The Gray Monk

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June 07, 2004

D-Day and a bit of pride ...

Yesterday saw the huge effort to commemorate the beginning of the liberation of France and then the rest of Europe by the Allies. The original event was, and still is, the largest seaborne operation and invasion ever attempted. Those who took part are fully justified in feeling proud of their achievement; many did not leave the beach and are buried in the cemetaries that surround the landing zone. Those that did survive left the beaches with a fellowship born in fear, forged under fire and carried forward in friendship. It has stood the test of time in that many have remained friends and in touch - and those who lost touch have found tremendous joy in re-establishing contact.

It was right that the heads of State of so many of those whose soldiers were there, were represented. And perhaps it is time, too, that we remembered that the Germans also took a huge number of casualties, defending the indefensible maybe, but still the sons, fathers, and husbands of parents, children, and wives in their homeland.

The commemoration on and off the beach at Arromanches and along that blood-soaked strip of sand, now a peaceful and pleasant strip of beach, rightly marked the achievement of those who triumphed and of those who fell. The only indication that this is the place where something remarkable was achieved is in the vast concrete caisons that lie abandoned and half submerged in a great arc offshore - the remains of the "Mulberry Harbour" - a complete prefabricated harbour towed across the channel from building sites all around the South and East Coast and assembled to create a harbour through which reinforcements and supplies could be brought ashore faster and quicker than by landing craft.

Offshore too, lie the wrecks of many landcraft, destroyers, frigates, and minesweepers lost to shell and bomb while protecting the endless shuttle of troop-carrying landing craft ashore. The figures defy imagination, so let's try a word picture - imagine a convoy advancing across this section of the channel with the leading ships at intervals of 2400 feet and along a fifty mile front. The first ships were anchoring and disgorging off the beaches of Normandy while the last ships were raising their anchors and setting out from England. Then picture the escort racing between these ships and around the flanks and the flotillas of minesweepers and coastal patrol craft who swept the mines out of the path of the approaching ships, marked beaches and channels and acted as rescue craft and shell spotters for the big ships laying donw the bombardment that would shatter the "Atlantic Wall". In the movie "The Longest Day" that bombardment was summed up by a German Officer on the telephone to a higher ranking officer in Paris shouting "What do you mean it isn't the real thing? There are thousands of ships off this beach - and they are all shooting at me!" Having had the good fortune to meet a man who had been there - in fact had been in charge of one of the heavy batteries firing back at our ships - I can say that the film was not far off the mark according to his story. Perhaps it would be fair to add that his battery was one of those "knocked out" quite early by the heavy shells from the 15 inch guns on a battleship - quite possibly HMS Warspite - an experience which cost him a leg and very nearly his life.

D-Day destroyed an evil regime. In the words of Churchill, "It was the beginning of the end." Within the year, the Nazi Regime had collapsed and the stunned German people faced up to the reality of a destroyed infrastructure, of missing relatives and dead fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, and children. Almost as importantly, they also faced up to the things that had been done in their name - such as Auschwitz, Belsen, and others.

It is possible now, after 60 years, to admit that they suffered almost as much in this conflict as those they had attacked at the outset. Certainly in the latter part of the war, their suffering was probably worse - and I speak as one who lost family in Coventry. Perhaps, therefore, we should also think of the German Chancellors presence at these commemorations as a reminder that they, too, were liberated by D-Day, that their dead were also victims of the monstrous regime that spawned the conflict that this was part of.

The commemoration of D-Day should continue to be marked - as a rememberance of the fellowship of the servicemen who fought there, as a reminder of the horrific price of war, and as a reminder that liberty is always worth fighting to preserve.

As a child of a man who fought in the Burma and Pacific theatres, as well as stints in the Med and off East Africa, and of a mother who served briefly with the WRNS on the C-in-C South Atlantic's cypher staff, I would like to say that I am proud indeed to have known some at least of those who fought in that war, and in particular, to be able to celebrate their victory today. Without their dedication and effort, without their determination and their blood, sweat, and tears, this world today would be a very ugly place indeed.

As Tacitus noted and Pliny the Elder is reputed to have said -
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

We forget this maxim at our peril - some forces simply cannot be negotiated with - they understand only the politics of force.

Posted by The Gray Monk at June 7, 2004 12:57 PM

Comments

Posted by: matthew at June 9, 2004 01:21 AM