Chapter 13 (continued) Shower of Frogs
[Although Bill Stigall had been involved in combat in North Africa and Italy, this was the real war as far as he was concerned. - SP]
This continues D-Day
The gliders came to earth in every imaginable position. They lay over the fields like huge fallen birds, some intact, some lying still, as if a single bullet had brought them to earth. Others were mangled as if shotgun shells had scattered their parts. White parachutes covered a number of dead American soldiers lying beside the gliders. It was now that the final arguments long existing between paratroopers and glidermen as to which job was the worst were settled. Neither was worth a damn. Red, green, yellow, and white chutes were hanging from trees, draped over hedgerows, or lying flat on the fields. Some were still attached to the tails of gliders, where they had been used as brakes for the speeding descent. A certain number of glidermen in U.S. and British Borsa gliders, the great plywood monsters, got no farther into France than the soil of Normandy. First this number seemed enormous, but later it proved less than some expected.
I had a small cut on the top of my head from the glider landing. My head felt as if it would burst. The medical officer powdered it with sulfa and gave me some pills. [For this he would be awarded the Purple Heart, not something he much mentioned except in mild embarrassment.]
The day of the eighth was spent maneuvering and bringing up supplies to troops engaged in fighting Germans. I drove down roads with hedgerows about ten feet high on each side. The hedges were wild and untrimmed, and many nestled snipers. It was a tedious and dangerous job getting them out. Shortly before darkness we moved forward, just as we thought we'd settle for the night. Under the cover of approaching darkness I drove my jeep and trailer of ammunition down a railroad track that was inundated.
I drove a mile or so and crossed a swamp over a road, flooded but marked by engineers with white cloth. Beyond this we went down a deeply banked road and into an apple orchard. I unhooked the trailer and parked it about twenty-five yards away under a tree heavy with small reddish green fruit about an inch in thickness. I started to dig another slit trench beside the jeep but didn't have the strength. It was now completely dark. I fell asleep.
Sometime during the night all hell broke loose. Machine-gun fire ripped over our heads; mortar and artillery shells dropped terrifyingly close. I was frightened and started to dig a trench. I still couldn't do it. Also, it hardly seemed safe to try. I hugged the side of the jeep. Information was shouted out to me that the Germans were coming through our area. We were to hold our positions. No one seemed to know from what direction they were coming. No one seemed to know where the rest of our company was. No one seemed to know anything. We prepared to meet the German attack. I took from the jeep the Browning automatic rifle, put the tripod on the front, and waited. I was about to face my first German. It was a sickening experience.
Monday, December 3, 2018
Friday, November 2, 2018
Normandy (continued)
Shower of Frogs - William J Stigall, Jr.
More from Chapter 13 on the invasion of Normandy
We were awakened in the dark on June 7. We ate, were transported to the field, walked to the gliders, got in. The pilots arrived; we chatted awhile. And then we waited. Shortly before dawn the C-47s on our flanks warmed up, first one motor, then the other. Gradually they built up to full throttle, diminished the power, and began taxiing in from right and left in front of the massed gliders. One by one, with precision timing, the men, working in pairs, hooked the two ends of the tow rope to the glider and to the C-47 approximately three hundred feet away. The tow plane made taut the nylon rope and upon signal gunned wide open down the runway with the prop wash blasting against the glider, making it rise and bobble and filling it with a deafening roar. We lifted off the English earth. Glider after glider after glider left the ground, circled in the brightening day, and maneuvered into position.
It was barely light and I could see eight hundred feet below me, as if through a gauze, the gentle, peaceful, beautiful English countryside, the small divisions of land, red-bricked houses, cattle, and now and then, the slow movement of early-rising people. No music in any form would ever be needed to accompany any film of such an event. The powerful music of hundreds of motors, of the mass gunning of plane after plane roaring wide open throttle pushing a potent prop wash against the fragile glider creating within it an enforced silence-this would be music enough.
Two important thoughts never occurred to me on the flight.
The trip was so exciting, the flight so inevitable and irresistible in its search for a target, and it all happened so fast, in so short a time, that I never gave a thought to falling in the water or that there might not be room for all of us on the approaching fields.
We crossed safely over the coast (the French coast, I guessed). We continued inland for a minute or two, dutifully following the C-47 as it banked to the right. By now we must have been going 140 miles per hour, at about 800 feet, probably less. I could determine nothing special about the land below us. If we were being fired at, I never heard or saw it. The ground seemed marshy, woody, and green. Small fields suddenly began to appear. Without warning the roar in the glider stopped. We experienced that moment of great beauty, of almost absolute silence. Either w were cut off by the C-47 or our pilot cut us from the tow plane. We made a wide silent swoop and dropped quickly.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see other gliders moving earthward. I also saw numerous C-47s banking and turning in every direction. Beside me I could hear Gerry cursing, even louder than I, and saying forcefully, "'Get this damn thing on the ground."
Once over the initial shock, we scrambled through the door of the glider, more than anything else just to get the hell out of it. Once out, we stood about looking around us. We looked at the glider and the country surrounding us. The pilots climbed out of their perch in the snout. We asked each other how the other was. All were standing.
We soon recognized rifle fire and eventually the special sound of mortar shells sailing through the air. Slowly it came to one of us, the corporal probably, that we ought to get the jeep out of the glider. At that moment a mortar shell burst someplace near us. At first there was no reaction, except a looking at one another. Another burst came closer. We took off for the hedge. Several more bursts landed in the vicinity, close to the glider. Only then did it come to me that I was being fired upon by the enemy and that I was in combat.
That was the beginning of the war.
***
More to follow ...
More from Chapter 13 on the invasion of Normandy
We were awakened in the dark on June 7. We ate, were transported to the field, walked to the gliders, got in. The pilots arrived; we chatted awhile. And then we waited. Shortly before dawn the C-47s on our flanks warmed up, first one motor, then the other. Gradually they built up to full throttle, diminished the power, and began taxiing in from right and left in front of the massed gliders. One by one, with precision timing, the men, working in pairs, hooked the two ends of the tow rope to the glider and to the C-47 approximately three hundred feet away. The tow plane made taut the nylon rope and upon signal gunned wide open down the runway with the prop wash blasting against the glider, making it rise and bobble and filling it with a deafening roar. We lifted off the English earth. Glider after glider after glider left the ground, circled in the brightening day, and maneuvered into position.
It was barely light and I could see eight hundred feet below me, as if through a gauze, the gentle, peaceful, beautiful English countryside, the small divisions of land, red-bricked houses, cattle, and now and then, the slow movement of early-rising people. No music in any form would ever be needed to accompany any film of such an event. The powerful music of hundreds of motors, of the mass gunning of plane after plane roaring wide open throttle pushing a potent prop wash against the fragile glider creating within it an enforced silence-this would be music enough.
Two important thoughts never occurred to me on the flight.
The trip was so exciting, the flight so inevitable and irresistible in its search for a target, and it all happened so fast, in so short a time, that I never gave a thought to falling in the water or that there might not be room for all of us on the approaching fields.
We crossed safely over the coast (the French coast, I guessed). We continued inland for a minute or two, dutifully following the C-47 as it banked to the right. By now we must have been going 140 miles per hour, at about 800 feet, probably less. I could determine nothing special about the land below us. If we were being fired at, I never heard or saw it. The ground seemed marshy, woody, and green. Small fields suddenly began to appear. Without warning the roar in the glider stopped. We experienced that moment of great beauty, of almost absolute silence. Either w were cut off by the C-47 or our pilot cut us from the tow plane. We made a wide silent swoop and dropped quickly.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see other gliders moving earthward. I also saw numerous C-47s banking and turning in every direction. Beside me I could hear Gerry cursing, even louder than I, and saying forcefully, "'Get this damn thing on the ground."
Once over the initial shock, we scrambled through the door of the glider, more than anything else just to get the hell out of it. Once out, we stood about looking around us. We looked at the glider and the country surrounding us. The pilots climbed out of their perch in the snout. We asked each other how the other was. All were standing.
We soon recognized rifle fire and eventually the special sound of mortar shells sailing through the air. Slowly it came to one of us, the corporal probably, that we ought to get the jeep out of the glider. At that moment a mortar shell burst someplace near us. At first there was no reaction, except a looking at one another. Another burst came closer. We took off for the hedge. Several more bursts landed in the vicinity, close to the glider. Only then did it come to me that I was being fired upon by the enemy and that I was in combat.
