carefully. - It was true, from Hurbinek's corner came a word- it was not admittedly always the same word, but it was certainly an articulated word: or better, several slightly different articulated words experimental variations on a theme, on a root, perhaps a name.

Hurbinek continued his stubborn experiments for as long as he lived. In the following days everybody listened to him in silence, anxious to understand, and among us there were speakers of all the languages of Europe; but Hurbinek's word remained a secret. - Perhaps it was his name, perhaps it meant "to eat" or "bread".

Hurbinek was perhaps three years old born in Auschwitz and had never seen a tree, who fought like a man, to the last breath, to gain entry into the world of men from which a bestial power had excluded him; Hurbinek, the nameless, whose tiny forearm - even his, bore the tattoo of Auschwitz; Hurbinek died in the first days of March 1945, free but not redeemed. Nothing remains of him: he bears witness through these words of mine."

Primo Levi, If This is a Man

Remembering

For Remembrance this year, I'm looking at a simple pleasure I derive in life, and how much I would miss such small things if they were so drastically and suddenly replaced.  A gardener - a tomato grower - has enlisted to fight the Great War in France.  Leaving his young tomato plants in the care of his mother, he looks forward to his return, when he will pick the ripe fruits, and marvel at the wondrousness of life.

The Gardener

“All over by Christmas”

That’s what the newspapers wrote

My adventure awoken

So I journeyed to France on a boat

Gazed out over the Channel

And scribbled my mother a note:

“How are my tomatoes?”

My tomatoes grow tall and grow strong,

In the warm Springtime sun.

We travelled to Cambrai

We dug into this dank, dirty trench

With mud on our faces

And no end to the damp deathly stench

Our hearts full of Blighty

But we learned the land like we were French;

My mind full of tomatoes,

My tomatoes bear little green fruits,

In the new summer sun.

Now the fighting was vicious

Like nothing we’d witnessed before

We lost so many faces

Guns, shells, mines; all the armour of war

People riddled with bullets

And a man’s mind can take nothing more;

But my lovely tomatoes,

My tomatoes are plump, and they blush!

In the late summer sun.

I’m remembered at Pozieres

Though no soldier my body could find

So they marched back to Calais

Leaving all of us Fallen behind

Now the poppies grow on me

Like they grow on the heart and the mind;

As for my tomatoes,

My tomatoes, they wither and die in the shy

Autumn sun.

The goodness of people

Many months ago, I logged on to the Find a Grave website as part of family history research, to see if I could find the war grave of my Grandad’s cousin, Wilfred Roy Major, who was shot down in a bomber over Germany in the Second World War.  I knew from the excellent Commonwealth War Graves Commission that he was buried at Durnback War Cemetery, Bavaria, and so put the details in, and lodged a request – more in hope than expectation –that should any photographers be passing, they might see his grave and send on a picture.

I forgot all about this service until last week, when an email popped up in my inbox, to tell me that my request has been fulfilled – somebody called “BobP” had actually taken the time, whilst at the cemetery, to find Wilfred Roy’s grave, and to upload a photograph for me.  I don’t know BobP - I don’t know who he is or where he comes from - but his act of kindness in helping to locate this important family monument will not be forgotten.  It reminds me that, in the age of the selfish, there is still goodness in people and a desire to help for nothing more than the sake of helping.

This blog says "Thank You"

Seventy years ago this weekend past, over 150,000 Allied soldiers left coastal towns and cities across Southern England, bound for Normandy, France.  Their journey was one of liberation, to free the world from the tyranny of fascism, and to put democracy back on the European continent.  For many soldiers, however, this would come at enormous personal sacrifice and, in the hours that followed departure, thousands would die on the beaches code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.  They were men of a dozen different nations, many from the other side of the world, united through a belief in the principle of freedom for all men. Seventy years later on Torquay Seafront, where many thousands of men in the American 4th Infantry Division departed for Utah Beach, we gathered to thank them.

Torquay remembers

This blog wishes to thank the servicemen of all nations who fought for our freedom and our future.  Though many never made it back, we shall not forget their sacrifice, nor will our gratitude diminish through the years.

