A soldier’s tale.
Posted by Big John on August 2, 2008
The last of my father’s nine brothers and sisters died recently at the age of ninetyone, and amongst her collection of family photographs I found this interesting and rather touching memento of World War II …
In what is obviously a staged scene, it shows her husband sitting at a desk thinking of his young wife back in ‘Blighty’. It was probably taken in a studio in Cairo or some town in North Africa, as my uncle was then a ‘Desert Rat’ serving with The King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Seeing this photograph made me recall the story that my uncle told me about how he had been taken prisoner by soldiers of Rommel’s Afrikakorps, but escaped into the desert where he had the very good fortune to be picked up by a patrol of the legendary ‘Long Range Desert Group’.
Sadly ’good fortune’ did not smile on him for long, for upon returning to his unit he was put in charge of an anti-tank gun, which was knocked out of action by a direct hit from a German Panzer. He was severely wounded and spent many months in hospital, where he was given the terrible news that all of his mates in the gun crew had been killed.
After returning to ‘civvy street’ he and my aunt lived in the old family home in a quiet backstreet in Brixton; where a few years later he saw some new neighbours moving into a house across the road, and thought that one of them looked familiar. Suddenly it struck him that he was looking at a ‘dead’ man, for there before him stood the soldier whom he had last seen beside him in the heat of battle the day …
… a German shell exploded in the desert.
Norman said
Accept my condolances John, it all happened a long time ago.All the Dads in the building where we lived were veterans from WW1.
Victims of the Gas attacks,I still hear the coughing spluttering and wheezing of those poor sods.The vets that came back at the end of WW2 were not in any better shape either,let them all rest in peace.
SilverTiger said
Such mementos are indeed touching. Even if we find the image staged or conventional the emotions can still be genuine and provide people with a means of expressing their feelings when they do not have the words to do so.
When we know people in their old age, it is sometimes difficult to remember that they have been young and have experienced all the excitement, frustration, exaltation and sorrow of life like any young person today. Such pictures bring this home to us.
When we arrive, we do so travelling light and when we move on, we travel even lighter, no matter what possessions we have accumulated in life.
Grandad « Frisby said
[...] Having recently read this story by my dad about the passing away of one of my last remaining relatives, I was reminded of the happy [...]