That was the beginning of the war.
***
More to follow ...
Monday, October 15, 2018
Normandy June 7-12, 1944
Shower of Frogs, Chapter 13
I do not know if the men in Henry the Fifth's army knew, on the morn of Agincourt, that they were about to take part in one of the memorable moments of world history. I do not know if King Henry knew. In Shakespeare he is fully aware of it. He calls his little band about him and exhorts them with: "And Chrispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
I do not know how many men who were a part of the first hours of the invasion of France knew that they were to be a part of history. I suspect many knew. I knew. I wanted to see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, feel it. I had no wish to die in one of the great battles of the world's history. That did not seem heroic, noble, glamorous, or anything good to me. I simply wanted to be a part of it-to get in the act, as it were. I wanted to do what I was expected to do and get back safely. Which is sort of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course we had no inspiring speech to set us upon the stinking enemy. No Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester . . .
Being Americans, we never dreamed of remembering in after years Eisenhower, Monty, and Roosevelt, Bradley and Taylor, Ridgeway and Gavin. That we were few we knew; that we were a happy few I doubt; that we were a band of brothers-yes, in the deepest sense. The long buildup to invasion and the realities of the world put stirring orations out of reach.
On the night of June 5, 1944, I heard, from my tent, the planes roar off the runways, saw them circling above me as they did in Tunisia preparing to fly off to Sicily-occupied Europe from the south. Later that night I heard them return. This was part of the first wave of paratroopers and glidermen landing on the soil of Fortress Europe, D day, before dawn, June 6, 1944. Whatever happened during the day, we heard little of it. Some of us remembered North Africa and recalled our anguish when our flight was canceled. This time we had to go.
Men in small groups, by ranks, were called to briefing sessions. I waited my turn to have, at last, some concrete knowledge of where I was going, some sense of my minute part in a gigantic operation, some feeling of history, some gratification. In this case, how very special it was to be. It was almost worth waiting for. The men in my tent went; all the sergeants and the corporals went.
I was not called. My reaction was simple rage. Rage followed by the fury of bursting frustration almost to tears. In order to abate my anger and, no doubt, out of sympathy for my bitterness, a tech-sergeant friend, sitting on the edge of his cot smoking one cigarette after another, broke security and, looking me straight in the face, told me three things: we go June 7 at dawn; it's France; it looks horrible.
*** [more to follow]
I do not know if the men in Henry the Fifth's army knew, on the morn of Agincourt, that they were about to take part in one of the memorable moments of world history. I do not know if King Henry knew. In Shakespeare he is fully aware of it. He calls his little band about him and exhorts them with: "And Chrispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
I do not know how many men who were a part of the first hours of the invasion of France knew that they were to be a part of history. I suspect many knew. I knew. I wanted to see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, feel it. I had no wish to die in one of the great battles of the world's history. That did not seem heroic, noble, glamorous, or anything good to me. I simply wanted to be a part of it-to get in the act, as it were. I wanted to do what I was expected to do and get back safely. Which is sort of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course we had no inspiring speech to set us upon the stinking enemy. No Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester . . .
Being Americans, we never dreamed of remembering in after years Eisenhower, Monty, and Roosevelt, Bradley and Taylor, Ridgeway and Gavin. That we were few we knew; that we were a happy few I doubt; that we were a band of brothers-yes, in the deepest sense. The long buildup to invasion and the realities of the world put stirring orations out of reach.
On the night of June 5, 1944, I heard, from my tent, the planes roar off the runways, saw them circling above me as they did in Tunisia preparing to fly off to Sicily-occupied Europe from the south. Later that night I heard them return. This was part of the first wave of paratroopers and glidermen landing on the soil of Fortress Europe, D day, before dawn, June 6, 1944. Whatever happened during the day, we heard little of it. Some of us remembered North Africa and recalled our anguish when our flight was canceled. This time we had to go.
Men in small groups, by ranks, were called to briefing sessions. I waited my turn to have, at last, some concrete knowledge of where I was going, some sense of my minute part in a gigantic operation, some feeling of history, some gratification. In this case, how very special it was to be. It was almost worth waiting for. The men in my tent went; all the sergeants and the corporals went.
I was not called. My reaction was simple rage. Rage followed by the fury of bursting frustration almost to tears. In order to abate my anger and, no doubt, out of sympathy for my bitterness, a tech-sergeant friend, sitting on the edge of his cot smoking one cigarette after another, broke security and, looking me straight in the face, told me three things: we go June 7 at dawn; it's France; it looks horrible.
*** [more to follow]
Monday, September 24, 2018
Chapter 12: the glider
A Shower of Frogs
Continuing Chapter 12 from the previous post ... describing Bill Stigall's glider
I told Mavis that the glider was almost as large as the two-motored plane that towed it, the C-47, weighted 3,600 pounds, and carried thirteen men and two pilots or a jeep (an additional 3,100 pounds), three men, and two pilots. It could also carry a trailer, a 75mm pack howitzer, or ammunition, food, or other supplies. For all its weight and size, it was fragile. The frame was steel tubing, the sides and wings a tissue-thin fabric taut like a drum head. The nose of the glider, called a snout, unhooked, lifted up and allowed the jeep or artillery piece to enter. All material things inside were tied down with ropes. It was this action that we performed hour after hour, practicing, experimenting, while the makers changed models.
The glider had a hook in the front with a release handle above the pilot's instrument panel and window. To the hook was attached a 300-foot nylon rope about one inch thick. The other end of the rope was attached to the rear of the C-47, which also had a release hook. The C-47 pulled the glider off the ground, into the air, and over the drop zone. We were to travel at about one thousand feet at 130 miles per hour. Over the drop zone either glider or C-47 or both cut loose and the glider circled in order to be certain of the drop area and to slow down to about sixty miles per hour. The C-47, if not severely injured from flack, went home.
On my first flight at Maxton Airbase (an improvised situation, like many other things in World War II) we took off behind the C-47 with the propeller blast blowing like a gale and lifting the glider before the tow plane left the earth. We bobbed up and down, to right and left, like a cork on water, and were soon gaining altitude as the C-47 itself gained elevation. We followed the tow plane around in large circles, like a kite on a string, for about twenty minutes.
Without warning our pilot unhooked us. At that moment the glider is free and there exists a sudden and profound silence--a few seconds of great aesthetic satisfaction. Nothing can be heard save the slight sound of wind pressing against the wings, which, by contrast to the deafening sound of the prop wash, is stunning. This sound, this singing silence, must surely approximate that known to
a soaring eagle.
We four in the jeep sat still, pressing our feet against whatever was solid in front of us. I held fast to the steering wheel, either making as if to land the damn glider or simply cursing a blue streak. Gerry, my corporal sitting beside me, usually outdid me. His streak, in soft Carolina accents, was fiery blue. The landings were tense. The glider had wheels and skids, like skis. The bottom of the glider was eighteen inches off the newly scraped ground and grass, which went by fast under us. The possibility of touching down and of immediately nosing over was ever present. Should this happen it would have been a mess of nuts, bolts, and insurance checks for loved ones. The story of glider landings was clear to me in my first landing.
We only circled once, came down rapidly, shot across the ground at about 120 miles per hour, overran the landing strip, skidded, and wobbled to right and left, coming to a harmless stop on the grass. The pilots unhooked the snout and lifted it. In seconds the three men untied the jeep and I turned on the motor and drove out.
At Maxton Airbase we repeated this action two or three times. No troubles.
The word glider is a misnomer. We glided very little; we soared not at all. It was a way of dumping a certain number of men and materials behind enemy lines. It had marvelous surprise possibilities and great potential shock-to both parties. I always flew in a jeep. Directly under my seat was the gas tank, a point of much humor, bawdy humor. We had no parachutes or seat belts.
Mavis asked if this was a volunteer outfit. I told her that one day we were an ordinary infantry outfit and the next day we were airborne. At the time, we had the privilege of volunteering for the paratroops, which I did, only to flunk the last part of the physical. I didn't have enough teeth. (For several days afterward sad jokes all around.) No, glidermen came by their work "natural-like."