Family War Heroes - Wilfred Roy Major (141709)

February 1943, and wintery Europe finds itself in the grip of a cruel war's fourth year.  The continent has endured perhaps its bleakest ever period, but in the last month, there is a glimmer of hope, and a feeling that the tide of the Second World War is turning – British forces have captured Tripoli from the Nazis, whilst in the east, the Red Army has scored a decisive victory in one of history’s bloodiest battles, Stalingrad.  It is 25 February, and at RAF Ridgewell, Essex, a young RAF pilot officer, attached to 90 Squadron from the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, catches up with the war latest in the newspaper.  Wilfred Roy Major, better known as Roy, has just earned his wings, and has flown his first mission over Germany with Bomber Command.  Tonight he flies his second mission, a dangerous bombing raid on the German city of Nuremberg.  It is the first night of a new ‘round-the-clock’ Allied air offensive that will see American aircraft pound German cities by day, with British bombers attacking them by night.  It is a devastating bombing tactic, which will claim thousands of civilian lives, as the war reaches its most terrible of conclusions.

Short Stirlings in flight (Source: WW II Vehicles)

It is 8.39pm, and Roy Major’s Short Stirling, BF410 WP-E, taxis across the runway and takes off, along with 337 other aeroplanes from airfields in the southeast – 169 Lancasters, 104 Halifaxes, and 64 Stirlings.  The 1000-mile round-trip will take five hours, during which they will encounter anti-aircraft flak and, even more menacing, German Messerschmitt fighters. If the bomber and its crew survives, they can expect to land back on British soil at around five o’clock in the morning.

Approaching Nuremburg at 15,000 feet, the crew spot the fires already blazing in the north of the city, and in the neighbouring town of Furth.  These fires were started by the flares of the 'pathfinders', dropped to mark out the target, so it could be more easily identified by the main bombers.  On this occasion, poor weather has led to some inaccuracy, and the northern fringes of the city, along with the aforementioned Furth, are bearing the brunt, along with the surrounding countryside. 

Nuremberg (Source: German Tragedy of Destiny)

Wilfred Roy Major’s bomber has dropped its load, and the crew is looking forward to returning home.  A cup of tea.  A soft bed.  English soil.  But then there is a stutter, an almighty jolt that throws the crew violently around their tin can.  The engines cut out.  Have they been hit by flak on their return journey?  Have they suffered the attack of an enemy fighter?  We don’t know the cause, but Short Stirling BF410 WP-E is falling frighteningly out of the sky.  Sergeant J. Carrick is the first to bail out of the aircraft.  He is also the last, parachuting to the ground whilst the machine nose-dives into the countryside, taking the seven other crew members to their deaths.  Sergeant Francis John Miles, the pilot, Sgt Arthur Vivian Derrick Hines, the flight engineer, Sgt George Pettinger, the navigator, Sgt John Henry Dyer, the bomb-aimer, Sgt William Hughes Bevan, the wireless operator, Sgt Eric Howeth Holmes, the air gunner, Sgt Wilfred Roy Major.  Aged 21.  On only his second mission.  A volunteer.  One of nine aircraft that did not return home on that terrible night.

Memorial to 90 Squadron at RAF Tuddenham (Source: War Memorials Online)

Sergeant J. Carrick was picked up by the German authorities, and spent the rest of the war interned in Stalag 8B (later 344) Lamsdorf prisoner of war camp.  He had the Prisoner of War Number 27633.  Wilfred Roy Major and the rest of the crew are buried at Durnbach War Cemetery, Bad Tolz, south of Munich.  The vast majority of those buried here are airmen shot down over Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Austria, Hassen and Thuringia, brought from their scattered graves by the Army Graves Service, as well as those killed whilst escaping from prisoner of war camps, or who died towards the end of the War on forced marches.  Wilfred Roy is buried close to the cemetery’s Stone of Remembrance, in Coll. Grave 11, H 1-7.  His connection to me is through my grandfather, who was Wilfred Roy's cousin.  

  

Wilfred Roy Major's Forces Record

First name:  Wilfred Roy

Initials:  W R

Surname: Major

DOB: Circa 1922

Age: 21

Nationality: British

Date of Death: 26/02/1943

Information: SON OF WILFRED DOUGLAS AND IVY MAY MAJOR OF EARLEY, READING, BERKSHIRE

Rank: Pilot Officer

Service Number: 141709

Campaign Medals: War Medal 1939-1945, 1939-45 Star

Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Regiment: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

Battalion: 90 Squadron
Commemorated: Germany

Family War Heroes - John Frank Turner (G/20296)

It is Spring 1918.  The Western Front has been largely quiet for months, a stalemate between the British and German trenches that seems destined never to be broken.  Down inside the British trench, Sergeant John Frank Turner, of the 8th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, sits on an rotten ammunition box.  Maybe he is eating a slice of stale bread.  Maybe he's cleaning his muddy boots.  Maybe he's writing a letter to his parents John and Eliza.  Maybe he's just thinking.  Maybe he wants to go home.  He is part of a battalion that has, since 1916, witnessed horrendous action, including the Battle of the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).  Now it is 1918, and the 8th Sussex Regiment is on the Somme front once again.

