You can’t blame Britain for D-Day caution
Who can blame the British for being cautious in the battle for Normandy (Mail)? It was fought in the shadow of the carnage of World War I, in which the casualties had been so great that they’d had a huge political impact at home, and the people and political climate wouldn’t tolerate the same carnage again. My mother’s father was blinded by mustard gas on the Somme and spent the next 62 years in total darkness. he was unemployed for 20 years until World War II began and he became a physiotherapist. My father’s uncle was badly injured ‘going over the top’ at Gallipoli. he told me that, at the time, he felt the impact of the bullets as no more than punches: the pain came later. he was hospitalised and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. After the war, he became a chain smoker and a heavy drinker, and never married. Every soldier going into action in World War II would have known stories like these from his own family and community. The chief lesson learned was that it was they who would be paying for the war. Even if they survived, their lives could be blighted for ever. My father, Alun Trevor Davies RE, MC, was a Desert Rat in Africa who took part in the Italy campaign at Salerno, Naples, Volturno and Garigliano, before returning with the 7th Armoured Division for the Normandy landings in June 1944. he remained with that division during the advance into France, Belgium and holland until he was shot through the arm in September 1944 and invalided home. he suffered recurring pain in the arm until he died from a heart attack in 1964 at the age of 45. Dad once told my mother that they were never going to fight like World War I again, taking huge casualties. he said this time they were going to let the equipment do the job for them. From the point of view of the soldiers doing the actual fighting, this was the rational approach. Who can blame them? I’m just grateful for the sacrifice these brave men made.
R. P. T. DAVIEs, Hayling Island, Hants.