Continuing Chapter 12 from the previous post ... describing Bill Stigall's glider
I told Mavis that the glider was almost as large as the two-motored plane that towed it, the C-47, weighted 3,600 pounds, and carried thirteen men and two pilots or a jeep (an additional 3,100 pounds), three men, and two pilots. It could also carry a trailer, a 75mm pack howitzer, or ammunition, food, or other supplies. For all its weight and size, it was fragile. The frame was steel tubing, the sides and wings a tissue-thin fabric taut like a drum head. The nose of the glider, called a snout, unhooked, lifted up and allowed the jeep or artillery piece to enter. All material things inside were tied down with ropes. It was this action that we performed hour after hour, practicing, experimenting, while the makers changed models.
The glider had a hook in the front with a release handle above the pilot's instrument panel and window. To the hook was attached a 300-foot nylon rope about one inch thick. The other end of the rope was attached to the rear of the C-47, which also had a release hook. The C-47 pulled the glider off the ground, into the air, and over the drop zone. We were to travel at about one thousand feet at 130 miles per hour. Over the drop zone either glider or C-47 or both cut loose and the glider circled in order to be certain of the drop area and to slow down to about sixty miles per hour. The C-47, if not severely injured from flack, went home.
On my first flight at Maxton Airbase (an improvised situation, like many other things in World War II) we took off behind the C-47 with the propeller blast blowing like a gale and lifting the glider before the tow plane left the earth. We bobbed up and down, to right and left, like a cork on water, and were soon gaining altitude as the C-47 itself gained elevation. We followed the tow plane around in large circles, like a kite on a string, for about twenty minutes.
Without warning our pilot unhooked us. At that moment the glider is free and there exists a sudden and profound silence--a few seconds of great aesthetic satisfaction. Nothing can be heard save the slight sound of wind pressing against the wings, which, by contrast to the deafening sound of the prop wash, is stunning. This sound, this singing silence, must surely approximate that known to
a soaring eagle.
We four in the jeep sat still, pressing our feet against whatever was solid in front of us. I held fast to the steering wheel, either making as if to land the damn glider or simply cursing a blue streak. Gerry, my corporal sitting beside me, usually outdid me. His streak, in soft Carolina accents, was fiery blue. The landings were tense. The glider had wheels and skids, like skis. The bottom of the glider was eighteen inches off the newly scraped ground and grass, which went by fast under us. The possibility of touching down and of immediately nosing over was ever present. Should this happen it would have been a mess of nuts, bolts, and insurance checks for loved ones. The story of glider landings was clear to me in my first landing.
We only circled once, came down rapidly, shot across the ground at about 120 miles per hour, overran the landing strip, skidded, and wobbled to right and left, coming to a harmless stop on the grass. The pilots unhooked the snout and lifted it. In seconds the three men untied the jeep and I turned on the motor and drove out.
At Maxton Airbase we repeated this action two or three times. No troubles.
The word glider is a misnomer. We glided very little; we soared not at all. It was a way of dumping a certain number of men and materials behind enemy lines. It had marvelous surprise possibilities and great potential shock-to both parties. I always flew in a jeep. Directly under my seat was the gas tank, a point of much humor, bawdy humor. We had no parachutes or seat belts.
Mavis asked if this was a volunteer outfit. I told her that one day we were an ordinary infantry outfit and the next day we were airborne. At the time, we had the privilege of volunteering for the paratroops, which I did, only to flunk the last part of the physical. I didn't have enough teeth. (For several days afterward sad jokes all around.) No, glidermen came by their work "natural-like."
Spring 1944 [Chapter 12]
A Shower of Frogs (WWII memoir)
Chapter 12: The Spring [1944]
[Post note: D-Day approaches, but for Bill Stigall, it was still just waiting, not knowing when or how the invasion would begin. A follow-up post will provide his perspective on the glider in which he would "fly".]
It was the spring, and it did lead to a breath-abated hour. But from early March to June, when my glider was one in a fifty-mile-long flying train across the Channel, the hundred days were a strange
mixture of impatience, serenity, waste, happiness, boredom, and beauty. The times bring to mind the analogy of a man's life being like a tone poem. Various passages of agitation and calm, shifting
moods from vivace to largo, with mucho moderato in the middle. A series of themes, some abandoned, some recurring. Now and then passages of intentional monotony, including several beats of silence. Those hundred days lived at the bottom of the military pile must have been very different from life at SHAPE Headquarters and in the United States. Not knowing the date or place of invasion, making no decisions, seeing no end to repetitive preparations, contrasted with reams of information, boxes of reports, conferences galore, and some generally determined week "to go." Or in America, living under the pressure of newspaper, magazine, and radio coverage hyped by wild guessing, adding up to plain jitters. The tension at the bottom was, on the surface, nil. Subconsciously there was tension, expressed in short tempers, frustration, despair, including a sense of having been forgotten.
...
During the hundred days, I went to Stratford, London, and Derbyshire. I loved and treasured every moment of them. By the first of April my life sank into dull, seemingly senseless action, lacking any quality of expectancy. Only in a rare moment did I give a thought to the true reason for my existence and whereabouts. Life lacked drama; it lacked suspense; it lacked excitement. My main drive was a burning desire to get on with the war and get it over. I hated the army more than ever. Somehow the seductive presence of civilians made life more difficult than had their absence. The strain of waiting, of watching the sky where men were getting things done while I trained and wasted time in block-long chow lines, was nerve-wracking. Tempers were as short as green grass in the desert.
Life turned sour. I thought we'd never get off the ground-not for real. Mail call, the heartbeat of our life, slowed down to a trickle. It may have been real or it may have been psychological, but we felt
forgotten by those at home.
Chapter 12: The Spring [1944]
[Post note: D-Day approaches, but for Bill Stigall, it was still just waiting, not knowing when or how the invasion would begin. A follow-up post will provide his perspective on the glider in which he would "fly".]
It was the spring, and it did lead to a breath-abated hour. But from early March to June, when my glider was one in a fifty-mile-long flying train across the Channel, the hundred days were a strange
mixture of impatience, serenity, waste, happiness, boredom, and beauty. The times bring to mind the analogy of a man's life being like a tone poem. Various passages of agitation and calm, shifting
moods from vivace to largo, with mucho moderato in the middle. A series of themes, some abandoned, some recurring. Now and then passages of intentional monotony, including several beats of silence. Those hundred days lived at the bottom of the military pile must have been very different from life at SHAPE Headquarters and in the United States. Not knowing the date or place of invasion, making no decisions, seeing no end to repetitive preparations, contrasted with reams of information, boxes of reports, conferences galore, and some generally determined week "to go." Or in America, living under the pressure of newspaper, magazine, and radio coverage hyped by wild guessing, adding up to plain jitters. The tension at the bottom was, on the surface, nil. Subconsciously there was tension, expressed in short tempers, frustration, despair, including a sense of having been forgotten.
...
During the hundred days, I went to Stratford, London, and Derbyshire. I loved and treasured every moment of them. By the first of April my life sank into dull, seemingly senseless action, lacking any quality of expectancy. Only in a rare moment did I give a thought to the true reason for my existence and whereabouts. Life lacked drama; it lacked suspense; it lacked excitement. My main drive was a burning desire to get on with the war and get it over. I hated the army more than ever. Somehow the seductive presence of civilians made life more difficult than had their absence. The strain of waiting, of watching the sky where men were getting things done while I trained and wasted time in block-long chow lines, was nerve-wracking. Tempers were as short as green grass in the desert.
Life turned sour. I thought we'd never get off the ground-not for real. Mail call, the heartbeat of our life, slowed down to a trickle. It may have been real or it may have been psychological, but we felt
forgotten by those at home.
Monday, August 13, 2018
A romantic interlude, 1944
Chapter 11: England, 1944 -- additional excepts, these related to the young Irish woman he had met months before in Ireland ... many, many years later, Bill and his wife Phyllis, met Mavis and her husband, now of New Zealand, in New York when the latter were traveling.
American soldiers could not, or at least were not supposed to, get passes to London without a room reservation. I had one at the American Red Cross in Marble Arch.
