My father did not bring much back from his six years of war. He would have had his demob suit of course, and I remember a leather jerkin that he wore into the 1960s. Then, in common with millions of other military personnel and civilians, there was the case of what we now call PTSD. There was also his War Department issue sergeant’s whistle.
There wasn’t much to bring back from France via Dunkirk except a seawater-logged uniform. There was, however, a German officer’s compass with a luminous dial that he bartered from an Italian p.o.w in the Western Desert And then this from Italy: A small OXO tin of dust.
The 8th Army landed in Sicily in July 1943 and then worked its way up the mainland. For a time my father was billeted with an Italian family in Gragnano – a hill town close to Naples. On March 17, 1944, Mount Vesuvius began an eruption that, over the ensuing week and a half, rained down rocks the size of footballs. It smothered some areas with up to a yard of ash and it released a slow-moving wall of volcanic rock, lava, and debris that crushed and burned everything in its path. It was the worst eruption since 1872.
He visited the ruins of Pompeii destroyed by the volcano in AD 79 and, later, the WW1 gravesite of his father-in-law – Lance Corporal Sims – at Taranto. When they got to Rome, he went to the opera and was disappointed that Beniamino Gigli did not sing that night.
And then there was the crate of oranges that was delivered after he had returned home. A gift from someone he had befriended in Palestine before the war. What a treat that must have been.
He also returned with a habit of polishing shoes; brewing tea and waking people up with an early morning mug of char; and a deep desire to live in peace, be self-sufficient, and grow things.
I am grateful for this very specific glimpse into a hugely consequential time in our modern human history. Thank you! I wonder if your father’s passion for growing things helped him to heal from this war-time experiences…
No telling. But it certainly seems to have compounded a wish to be self-sufficient and grow his own food.
That war is supposedly the last “good war.” But if wars can be called good, then doesn’t that glorify
the whole experience? The generic pain gets forgotten, and in its place rises the phoenix of marred
expectations.
— Catxman
http://www.catxman.wordpress.com
There was nothing good about WW2.
There was, however, something very evil about fascism and the Nazis
Such a very moving remembrance! I share your father’s deep desire to live in peace. And I like knowing that you share his passion for growing things! — Elizabeth
I like the warning to keep the lid closed! What a souvenir!
Your father is very tall and handsome.
My father never discussed his war except to say that he served on merchant ships travelling in convoy around the China Sea and that they weren’t allowed to stop to pick up seamen struggling in the water after their ships had been torpedoed, for obvious reasons. That must have affected him hugely, but other than this anecdote he never referred to it.
He, like your dad, also had a leather bomber-style jacket which he passed on to me, though I no longer have it. He would’ve been 100 years old this October, but tragically died from a heart attack aged only 51, a few months after our first daughter was born.
I’m sorry your father suffered from his war experience but of course it was inevitable. When I think of the devastation caused by the two world wars, and witness how little we learned, I despair of thre human species. It makes me weep, quite literally.
Never seen that photo before..a smiley decent looking chap…as I would expect.x
Cheers!