Yesterday was the funeral of the father a friend of mine. The following was a reading by one of his friends at the funeral. I'm just sharing it because he was a normal unassuming guy. And yet he wasn't normal, and these stories are worth sharing.
READING
John, our quiet hero.
What struck me over the 17 years I knew him was his sense of duty throughout his life. His duty to Sally, Thursa, his country and all those around him.
I accompanied John to Normandy twice to see where he faced his day of destiny as a 20-year old on D-Day. He shall always remain that hero. When I first asked him those many years ago about his Naval Service. He modestly replied I was a Coxswain of a LCA during D-Day. LCA stands for Landing Craft Assault, and of course assault means you’re up the sharp end. It was some time later when John opened up about his experiences did I find out for him D-Day was bloody Omaha as the Americans know it.
Very little went as planned as John would later describe. You just got on and did as best as you could in the most difficult of endeavors as men lost their lives all around you and you could easily lose yours.
The defences they met were much stronger than expected and in a very short time there were over 2,000 casualties. Defenders, dug into the sand bluffs above the beach, put down withering machine gun fire. Many in John’s landing craft were killed or wounded when the ramp went down. Some, so weighed down by kit, drowned in the rough sea. Where John beached, 120 men were killed or wounded.
The run into Omaha beach was so graphically filmed in the opening of Saving Private Ryan. But John’s day began much much earlier. Just imagine. On the night of the 5th of June after a rough crossing in an old requisitioned Scottish ferry they took up their positions.
John’s LCA was made out of wood, lightly armoured with a WW1 Lewis gun for defence. The flat bottomed boat was difficult to manoeuvre
At 4am on the 6th , D-Day, his LCA was lowered from the ships davits. They were over 10 miles from the beach with 3’ waves and a heavy swell. Men were sea sick, said their prayers, few had slept, everyone to their own thoughts, busied themselves – everything bar what they were going to do. One LCA in John’s flotilla went down shortly after it had left the mothership. But now John steered his LCA towards the beach – one of thousands of ships and small craft taking men and equipment as part of the biggest amphibious operation in history.
Seeing action that morning was a million miles away from the 15-year old who, just before war broke out, walked through gates of HMS Ganges, a shore based training base on the Shotley peninsular in Suffolk. He had decided that he wanted to be a boy seaman.
I spent a lot of time talking to John over the years about the British and the Sea. How did it start for him? Was it paddling on a Kent beach at an early age? Of course Britain Ruled the Waves. People knew where the bowsprit on a ship was, what a Bosun did. The Sea was in our blood in those days. It was well established that any that British boy worth his salt would make a bee-line for the Senior Service as soon as he was tall enough to trigger a torpedo. The British when in doubt, either of duty or of pleasure, swarmed to the sea.
HMS Ganges was a tough place, even by naval training standards. Life there was controlled by a very strict regime. The local landmark was a 143’ sailing mast from 1907 which dominated the parade ground. Boys shinned up the mast and the challenge was to be the button boy. This meant standing on a wooden disc about a foot in diameter and saluting with only a lightning conductor to grip between your knees.
But then John was hewn out of strong stuff. A childhood spent in the harsh winters of Canada. A tough Father who John once confided was the toughest of the tough. A Sergeant in the Buffs who had seen action on the Western Front. I knew a little bit about The Ganges boys myself as a 10 year old going to Felixstowe. I would gaze at the young boy seamen in admiration. They were always immaculately turned out, lean and fit with a slightly cocky air. It was as if they were spelling out they could handle themselves when the chips were down. John and I would study an old picture of his intake and wonder how many survived the war. 1939 the last year of innocence. The sea was in our blood but as the Author of the Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat was to so powerfully portray later - Our blood was also in the sea
For John it was his landing craft being hit, bodies in the water, loading a dead US Ranger on his LCA and taking him back. Mortar rounds exploding in the water around.
John’s Naval Service followed the course of the War: Boy seaman HMS Enterprise in the Indian Ocean 1941-42, we talked about the Fall of Singapore where his ship put in just before its surrender, dropping off a British stay behind unit in Burma which we use to mull over what had happened to them. Rescuing survivors from HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall. These were the dark days. But then the tide turned.