The trains in England ran pretty much on time. The London train pulled into Leicester on the dot. I milled around in the crowd and had no difficulty spotting Mavis. She waved and called out to me, "Hello, Bill!" I waved back, sidestepped a few people, and joined her. She was in uniform, with a jaunty overseas cap, large leather gloves, and shoulder bag. "
In a matter of moments the train moved quietly and smoothly from the brick station and we were off for London. We looked out both sides of our compartment where we could see the countryside and occasional small villages slip past us. "Have you a place to stay?" I asked. "No," Mavis casually answered, as if it didn't matter that we were going to the world's largest city in the most crowded country in the hemisphere. "Well, don't worry," I said. "Your big coat and mine up there will make a fine bed on a park bench." She laughed and agreed but added, "Don't you worry about it. I'll find a place." I said, "Mavis, for a farm girl from Tipperary, who's never been to London, you're doing fine."
The weather was lovely, a bright sun and only a slight spring chill. Good fortune blessed us, for every day was sunny. We spent the first evening at the theatre, having missed dinner to see the sights. The
performance of Arsenic and Old Lace was early, as were most performances in London in the blackout. At the first intermission we had delivered to our seats tea and cakes, a marvelous surprise and delight. After the show we found a restaurant in the blackout and had supper. I was delighted to discover that the Irish eat. As a matter of fact, Mavis and I never had the slightest trouble agreeing on
tea, lunch, and dinner. After supper we walked around, arm in arm, for fear of being separated, if for no other reason, hoping for an air raid-just a little one for excitement. None came ...
We saw the usual sights. We walked. Mavis with a long, firm, graceful stride kept pace, and we stopped a hundred times to ask questions of the bobbies and rode the tube, taxis, and the bus. We walked all over central London from Buckingham Palace to Marble Arch, from Big Ben to Waterloo Bridge, along the Victoria Embankment to Bloody Tower and beautiful London Bridge. We climbed to the top of St. Paul's, later saw the changing of the guards, Scottish to English. We walked around Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Charing Cross. We visited the Old Curiosity Shop, the Wax Museum, some lovely parks, Kensington Gardens, Westminster Abbey and Bridge, the exterior of the House of Lords, and Drury Lane. Names, names as old as my reading, as rich as my inheritance. London of Elizabeth, of James, of Anne, of Victoria, Dickens, Wilde, Irving, and Disraeli.
Naturally, this was a wartime London-a united nations city. Girls in uniform from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and WACS from America. Soldiers from New
Zealand, South Africa, Belgium, Greece, France, from the forty eight states, from Australia, the Netherlands, from all over Britain. Uniforms of every description-royal blue, pale blue, and a dozen shades of khaki. As many different hats as there were services, everyone's favorite being the Aussies' and the Wrens' style!
All of this was London, but it was not until I looked over the city from the top of St. Paul's that I knew for certain just where I was, felt sure that I was in London. A good sun was shining, although it was somewhat hazy. The haze softened the lovely spires and towers of London. All about St. Paul's there was the ugly hand of the barbarians. The area on three sides of it was flattened for several blocks. I looked at London Bridge from where on one such hazy morning Wordsworth had written: "Earth hath not anything to show more fair." It was still an inspiring and gracious sight-the winding slow-moving Thames and the laden barges, a great city, horribly scarred, but like a great people only just that, scarred but never beaten, holding firm to this challenge to civilization. It was common, of course, to draw the obvious remarks about St. Paul, something intact, permanent, and spiritual amid ruin. That was true, yes, but there was something else also significant inside the church.
Bombs had landed upon part of this beautiful building, this Wren masterpiece. It was horribly mutilated in spots, made a little ugly even-ignoble. But repairs were in process even amid the bombings. Block and tackle were hoisting new stones where others crumbled. Some things could never be replaced, but others took their place. The essential beauty remained. Something like this was happening to our civilization, our culture, our lives. We were being scarred, were being subjected to brutality, we were losing much, moving backward in some ways, and some things would never be seen again by anyone. But we were not entirely lost-we had not given in to the Germans; we were holding on to some measure of our culture; we still had something to build upon. We could use block and tackle; we could plug the hold that we in our neglect allowed to weaken and be pushed down. This seemed to me the meaning of St. Paul's and of London.
Of the nearly forty shows from which to choose Mavis and I saw three. We saw the Lunts in There Shall Be No Night. Our arrangements were to share expenses, but I had to see one show from the stalls. I pulled my rank-I had one stripe; Mavis had no stripes and we sat fifth row center. I have ever forgotten the night. As I was in much-bombed London in the very center of tragedy, sadness, and death and daily examples of conquering this death, this poignant and beautiful performance brought tears and memories that would live forever afterward. My personal involvement in World War II seemed, as it was meant to be reflected for us all, in the life of the play. Dr. Vlachos's situation, a very much heightened version of my own, was one I could not help identifying with. I was thankful for the understanding and sympathy given me, in silence or otherwise, by the strong, sensitive woman who shared the evening with me.
We also watched John Gielgud lead a superb company in Congreve's Love for Love. In the beautiful Haymarket Theatre, Gielgud both entertained me and taught me. We saw The Lisbon Story-a play with music, another side of the theatrical coin. During supper after Love for Love I remarked to Mavis that Mr. Gielgud, in program notes, called our time the "barren present." In contrast to the carefree world of the seventeenth century, yes. But barren? And a world in revolution? We knew what he meant-barren of artistic creation. Yet the adjective bothered us. Much was being born, much was getting started, in the fiery crucible of 1943-44. It was true that no great novel, play, song, or movie had as yet come from the United States. Perhaps none of these forms could contain the war. It was more like an epic. The scale of the war was so great that no play, no movie, nor even a novel could encompass it. The breaking and smashing of ancient sanctuaries, the frenzy of hatred, the incipient revolution that was sweeping the world surged beyond the confines of any form of art save the epic. It would probably be written by someone of another generation.
We ultimately had an air raid.
***
The next morning, Mavis and I said good-bye to the Markendales and returned to Derby. On the station platform I kissed Mavis good-bye. She went north to Scotland and across the Irish Sea to Belfast. I returned south to Leicester. Under the severity and long silence of the fall, winter, and spring of 1944-45 we grew more fond of each other.
American soldiers could not, or at least were not supposed to, get passes to London without a room reservation. I had one at the American Red Cross in Marble Arch.
The trains in England ran pretty much on time. The London train pulled into Leicester on the dot. I milled around in the crowd and had no difficulty spotting Mavis. She waved and called out to me, "Hello, Bill!" I waved back, sidestepped a few people, and joined her. She was in uniform, with a jaunty overseas cap, large leather gloves, and shoulder bag. "
In a matter of moments the train moved quietly and smoothly from the brick station and we were off for London. We looked out both sides of our compartment where we could see the countryside and occasional small villages slip past us. "Have you a place to stay?" I asked. "No," Mavis casually answered, as if it didn't matter that we were going to the world's largest city in the most crowded country in the hemisphere. "Well, don't worry," I said. "Your big coat and mine up there will make a fine bed on a park bench." She laughed and agreed but added, "Don't you worry about it. I'll find a place." I said, "Mavis, for a farm girl from Tipperary, who's never been to London, you're doing fine."
The weather was lovely, a bright sun and only a slight spring chill. Good fortune blessed us, for every day was sunny. We spent the first evening at the theatre, having missed dinner to see the sights. The
performance of Arsenic and Old Lace was early, as were most performances in London in the blackout. At the first intermission we had delivered to our seats tea and cakes, a marvelous surprise and delight. After the show we found a restaurant in the blackout and had supper. I was delighted to discover that the Irish eat. As a matter of fact, Mavis and I never had the slightest trouble agreeing on
tea, lunch, and dinner. After supper we walked around, arm in arm, for fear of being separated, if for no other reason, hoping for an air raid-just a little one for excitement. None came ...
We saw the usual sights. We walked. Mavis with a long, firm, graceful stride kept pace, and we stopped a hundred times to ask questions of the bobbies and rode the tube, taxis, and the bus. We walked all over central London from Buckingham Palace to Marble Arch, from Big Ben to Waterloo Bridge, along the Victoria Embankment to Bloody Tower and beautiful London Bridge. We climbed to the top of St. Paul's, later saw the changing of the guards, Scottish to English. We walked around Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Charing Cross. We visited the Old Curiosity Shop, the Wax Museum, some lovely parks, Kensington Gardens, Westminster Abbey and Bridge, the exterior of the House of Lords, and Drury Lane. Names, names as old as my reading, as rich as my inheritance. London of Elizabeth, of James, of Anne, of Victoria, Dickens, Wilde, Irving, and Disraeli.
