D-Day

I have said this before and I will say it again. I have met many WW2 servicemen over the year s in my job and I have found that Infantry never talk. Of all the armed services those who saw frontline action will never open up.

I have had trouble getting sailors to shut up about their meditereanean exploits, North Atlantic Convoys or time spent beneath the waves. Pilots will talk avidly about their planes, the airfields anything. Infantry just say they were there and leave the rest unsaid.

This week I had yet another reminder. A sprightly young man of 91 hopped on my couch. I had to double take. I had him as a younger man, much.

I don't remember how his war service came up. But he mentioned he was in the Gordon Highlanders on D-Day. I heard a story of a young lad made to play the bagpipes as he waded ashore. He survived and had a long career as a nurse of some sort in Devon. German POW's are purported to have said they refused to shoot him because he was obviously off his trolley! I relayed this tale and my patient said he was at D-Day. He mentioned some thing about the machine gun fire and for a second I thought I was at long last going to receive a first hand account of D-Day. It was stopped in it's tracks with "...but I don't like to think about it!" We left the topic straight away but I couldn't help feeling sorry for this chap to have to have carried this burden for 66 years.

Compare and contrast this with a landing craft boson who once described D-Day to me as the most exciting day of his life. It all depends on your perspective.