Since it's Memorial Day, here's what my admirable father wrote in his war diary. He had volunteered to join the army and go to the other side of the world "Because Hitler had to be stopped". He spent nearly 4 years there, leaving a wife and baby son home in New Zealand; not me - he risked my life going over there - lucky for me he came back. He, and many others, succeeded.
In the desert in Egypt, near the Nile,
Sunday 29 June 1941
<"Church in morning as 'volunteer'. This church business is proper farce. Afternoon at Levis showing off photos of BB & Bruce [ED: wife and son]. Suitably admired. Station picquet in evening. Drunks who dispute fares are biggest nuisance. A pity fellows imagine toughness means behaving like a hooligan. South Africans uniforms roughest I have seen. "Bengal Bloomers", gaiters, pith helmets, cloth neck shields. A horrible get up for leave." >
War is not all 'hell'. Monday, 29th June 1942, at Beharre, near Tripoli, on a fortnight's leave:
<I had forgotten such places as Beharre exist. A perfect sleep between clean sheets. Awoke to sound of singing birds, laughing children and the subdued roar of little icy mountain torrents. A perfect place to "eat, drink & sleep" as our taxi driver put it.
Little stone houses almost hidden among the trees, terraced hillsides of ripening corn, trailing vines everywhere, cold fresh air - what nearer approach to heaven would we hope for after the drabness & heat of Aleppo.
A friendly comfortable hotel run by a family anxious to please in everything. Food is good, though its strangeness causes us to commit terrible faux pas. Last night Papa's face confirmed what we suspected - the wine we insisted on having with our dinner was not the right one.">
War days grow weary, days, weeks, months and years roll by. Entries are fewer.
29 June 1943. In the western desert. No entry. There are only brief notes in earlier days referring to letters to BB, sister etc. So, going back to
12th May 1943:
<The sun just sinking below the hills, a gentle breeze from the sea, locusts & crickets chirping, dead silence over the flats, away to the left a few odd bangs as of mortar fire. In the hills, negotiations are proceeding to end the campaign in Africa. It looks as if everything is over. Quiet & still after days and nights of throbbing pulsing artillery and roaring shells. A queer part we have played, more like spectators than participants. Throughout the whole show I have seen neither wounded nor killed, and yet as a direct result of my pressing a button two or three hundred guns have hurled their shells at some poor Jerry gunners. It doesn't seem like taking part in a battle. We sit by our little hole, curse the flies, watch & listen. Occasionally we jump for cover flat in the bottom of the ditch while shrapnel whistles over. But those occasions are rare. At night sometimes it is as quiet as a summer night at home, at times the sky is lit with flashes and the air trembles with explosions. So ends Hitler's African adventure in disaster, complete and final. More important, are we going to get back to wagon lines tonight before dark.
....
Sat 15th May.
Tomorrow we start back to Cairo, the end of our picnic campaign. From a Battery of 250 we have had four or five wounded, and no real hardships. This morning a long memorial service that made me positively sick with its unctuous insincerity & hypocritical talk of 'God on our side'. The few words by the Brigadier cleansed the mouth afterwards with direct blunt honesty. A trip up the coast road a little way towards Tunis today. Much Jerry equipment, beautifully made stuff - a pile line of aluminium pipes with clip fastened ball & socket joints, ammunition boxes neatly made of wood with zinc lining & snap fasteners, instruments & packages of all kinds all equally well thought out and made. The Germans could be a great people if all that skill were directed to the arts of peace.>
29 June 1944. In Italy. <4 letters from BB. Wrote to BB.> Not many entries. The last year has seen fewer entries and briefer. So, fast forward another couple of weeks to
17th July 1944.
<Big events since I last wrote. I had better begin at the beginning. Some ten days ago we received sudden orders, removed titles & set off on a rush trip, past Rome through Narni, past the historic Lake Trasimene until we were settled S.W. of Arezzo overlooking the valley. Only 3000 yds from Jerry on the opposite hill we set out our base & went into action with some good results. At least two guns we know of were totally destroyed by bombers as a direct result of our locations. Camped here in the trees even with Jerry so very close, everything has been as quiet as a base camp. No shells have come near, the birds sing in the trees & the radio plays us opera or swing. The weather is perfect. As wars go this is heaven. Now the war has moved on again & once more we are out of action.
During the last three days I have had a trip to Rome, a day down to transit camp, a whole day in Rome, back with the troop today to learn that the 4ths are going home immediately. The idea has hardly sunk in yet. I'll believe it when I step of [sic] the boat.
Rome: Rome is just a mass of confused impressions. In a one day visit ruins, cathedrals, bonny smiling children, statistics of columns and ages & heights are all jumbled in one Walt Disney dream. St Peters alone stands out as something wonderful, amazing & beautiful beyond my cynical expectations. I am not fond of the very ornate theatrical style of architecture typified in St. Peters but still it left me breathless. The colossal size is not apparent from the outside, the square in front is so spacious and everything is designed to such perfect proportions. Inside you feel the tremendous majesty of such an immense building, yet still it does not leave you over-awed. The great bronze dome is supported on huge pillars with the pope's altar at the far end. There the details elude me. There is just a feeling of tremendous space. Even the crowds of rather irreverent tourists seem to be absorbed and swallowed up by a building that will hold a congregation of 60,000. Up the sides are numerous altars, each with some masterpiece of sculpture or mosaic work. The mosaics are marvellous. Figures stand out so clearly as to be almost three dimensional...[Ed: I've left out a couple of pages]...So ends my visit to St Peters. The whole is impressive theatricals, but hardly Christianity to me. > several pages continue descriptions of Rome etc, waiting for a ship etc.
So ended World War II.
Richard Charles Winn - Born 1910, Died 1990
married
Blanche Bongard Kirk - Born 1915, Died 1984
With love, and appreciation,
Maurice |