Naturally, this was a wartime London-a united nations city. Girls in uniform from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and WACS from America. Soldiers from New
Zealand, South Africa, Belgium, Greece, France, from the forty eight states, from Australia, the Netherlands, from all over Britain. Uniforms of every description-royal blue, pale blue, and a dozen shades of khaki. As many different hats as there were services, everyone's favorite being the Aussies' and the Wrens' style!
All of this was London, but it was not until I looked over the city from the top of St. Paul's that I knew for certain just where I was, felt sure that I was in London. A good sun was shining, although it was somewhat hazy. The haze softened the lovely spires and towers of London. All about St. Paul's there was the ugly hand of the barbarians. The area on three sides of it was flattened for several blocks. I looked at London Bridge from where on one such hazy morning Wordsworth had written: "Earth hath not anything to show more fair." It was still an inspiring and gracious sight-the winding slow-moving Thames and the laden barges, a great city, horribly scarred, but like a great people only just that, scarred but never beaten, holding firm to this challenge to civilization. It was common, of course, to draw the obvious remarks about St. Paul, something intact, permanent, and spiritual amid ruin. That was true, yes, but there was something else also significant inside the church.
Bombs had landed upon part of this beautiful building, this Wren masterpiece. It was horribly mutilated in spots, made a little ugly even-ignoble. But repairs were in process even amid the bombings. Block and tackle were hoisting new stones where others crumbled. Some things could never be replaced, but others took their place. The essential beauty remained. Something like this was happening to our civilization, our culture, our lives. We were being scarred, were being subjected to brutality, we were losing much, moving backward in some ways, and some things would never be seen again by anyone. But we were not entirely lost-we had not given in to the Germans; we were holding on to some measure of our culture; we still had something to build upon. We could use block and tackle; we could plug the hold that we in our neglect allowed to weaken and be pushed down. This seemed to me the meaning of St. Paul's and of London.
Of the nearly forty shows from which to choose Mavis and I saw three. We saw the Lunts in There Shall Be No Night. Our arrangements were to share expenses, but I had to see one show from the stalls. I pulled my rank-I had one stripe; Mavis had no stripes and we sat fifth row center. I have ever forgotten the night. As I was in much-bombed London in the very center of tragedy, sadness, and death and daily examples of conquering this death, this poignant and beautiful performance brought tears and memories that would live forever afterward. My personal involvement in World War II seemed, as it was meant to be reflected for us all, in the life of the play. Dr. Vlachos's situation, a very much heightened version of my own, was one I could not help identifying with. I was thankful for the understanding and sympathy given me, in silence or otherwise, by the strong, sensitive woman who shared the evening with me.
We also watched John Gielgud lead a superb company in Congreve's Love for Love. In the beautiful Haymarket Theatre, Gielgud both entertained me and taught me. We saw The Lisbon Story-a play with music, another side of the theatrical coin. During supper after Love for Love I remarked to Mavis that Mr. Gielgud, in program notes, called our time the "barren present." In contrast to the carefree world of the seventeenth century, yes. But barren? And a world in revolution? We knew what he meant-barren of artistic creation. Yet the adjective bothered us. Much was being born, much was getting started, in the fiery crucible of 1943-44. It was true that no great novel, play, song, or movie had as yet come from the United States. Perhaps none of these forms could contain the war. It was more like an epic. The scale of the war was so great that no play, no movie, nor even a novel could encompass it. The breaking and smashing of ancient sanctuaries, the frenzy of hatred, the incipient revolution that was sweeping the world surged beyond the confines of any form of art save the epic. It would probably be written by someone of another generation.
We ultimately had an air raid.
***
The next morning, Mavis and I said good-bye to the Markendales and returned to Derby. On the station platform I kissed Mavis good-bye. She went north to Scotland and across the Irish Sea to Belfast. I returned south to Leicester. Under the severity and long silence of the fall, winter, and spring of 1944-45 we grew more fond of each other.
-0-
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
England 1944
Chapter 11
For fifteen years I've wanted to come to this country, to this England.
For months I've wanted to hear music. For days I've wanted to see
shows, eat at tables, and talk to English-speaking men and women.
Now I've come to England. I've heard some music, seen some plays,
been to dances, eaten at tables, conversed in English. In fact I've tried
desperately to have a good time. And I have failed miserably. I have
no heart for it-now that I've got it. I've no mind for it. It isn't the
thing or they are not the things that satisfy my desires-the interest
of my heart and mind. What I want is what I left in the mountains of
Italy-satisfaction of something accomplished, something concrete,
something real, something to eat up this tremendous desire to get on
with the business of exterminating Germans.
Moving from North Ireland through Scotland to Leicester in
the Midlands was like traveling back through one's reading. Little
did I know of North Irish literature, but some I knew of Scotland.
The country I sped through, whether lowlands, highlands, or
moors, suggested those literary landscapes I had read about since
childhood. Conversation in the jeep was certainly negligible, so that
my mind ran off to the songs of Burns, the castles and abbeys of
Scott, the lakes of Wordsworth. We crossed the border into England
seeing road signs (when they were not removed for military security)
pointing to Carlisle, Nottingham, Liverpool; I remembered
Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. The deeper we got into England,
with names like Lancaster, Westmoorland, Cumberland, Derby,
Shakespeare, and the Wars, stirred memories of the Henrys and the
Richards. The trip was far more like being on holiday. It was a
dream come true. If only there weren't the army and a war.
***
For fifteen years I've wanted to come to this country, to this England.
For months I've wanted to hear music. For days I've wanted to see
shows, eat at tables, and talk to English-speaking men and women.
Now I've come to England. I've heard some music, seen some plays,
been to dances, eaten at tables, conversed in English. In fact I've tried
desperately to have a good time. And I have failed miserably. I have
no heart for it-now that I've got it. I've no mind for it. It isn't the
thing or they are not the things that satisfy my desires-the interest
of my heart and mind. What I want is what I left in the mountains of
Italy-satisfaction of something accomplished, something concrete,
something real, something to eat up this tremendous desire to get on
with the business of exterminating Germans.
Moving from North Ireland through Scotland to Leicester in
the Midlands was like traveling back through one's reading. Little
did I know of North Irish literature, but some I knew of Scotland.
The country I sped through, whether lowlands, highlands, or
moors, suggested those literary landscapes I had read about since
childhood. Conversation in the jeep was certainly negligible, so that
my mind ran off to the songs of Burns, the castles and abbeys of
Scott, the lakes of Wordsworth. We crossed the border into England
seeing road signs (when they were not removed for military security)
pointing to Carlisle, Nottingham, Liverpool; I remembered
Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. The deeper we got into England,
with names like Lancaster, Westmoorland, Cumberland, Derby,
Shakespeare, and the Wars, stirred memories of the Henrys and the
Richards. The trip was far more like being on holiday. It was a
dream come true. If only there weren't the army and a war.
***
Monday, July 16, 2018
Ireland
Chapter 10 [Shower of Frogs (WWII memoir), William Stigall]
It was now the middle of November (1943). We were somewhere in the cold North Atlantic. We heard the high-pitched, pulsating honk of seagulls. They swooped above us crying with delight as they dived into the garbage-filled wake of our ship. Experienced seamen, as we now were, we smelled land. Rumors and guesses got all mixed up with wishes and hopes. The choices were as extravagant as the longings. Scotland, Norway, Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, England, of course, and wistfully, the States. I do not recall the moment of docking on the east coast of North Ireland. But I vividly remember the first images. They persisted and are with me still.
One visual: the lumbering, ponderous Cydesdale horses pulling small solid wagons loaded with whiskey barrels over the cobbled streets of modem Belfast. One auditory: the joyous and friendly sound of Irish voices speaking the cadences of my native tongue.
...
I had treasured the sun breaking over the lovely inland Lough Neagh and had experienced one of the
most memorable New Year's Eves of my life. After five years of silence--a silence imposed upon themselves, a silence of all the church bells of North Ireland, which, were they to ring, would announce an invasion by the Germans-the breaking of that long five-year silence by ringing all the church bells all over North Ireland at midnight December 31, 1943. The bells of Ballymena rang
joyously to bring in the year 1944--the year of the great invasion of occupied Europe.