A platoon of the 8th Royal Sussex Regiment, Belgium, 1917.  John Frank Turner would have fought with these men on the Western Front, and may even be in this photograph. (source: greatwarphotos.com)

It is Spring 1918, and gunfire can be heard across No Man's Land.  Whistles become louder, artillery fire, the shouts - they might be British, or is it the Boche that John Frank can hear as he picks up his rifle, hands shaking as he receives the bellowed orders of his captain.  "Take aim, fire... they're coming at you now, closer with every second.  Hold your position, don't run, don't be scared, there's no time for fear, it's for God, for right, and for King George after all."

It is Spring 1918, and just hours into the German Spring Offensive that began on 21 March, and would last for four months, John Frank Turner is lying dead in the French mud.  He is a mere statistic in the book of war - just one of over 995,000 British servicemen killed between 1914 and 1918, one of over 16 million who died on all sides during the "War to End All Wars."  

A German tank in Roye, 21 March, 1918 (source: Wikipedia).

The church bells ring.  Those who have survived go home.  Every person in the country - probably every person across the continent - knows somebody who has died.  In every city, town and village, memorials are raised.  In little villages, they recall the names of a handful who gave their lives, whilst in the larger cities, thousands are listed.  In Woking, Surrey, they do the same, and remember over 500 of their sons, including the grocer, John Frank Turner, who lived with his parents on Butts Road, near the railway station.  John never came home, but if he had, he would not only have been able to wear the Victory Medal and British War Medal, but also the Military Medal, awarded to him for acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire or individual or associated acts of bravery which were insufficient to merit the Distinguished Conduct Medal.  Conferment of the medal would have given John Frank the right to add the letters M.M. after his name.

Woking war memorial (Source: Window on Woking)

The Military Medal (Source: Wikipedia)

John Frank Turner's body was never recovered.  Like thousands of others, he was left in the mud, returned to the earth upon which, that sad summer, a host of poppies would iconically flourish.  In addition to the Woking War Memorial, he is remembered on the Pozieres Memorial, which stands in the Pozieres war cemetery between Amiens and Cambrai, France.  John Frank's connection to me is through his younger brother Reginald Turner, who was my great-grandfather.

John Frank Turner's Forces Record

First Name:  John Frank
Initials: J F
Surname: Turner
DOB: Circa 1892
Age: 26
Resided Town: Kingston-On-Thames, Surrey
Nationality: British
Date of Death: 21/03/1918
Fate: Killed in Action
Information: ELDEST SON OF MR, AND MRS. J. TURNER OF 6 BUTTS RD., WOKING, SURREY
Rank: Serjeant
Service Number: G/20296
Gallantry Awards: Military Medal
Duty Location: France and Flanders
Campaign Medals: Victory Medal, British War Medal

Remember

"Summer 1918. Never has life in its simplest outline seemed so desirable to us as it does now; the poppies in the fields near our base camp, the shiny beetles on the blades of grass, the warm evenings in the cool, half-dark rooms, mysterious trees at twilight, the stars and the streams, and the long sleep. Oh, life, life, life.

Summer 1918. Never has more been suffered in silence as in the moment when we set off for the front. The wild and urgent rumours of an armistice and peace have surfaced again, they disturb the heart and make setting out harder than ever.

Summer 1918. Never has life at the front been more bitter and more full of horror than when we are under fire, when the pallid faces are pressed into the mud and the fists are clenched and your whole being is saying, No! No! No, not now! Not now at the very last minute!

Summer 1918. A wind of hope is sweeping over the burnt-out fields, a raging fever of impatience, of disappointment, the most agonizing terror of death, the impossible question: why? Why doesn't this stop? And why are all these rumours about it ending?"

(Erich Maria Remarque, from All Quiet on the Western Front)