In 1943 John was drafted into Combined Operations which was to lead to D-Day. He was now an experienced Assault Coxswain. My favourite photograph of John is one in a number of books of him standing atop his LCA about to take part in the assault on Walcheren Island. The Allies needed Antwerp and Walcheren was a German strong point in the Scheldt Estuary leading to the port. John is surrounded by members of No4 Commando in November 1944. He looks every bit the experienced operator readying his craft. The operation was as tough as D-Day with some of the most bitter fighting of the war. German artillery sank a number of LCA’s causing many casualties. John took the lead when the going got tough and shepherded a number of Buffalo amphibious vehicles across the estuary to safety. He said me quietly later the Officer in charge said I should have got a gong! After heavy street fighting the battle was won, the deep water port of Antwerp was opened to Allied shipping. It kick started the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.
I would like to finish from an extract from Anna Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. As a young Jewish teenager Ann hid from the Nazis for two years in a concealed annexe in Amsterdam. She kept a personal diary and addressed it to her fictional friend, Kitty. Her story is the struggle of the human spirit in adversity.
On Tuesday 6th of June 1944 while John was on Omaha Beach, she wrote:
My dearest Kitty
“This is D-Day” the BBC announced at 12. “this is the day” The invasion has begun! “British landing craft are engaged in combat with German naval units” Conclusion in the Annexe this is a trial landing like Dieppe two years ago.
“11,000 planes are shuttling back and forth, 4,000 landing craft and small boats are continually arriving in the area between Cherbourg and Le Havre. British and American troops in heavy combat.”
A huge commotion in the Annexe! Is this really the beginning of the long awaited liberation? The liberation we’ve all talked so much about, which still seems too good, too much of a fairy tale ever to come true? Will this year, 1944, bring us victory? We don’t know yet. But where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again. We’ll need to be brave to endure the many years and hardships and the suffering yet to come. It’s now a matter of remaining calm and steadfast, of gritting our teeth and keeping a stiff upper lip.
Oh, Kitty, the best part about the invasion is that I have the feeling that friends are on their way. Those awful Germans have oppressed and threatened us for so long that the thought of friends and salvation means everything to us! Now its not just the Jews, but all of occupied Europe. Maybe, Margot says, I can even go back to school in September or October.
Yours, Anne Frank
John was never conscious of his heroism
What greater tribute and what greater epitaph can a man have than to have played his part in the liberation and freedom of millions of children, women and men across occupied Europe.
READING
John, our quiet hero.
What struck me over the 17 years I knew him was his sense of duty throughout his life. His duty to Sally, Thursa, his country and all those around him.
I accompanied John to Normandy twice to see where he faced his day of destiny as a 20-year old on D-Day. He shall always remain that hero. When I first asked him those many years ago about his Naval Service. He modestly replied I was a Coxswain of a LCA during D-Day. LCA stands for Landing Craft Assault, and of course assault means you’re up the sharp end. It was some time later when John opened up about his experiences did I find out for him D-Day was bloody Omaha as the Americans know it.
Very little went as planned as John would later describe. You just got on and did as best as you could in the most difficult of endeavors as men lost their lives all around you and you could easily lose yours.
The defences they met were much stronger than expected and in a very short time there were over 2,000 casualties. Defenders, dug into the sand bluffs above the beach, put down withering machine gun fire. Many in John’s landing craft were killed or wounded when the ramp went down. Some, so weighed down by kit, drowned in the rough sea. Where John beached, 120 men were killed or wounded.
The run into Omaha beach was so graphically filmed in the opening of Saving Private Ryan. But John’s day began much much earlier. Just imagine. On the night of the 5th of June after a rough crossing in an old requisitioned Scottish ferry they took up their positions.
John’s LCA was made out of wood, lightly armoured with a WW1 Lewis gun for defence. The flat bottomed boat was difficult to manoeuvre
At 4am on the 6th , D-Day, his LCA was lowered from the ships davits. They were over 10 miles from the beach with 3’ waves and a heavy swell. Men were sea sick, said their prayers, few had slept, everyone to their own thoughts, busied themselves – everything bar what they were going to do. One LCA in John’s flotilla went down shortly after it had left the mothership. But now John steered his LCA towards the beach – one of thousands of ships and small craft taking men and equipment as part of the biggest amphibious operation in history.
Seeing action that morning was a million miles away from the 15-year old who, just before war broke out, walked through gates of HMS Ganges, a shore based training base on the Shotley peninsular in Suffolk. He had decided that he wanted to be a boy seaman.