It was now the middle of November (1943). We were somewhere in the cold North Atlantic. We heard the high-pitched, pulsating honk of seagulls. They swooped above us crying with delight as they dived into the garbage-filled wake of our ship. Experienced seamen, as we now were, we smelled land. Rumors and guesses got all mixed up with wishes and hopes. The choices were as extravagant as the longings. Scotland, Norway, Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, England, of course, and wistfully, the States. I do not recall the moment of docking on the east coast of North Ireland. But I vividly remember the first images. They persisted and are with me still.
One visual: the lumbering, ponderous Cydesdale horses pulling small solid wagons loaded with whiskey barrels over the cobbled streets of modem Belfast. One auditory: the joyous and friendly sound of Irish voices speaking the cadences of my native tongue.
...
I had treasured the sun breaking over the lovely inland Lough Neagh and had experienced one of the
most memorable New Year's Eves of my life. After five years of silence--a silence imposed upon themselves, a silence of all the church bells of North Ireland, which, were they to ring, would announce an invasion by the Germans-the breaking of that long five-year silence by ringing all the church bells all over North Ireland at midnight December 31, 1943. The bells of Ballymena rang
joyously to bring in the year 1944--the year of the great invasion of occupied Europe.
Monday, July 9, 2018
The Atlantic: November 1943
The Atlantic, November 1943
Sea voyages were all alike: that is, for soldiers they were all alike.
Days were long; hours passed slowly. All effort was irksome. Time
hung upon inactivity. Our quarters, the hold, "the interior cavity of
a ship where cargo is stored," was sealed off above by a hatch covered
with coarse, airtight tarpaulin. The tarp and hatch were never
removed. In the cavity the air was at best secondhand and grew
heavy for want of oxygen. It was further weighted with the stale
odor of men, for in spite of excellent bathing facilities, we smelled.
...
In two days we dropped anchor in the port of Oran, Algeria.
Oh, no! Not North African again? Rumors and rumors. No shore
leave. Rumors and more rumors. In two days we hoisted anchor,
joined a convoy, and headed out into the Mediterranean Sea. At
noon the next day the public-address system reported Gibraltar on
the starboard side. We went on deck, sailed westward past "the
Rock" out to a great ocean of mist and fog. Whereupon I lost all
sense of direction.
...
Stacked in steerage, silent and smelling, I felt like a body in a
morgue. With no other desire than to be left alone, I thought back to
the day of my enlistment and of the appalling waste of my life. Such
thoughts were, for thousands of us, a recurring and corrosive experience.
Gigantic forces were at work in the world outside. I seemed
to be standing in a hole that got deeper and deeper. A soldier 's life
was consumed with waste time. He found "hurry-up-and-wait"
humorous because it was hopeless. Mail brought news of births and
deaths, of graduations and weddings. They stirred the juices of a
man's ambition and fermented his sense of waste time and life.
Fretting as a prisoner of the great war, I thought I saw a Fifth Horseman, Waste, riding an olive-drab horse through Revelation.
Added to waste and life was wasted talent. No matter how
ingenious a soldier might be, there seemed little he could do to
affect his world. I enlisted because I sat by and watched country
after country in Europe fall before the Nazis. In my infinitely small
way I felt responsible. I felt guilty for the events that had led to Pearl
Harbor. As an educated man, I was aware of world events, but I had
chosen to pursue my own ends in a safe midwestern America. I
grew up a pacifist, believing that war was evil and that there had to
be another way. The smashing tactics of Hitler upon an undefended
Europe convinced me of the fallacy of my views.
I would soon have been drafted, but I wanted the decision to be
mine. Only in this way could I live with the army. Six months after
enlistment I realized that anything less than combat would seem
like but two acts of a three-act play. I had to know what war was
like. I had to find out what I and other men were like in war. Quite
by chance I was assigned to an outfit destined to provide me with
the third act.
Also, as an artist, I felt it was necessary to experience the great
event of my time. Reading about it would not be enough. I had to
live it. But I did not want to be destroyed by it. I especially did not
want to die, nor even to lose my way in it. But having once penetrated
the swamp of that dark forest of war and the preparation of
war, I could not turn back. My mind was too curious, my heart too
engaged.
Sea voyages were all alike: that is, for soldiers they were all alike.
Days were long; hours passed slowly. All effort was irksome. Time
hung upon inactivity. Our quarters, the hold, "the interior cavity of
a ship where cargo is stored," was sealed off above by a hatch covered
with coarse, airtight tarpaulin. The tarp and hatch were never
removed. In the cavity the air was at best secondhand and grew
heavy for want of oxygen. It was further weighted with the stale
odor of men, for in spite of excellent bathing facilities, we smelled.
...
In two days we dropped anchor in the port of Oran, Algeria.
Oh, no! Not North African again? Rumors and rumors. No shore
leave. Rumors and more rumors. In two days we hoisted anchor,
joined a convoy, and headed out into the Mediterranean Sea. At
noon the next day the public-address system reported Gibraltar on
the starboard side. We went on deck, sailed westward past "the
Rock" out to a great ocean of mist and fog. Whereupon I lost all
sense of direction.
...
Stacked in steerage, silent and smelling, I felt like a body in a
morgue. With no other desire than to be left alone, I thought back to
the day of my enlistment and of the appalling waste of my life. Such
thoughts were, for thousands of us, a recurring and corrosive experience.
Gigantic forces were at work in the world outside. I seemed
to be standing in a hole that got deeper and deeper. A soldier 's life
was consumed with waste time. He found "hurry-up-and-wait"
humorous because it was hopeless. Mail brought news of births and
deaths, of graduations and weddings. They stirred the juices of a
man's ambition and fermented his sense of waste time and life.
Fretting as a prisoner of the great war, I thought I saw a Fifth Horseman, Waste, riding an olive-drab horse through Revelation.
Added to waste and life was wasted talent. No matter how
ingenious a soldier might be, there seemed little he could do to
affect his world. I enlisted because I sat by and watched country
after country in Europe fall before the Nazis. In my infinitely small
way I felt responsible. I felt guilty for the events that had led to Pearl
Harbor. As an educated man, I was aware of world events, but I had
chosen to pursue my own ends in a safe midwestern America. I
grew up a pacifist, believing that war was evil and that there had to
be another way. The smashing tactics of Hitler upon an undefended
Europe convinced me of the fallacy of my views.
I would soon have been drafted, but I wanted the decision to be
mine. Only in this way could I live with the army. Six months after
enlistment I realized that anything less than combat would seem
like but two acts of a three-act play. I had to know what war was
like. I had to find out what I and other men were like in war. Quite
by chance I was assigned to an outfit destined to provide me with
the third act.
Also, as an artist, I felt it was necessary to experience the great
event of my time. Reading about it would not be enough. I had to
live it. But I did not want to be destroyed by it. I especially did not
want to die, nor even to lose my way in it. But having once penetrated
the swamp of that dark forest of war and the preparation of
war, I could not turn back. My mind was too curious, my heart too
engaged.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Remember: Who was Bill Stigall?
Information on William Stigall, author of Shower of Frogs [a World War II memoir] can be found in the Profile to this blog.
Normandy: June 7-12
[Editor's note: Last month (May 2018) I was in Wales and met a man who was going back to Normandy's beaches to commemorate that day. As we talked, it turned out that his British unit was adjacent to William Stigall's unit. They would have loved talking together.]
Chapter 13 -
I do not know if the men in Henry the Fifth's army knew, on the morn of Agincourt, that they were about to take part in one of the memorable moments of world history. I do not know if King Henry
knew. In Shakespeare he is fully aware of it. He calls his little band about him and exhorts them with:
get in the act, as it were. I wanted to do what I was expected to do and get back safely. Which is sort of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course we had no inspiring speech to set us upon the stinking enemy. No Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester . . .
...
So we attacked again. We pushed on to a second attack. Eventually, with infernal slowness, we withdrew a short distance, but not before we encountered more artillery and machine-gun fire, not
before we accumulated a few more casualties. We waited. The Robot bombs began falling on London, and rumors circulated that Germans, desperate to halt Allied attack, might use gas. But finally I started back, bit by bit. As a great crescendo of music starts with a small sound in the woodwinds, is picked up by a violin, then full violins, and with trumpets mounts to a full chord, so did I, bit by bit, partly in thoughts that it could not be the end for me, part in a small song sung, part in the right kind of smile from a passing soldier, joined by a warm cup of coffee, some food, and sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, and partly the certain knowledge that I am to have no more of it. I started back. The trip, long and weary as it was, was sure, until finally we reached the coast.
