Stand by for action
For one reason or another I seem to have read/listened to a lot of war stories recently. All sparked off by listening to Dan Carlin’s hardcore history “Blueprint for Armageddon” which is a mammoth podcast series on WW1 which is incredible.
I wanted to share a story a day in the run up to Remembrance Day. These are not glorifications of war, I think it is important in remembering to learn a bit about the lives that people lived. It’s easy to forget in all the numbers and statistics that they were actual people, all individuals who lived these lives. So I hope you find the stories worthwhile reading.
The first one is from Naval Commander William Donald DSC about his experience of D-Day. His book ‘Stand by for action’ is an amazing account:
“We had to anchor literally within yards of our appointed spot and then knock the hell out of those forts: The forts whose photo I had gazed at so often in the last few days. Unless our shells dropped on those two pinpoints on the chart we would fail in our duty.
Suddenly the Sub lowered his binoculars and turned to me
“Land in sight Sir”
In the first pale light of dawn there before us, a faint low blur on the horizon lay the coast of France. In my own mind I always felt certain that however bad the war news might be, however sick at heart we might get at some awful loss, however long we waited — one day the dawn could come when the Allied Armies set foot in France. For four years the enemy had held the whole Atlantic seaboard from Norway to Spain; for four years aided by his U-boats this awful menace had hung over us like a permanent black cloud; for four years, millions had waited desperate for this dawn, the dawn that would lead to their liberation.
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Half a minute to go. My heart was thumping like a sledge-hammer
“STAND BY!”
As I gave the order with my eyes glued to my stopwatch, my thoughts flashed for that that brief interval to my little country home, four hundred miles away. Five fifteen; all would be quiet there too. My wife and little girl still fast asleep upstairs in their bedroom. Outside in the garden with the Lake District Hills all round, it would be fresh and cool, the birds cheeping in the apple trees and the old tabby gazing at them enviously as she picked her way daintily across the dewy lawn — the same perfect June morning, I could see it all…
“OPEN FIRE”
One of the greatest moments in history — one the whole free world was waiting for — had arrived at last.
“I shall always remember with a glow the humble pride one paragraph in the orders of Operation ‘Overlord’. It read as follows:
“It is the primary duty of the Navy to ensure that the Army is landed safely on the shores of France. Regardless of any difficulties encountered, or losses sustained, this will be done”.
It was.”