I spent a lot of time talking to John over the years about the British and the Sea. How did it start for him? Was it paddling on a Kent beach at an early age? Of course Britain Ruled the Waves. People knew where the bowsprit on a ship was, what a Bosun did. The Sea was in our blood in those days. It was well established that any that British boy worth his salt would make a bee-line for the Senior Service as soon as he was tall enough to trigger a torpedo. The British when in doubt, either of duty or of pleasure, swarmed to the sea.
HMS Ganges was a tough place, even by naval training standards. Life there was controlled by a very strict regime. The local landmark was a 143’ sailing mast from 1907 which dominated the parade ground. Boys shinned up the mast and the challenge was to be the button boy. This meant standing on a wooden disc about a foot in diameter and saluting with only a lightning conductor to grip between your knees.
But then John was hewn out of strong stuff. A childhood spent in the harsh winters of Canada. A tough Father who John once confided was the toughest of the tough. A Sergeant in the Buffs who had seen action on the Western Front. I knew a little bit about The Ganges boys myself as a 10 year old going to Felixstowe. I would gaze at the young boy seamen in admiration. They were always immaculately turned out, lean and fit with a slightly cocky air. It was as if they were spelling out they could handle themselves when the chips were down. John and I would study an old picture of his intake and wonder how many survived the war. 1939 the last year of innocence. The sea was in our blood but as the Author of the Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat was to so powerfully portray later - Our blood was also in the sea
For John it was his landing craft being hit, bodies in the water, loading a dead US Ranger on his LCA and taking him back. Mortar rounds exploding in the water around.
John’s Naval Service followed the course of the War: Boy seaman HMS Enterprise in the Indian Ocean 1941-42, we talked about the Fall of Singapore where his ship put in just before its surrender, dropping off a British stay behind unit in Burma which we use to mull over what had happened to them. Rescuing survivors from HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall. These were the dark days. But then the tide turned.
In 1943 John was drafted into Combined Operations which was to lead to D-Day. He was now an experienced Assault Coxswain. My favourite photograph of John is one in a number of books of him standing atop his LCA about to take part in the assault on Walcheren Island. The Allies needed Antwerp and Walcheren was a German strong point in the Scheldt Estuary leading to the port. John is surrounded by members of No4 Commando in November 1944. He looks every bit the experienced operator readying his craft. The operation was as tough as D-Day with some of the most bitter fighting of the war. German artillery sank a number of LCA’s causing many casualties. John took the lead when the going got tough and shepherded a number of Buffalo amphibious vehicles across the estuary to safety. He said me quietly later the Officer in charge said I should have got a gong! After heavy street fighting the battle was won, the deep water port of Antwerp was opened to Allied shipping. It kick started the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine.
I would like to finish from an extract from Anna Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. As a young Jewish teenager Ann hid from the Nazis for two years in a concealed annexe in Amsterdam. She kept a personal diary and addressed it to her fictional friend, Kitty. Her story is the struggle of the human spirit in adversity.
On Tuesday 6th of June 1944 while John was on Omaha Beach, she wrote:
My dearest Kitty
“This is D-Day” the BBC announced at 12. “this is the day” The invasion has begun! “British landing craft are engaged in combat with German naval units” Conclusion in the Annexe this is a trial landing like Dieppe two years ago.
“11,000 planes are shuttling back and forth, 4,000 landing craft and small boats are continually arriving in the area between Cherbourg and Le Havre. British and American troops in heavy combat.”
A huge commotion in the Annexe! Is this really the beginning of the long awaited liberation? The liberation we’ve all talked so much about, which still seems too good, too much of a fairy tale ever to come true? Will this year, 1944, bring us victory? We don’t know yet. But where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again. We’ll need to be brave to endure the many years and hardships and the suffering yet to come. It’s now a matter of remaining calm and steadfast, of gritting our teeth and keeping a stiff upper lip.
Oh, Kitty, the best part about the invasion is that I have the feeling that friends are on their way. Those awful Germans have oppressed and threatened us for so long that the thought of friends and salvation means everything to us! Now its not just the Jews, but all of occupied Europe. Maybe, Margot says, I can even go back to school in September or October.
Yours, Anne Frank
John was never conscious of his heroism
What greater tribute and what greater epitaph can a man have than to have played his part in the liberation and freedom of millions of children, women and men across occupied Europe.