Chapter 13 -
I do not know if the men in Henry the Fifth's army knew, on the morn of Agincourt, that they were about to take part in one of the memorable moments of world history. I do not know if King Henry
knew. In Shakespeare he is fully aware of it. He calls his little band about him and exhorts them with:
And Chrispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
I do not know how many men who were a part of the first hours of the invasion of France knew that they were to be a part of history. I suspect many knew. I knew. I wanted to see it, hear it,
smell it, touch it, feel it. I had no wish to die in one of the great battles of the world's history. That did not seem heroic, noble, glamorous, or anything good to me. I simply wanted to be a part of it-toget in the act, as it were. I wanted to do what I was expected to do and get back safely. Which is sort of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
Of course we had no inspiring speech to set us upon the stinking enemy. No Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester . . .
...
So we attacked again. We pushed on to a second attack. Eventually, with infernal slowness, we withdrew a short distance, but not before we encountered more artillery and machine-gun fire, not
before we accumulated a few more casualties. We waited. The Robot bombs began falling on London, and rumors circulated that Germans, desperate to halt Allied attack, might use gas. But finally I started back, bit by bit. As a great crescendo of music starts with a small sound in the woodwinds, is picked up by a violin, then full violins, and with trumpets mounts to a full chord, so did I, bit by bit, partly in thoughts that it could not be the end for me, part in a small song sung, part in the right kind of smile from a passing soldier, joined by a warm cup of coffee, some food, and sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, and partly the certain knowledge that I am to have no more of it. I started back. The trip, long and weary as it was, was sure, until finally we reached the coast.
Naples: Notes
Chapter 8:
Hunger and poverty are almost synonymous with Naples. Even for those of us whose background was urban and who knew the depression, to whom "slums and Hoovervilles" were a part of our
youth and who had seen and smelled North Africa and Sicily, there was no preparation for the human and sorrowful sights of Naples.
It was one thing to witness the relative static nature of a slum and of the impoverished conditions of the early thirties. It was quite another experience to be literally touched by the swarming crowds, by the frantic, aggressive, and vocal hunger of Naples. Combine this emotional and physical anguish, this outpouring of suffering, with the physical destruction; mix in the elements of unexpected time bombs and the knowledge that many of the men who today walked the streets were yesterday hooting at you or giving some degree of comfort to the rodents of the Wehrmacht; add to this our own personal irritants stemming from military existence and current environment, our own displacement from the things we cared about, the uncertainty of our daily activities-put all these together and one can begin to understand the mixed emotions that rose from our stay in Naples.
...
About this time Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau visited the city of Naples and the front lines. He returned with a list of atrocities to be shown the president. So what? Morgenthau was acting
like a little boy who had heard a few dirty words and wanted his father to do something about it. Political eyewash. War is lawful slaughter or it isn't anything. Life magazine said: "None of this [the
atrocities] is the job of a self-respecting army." Neither American civilians nor American soldiers know the enemy.
Also about this time, five senators made a pilgrimage to Italy. One wondered what in hell they were doing so far from Washington. There was enough of a mess at home. If the senators would just
take care of their mess and let us take care of our mess, how nice it would be. Both this and Morgenthau's action simply galled a soldier.
...
For all the beauty of Italy, and it deserves all praise for it is lovely beyond poetry, nothing is perfect and some things are not like home. October came and went in Naples; November seemed more like October in the United States. But it finally failed and dissolved into coldness and drabness; then I thought of a missed American autumn. I could not hold it back any longer. The massive
irritants of army life and local environment compounded into loneliness.
No man escapes loneliness. I discovered there are several kinds, such as social, intellectual, and emotional. Weeks racing into months, minutes piling up into hours, and no words spoken about
those things that were once as common as coffee. They were all dammed up, rushing against an impassable wall. Is there anyone who reads Keats in this world? Has no man heard of Mozart? Is
there no woman in the world who speaks your native tongue? Is all the world one color - olive drab? Are all things and places in the world infected with dirt and disease, and are they all gutted like
half-burned candles? Is there cleanliness someplace, dishes, sheets? Is there light on the streets and leaves in the gutters? Are there bonfires with smoke rising higher than a house? Is there a child who
will smile at you without also begging from you? Is there a warm-colored moon in a smoky sky making pumpkins' shadows twice their size? Are there red apples in great barrels, corn in tall cribs? Is there an autumn wind that can infect the spirit with the wilds of Halloween? Do lost things come home in autumn, and are new things found in the Renaissance that is October? Yes, over and over,
year after year, and they shall be found again and the great Spirit Wind shall blow again, fields shall yield again and music sing and lights light and the world grow clean. A dam shall burst and a man
shall be free again.
Hunger and poverty are almost synonymous with Naples. Even for those of us whose background was urban and who knew the depression, to whom "slums and Hoovervilles" were a part of our
youth and who had seen and smelled North Africa and Sicily, there was no preparation for the human and sorrowful sights of Naples.
It was one thing to witness the relative static nature of a slum and of the impoverished conditions of the early thirties. It was quite another experience to be literally touched by the swarming crowds, by the frantic, aggressive, and vocal hunger of Naples. Combine this emotional and physical anguish, this outpouring of suffering, with the physical destruction; mix in the elements of unexpected time bombs and the knowledge that many of the men who today walked the streets were yesterday hooting at you or giving some degree of comfort to the rodents of the Wehrmacht; add to this our own personal irritants stemming from military existence and current environment, our own displacement from the things we cared about, the uncertainty of our daily activities-put all these together and one can begin to understand the mixed emotions that rose from our stay in Naples.
...
About this time Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau visited the city of Naples and the front lines. He returned with a list of atrocities to be shown the president. So what? Morgenthau was acting
like a little boy who had heard a few dirty words and wanted his father to do something about it. Political eyewash. War is lawful slaughter or it isn't anything. Life magazine said: "None of this [the
atrocities] is the job of a self-respecting army." Neither American civilians nor American soldiers know the enemy.
Also about this time, five senators made a pilgrimage to Italy. One wondered what in hell they were doing so far from Washington. There was enough of a mess at home. If the senators would just
take care of their mess and let us take care of our mess, how nice it would be. Both this and Morgenthau's action simply galled a soldier.
...
For all the beauty of Italy, and it deserves all praise for it is lovely beyond poetry, nothing is perfect and some things are not like home. October came and went in Naples; November seemed more like October in the United States. But it finally failed and dissolved into coldness and drabness; then I thought of a missed American autumn. I could not hold it back any longer. The massive
irritants of army life and local environment compounded into loneliness.
No man escapes loneliness. I discovered there are several kinds, such as social, intellectual, and emotional. Weeks racing into months, minutes piling up into hours, and no words spoken about
those things that were once as common as coffee. They were all dammed up, rushing against an impassable wall. Is there anyone who reads Keats in this world? Has no man heard of Mozart? Is
there no woman in the world who speaks your native tongue? Is all the world one color - olive drab? Are all things and places in the world infected with dirt and disease, and are they all gutted like
half-burned candles? Is there cleanliness someplace, dishes, sheets? Is there light on the streets and leaves in the gutters? Are there bonfires with smoke rising higher than a house? Is there a child who
will smile at you without also begging from you? Is there a warm-colored moon in a smoky sky making pumpkins' shadows twice their size? Are there red apples in great barrels, corn in tall cribs? Is there an autumn wind that can infect the spirit with the wilds of Halloween? Do lost things come home in autumn, and are new things found in the Renaissance that is October? Yes, over and over,
year after year, and they shall be found again and the great Spirit Wind shall blow again, fields shall yield again and music sing and lights light and the world grow clean. A dam shall burst and a man
shall be free again.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Naples, Part Two: The Second Month
After a month Naples began to recover from the Nazis' occupation,
systematic rape, and violent departure. Time ran out on the
delayed-action bombs. Immediate mass starvation was halted. The
electric and water systems were put in order. Civilian transportation,
sewage disposal, and telephone exchanges were repaired. The
harbor was miraculously cleared. Air raids were infrequent and not
seriously destructive. The war moved fifty miles to the north. Pulsating
life and a little gaiety returned to Naples. Shops and restaurants
found some supplies with which to operate. Excursions to the
ancient city of Pompeii and the storied Isle of Capri were offered
soldiers. Refugees, such as the Puccini lover, returned to the city.
