Another war memoir? Well, yes, and for a very good reason. It could not be told before, until personal papers and photographs were made available to the Author. This is the story of my mother and father, told mostly from the side of my father, from the time of his calling up in early 1940 to his release from a prisoner of war camp in Germany in 1945, thence to return to England to try to pick up the pieces of his old life. Nothing could ever be quite the same afterwards, but travel through those 5 years, learning of the ups and downs, the plots and counterplots, as my father rose through the ranks to end his war as a captain, elevated to that rank in the field as his troops faced the formidable might of the SS Panzers, and where his battle came to an abrupt end, surrounded in an orchard by the enemy and captured after a series of bloody skirmishes as the British army spearheaded its way from the beaches, through the bocage of Normandy, aiming for the liberation of Paris and then the final conquest of Germany. Such was the fighting that a VC was won that day, the action taking place in plain sight. His journey across France and Germany in a truck, with comrades dying each day, is as hard to tell as it may be to read, particularly when a new life and new harsh rules had to be learned and rigidly enforced in a prison camp in northern Germany, his final destination. Not all was doom and gloom however, because, for example, who else would order a new car whilst in that German prison camp, so certain that he would be home in time to take delivery? The story is full of uplifting moments and may possibly be the first time that an individual’s war story has been told in such a homespun and ordinary manner, complete with extracts of letters that passed between husband and wife over those 5 long years, adding greatly to the poignancy of the telling of the tale.
Targeted Age Group: 40 – 80
Genre: Memoir