Something was done about former Fascisti. Fraternization took
over. The medics set up round-the-clock prophylactic stations. We
began training again. A few companies left the division and joined
the Fifth Army on the Volturno River. Officers requested jeeps and
jeep drivers to get them to and from their evening dates with
nurses. The celebrated and magnificent Neapolitan weather turned
wet, cold, and dark. Life, for me, deteriorated into disappointment.
After twenty months of army life, I had seen about one week of socalled
combat. Bitterness and sourness seeped into my life, and
there were long second thoughts about my place in the army, the
effort of the United States in the war, the problem of loneliness, the
mental and emotional confusion caused by the contrasting nature
of the Neapolitans, and the possible effect on all of us of the ugliness,
destruction, dirt, filth, decay, and stagnation.
The Eighty-second Division was given the job of patrolling the
city of Naples, first great city to fall to the Allies. After a month we
were able to turn this job over to the civilians and return to training.
I was particularly irritated because of this. The few days of combat
such as I saw only served to whet my appetite. I killed nobody.
There were still 5 or 6 million Germans dirtying up the earth. It
seemed a long way to go and a big job, this bastard extermination.
And all we were doing was training some more.
systematic rape, and violent departure. Time ran out on the
delayed-action bombs. Immediate mass starvation was halted. The
electric and water systems were put in order. Civilian transportation,
sewage disposal, and telephone exchanges were repaired. The
harbor was miraculously cleared. Air raids were infrequent and not
seriously destructive. The war moved fifty miles to the north. Pulsating
life and a little gaiety returned to Naples. Shops and restaurants
found some supplies with which to operate. Excursions to the
ancient city of Pompeii and the storied Isle of Capri were offered
soldiers. Refugees, such as the Puccini lover, returned to the city.
Something was done about former Fascisti. Fraternization took
over. The medics set up round-the-clock prophylactic stations. We
began training again. A few companies left the division and joined
the Fifth Army on the Volturno River. Officers requested jeeps and
jeep drivers to get them to and from their evening dates with
nurses. The celebrated and magnificent Neapolitan weather turned
wet, cold, and dark. Life, for me, deteriorated into disappointment.
After twenty months of army life, I had seen about one week of socalled
combat. Bitterness and sourness seeped into my life, and
there were long second thoughts about my place in the army, the
effort of the United States in the war, the problem of loneliness, the
mental and emotional confusion caused by the contrasting nature
of the Neapolitans, and the possible effect on all of us of the ugliness,
destruction, dirt, filth, decay, and stagnation.
The Eighty-second Division was given the job of patrolling the
city of Naples, first great city to fall to the Allies. After a month we
were able to turn this job over to the civilians and return to training.
I was particularly irritated because of this. The few days of combat
such as I saw only served to whet my appetite. I killed nobody.
There were still 5 or 6 million Germans dirtying up the earth. It
seemed a long way to go and a big job, this bastard extermination.
And all we were doing was training some more.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Chapter 6 Naples (I)
Fragments of Chapter 6 about Naples
My first contact with the great city of Naples came somewhere near its very heart, the contact a few muffled voices in the gloomy dark sometime after midnight. The words were Italian. The voices came from faces in barely discernible bodies huddled beside dark buildings. My jeep came to a halt at a street crossing. There was silence.
Then, "Americano?"
"Si."
The bodies came to the side of the jeep. We spoke no Italian, they little English, but enough was exchanged to learn that the few remaining Germans had left the city early in the morning. In their leaving the Germans had heaped upon their former ally a burden of senseless destruction and heartless hunger.
In Naples I saw a famous city rise from the valley of the shadow of death. I walked into buildings where late the Fascisti strutted. Some of the arrogance of the conqueror either rubbed off on me or came out from within me. In this spectacular city with a traditionally famous harbor, then full of sunken Italian ships, in this vigorous and bawdy city whose roofs of pastel red, blue, and orange are a rainbow in the sun, I learned about life.
One night there was an air raid and an Italian cyclone-torpedo bomb was parachuted down during the night. It landed on our roof but failed to detonate. The next morning we vacated the building while three British officers came to remove the fuse. Minutes passed and nothing happened. The bomb, which I had gone up to see during the morning, was as round as a man and six feet long.
More minutes passed. The fuse was apparently not yielding to skilled hands. We moved about restlessly on the streets. There were the usual jokes about Limeys mixed in with the inefficiency of Italian machinery, to which was added the probable anger of the Nazi who had dropped the dud. Suddenly there was a horrendous blast. The street shook with the shock of the explosion. All that was ever seen again of the three British officers were pieces of dark, dirty flesh that got mixed with the rubbish in the filthy streets of Naples.
My first contact with the great city of Naples came somewhere near its very heart, the contact a few muffled voices in the gloomy dark sometime after midnight. The words were Italian. The voices came from faces in barely discernible bodies huddled beside dark buildings. My jeep came to a halt at a street crossing. There was silence.
Then, "Americano?"
"Si."
The bodies came to the side of the jeep. We spoke no Italian, they little English, but enough was exchanged to learn that the few remaining Germans had left the city early in the morning. In their leaving the Germans had heaped upon their former ally a burden of senseless destruction and heartless hunger.
In Naples I saw a famous city rise from the valley of the shadow of death. I walked into buildings where late the Fascisti strutted. Some of the arrogance of the conqueror either rubbed off on me or came out from within me. In this spectacular city with a traditionally famous harbor, then full of sunken Italian ships, in this vigorous and bawdy city whose roofs of pastel red, blue, and orange are a rainbow in the sun, I learned about life.
One night there was an air raid and an Italian cyclone-torpedo bomb was parachuted down during the night. It landed on our roof but failed to detonate. The next morning we vacated the building while three British officers came to remove the fuse. Minutes passed and nothing happened. The bomb, which I had gone up to see during the morning, was as round as a man and six feet long.
More minutes passed. The fuse was apparently not yielding to skilled hands. We moved about restlessly on the streets. There were the usual jokes about Limeys mixed in with the inefficiency of Italian machinery, to which was added the probable anger of the Nazi who had dropped the dud. Suddenly there was a horrendous blast. The street shook with the shock of the explosion. All that was ever seen again of the three British officers were pieces of dark, dirty flesh that got mixed with the rubbish in the filthy streets of Naples.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Chapter 5: Tunisia, Sicily, Italy
I was "dug in" on a long slope of a hill; at the bottom of it was the shore of the most magnificent sea in the world. In fact, the view I had from my two-foot-deep slit trench was really the twenty-dollar per day Riviera view. As far as I could see from two hundred yards up the slope, there was a vista of exquisite serenity, a body of water varying in degrees of color from blue, to lavender, to turquoise,
with a gentle ripple of whitecaps on the surface of the water and magical blanco clouds in the deep azure sky above. The Mediterranean Sea, sea of history, was for us, too, a sea of some historic
moment. We knew that one day soon we'd either fly it or sail it. We felt reasonably sure that we'd not walk it. The city of Bizerte in Tunisia lay a mile or two around the corner of our slope. It was late August 1943.
For an airborne outfit, ours, the 325th Glider Infantry, spent a great deal of time walking on the land and sailing on the sea. Current preparations suggested a sea crossing with a beach landing. This was the one maneuver we had not practiced. Nights on the forty-five-degree-angled slope beside the transparent blue Mediterranean were pretty romantic, even from a slit trench. Girls were out that season, but radios were in. Possibly under the influence of the relaxed atmosphere of that part of the world, their volume was kept low and soft. As everyone knows who remembers the war in North Africa, it had about it a romantic quality unlike any war in any portion of the European conflict. This was not all due to Rommel and the British Eighth Army. Nor was the romantic aura due to the movie Casablanca and the song "As Time Goes By." They helped. They contributed, as did the German
song "Lili Marlene," which had long since been won over by the British and was now being played over Allied radio. A portion of the romantic nature of this area of military operations was the country
of Tunisia. The veiled women, the ancient cities, the camels and small donkeys, and the semi-desert nature of the landscape compounded an atmosphere of strangeness. The days were blistering
hot, but the night air in late August was exhilarating, and the stars, as always in Tunisia, seemed within our grasp. They sparkled in the cushion-soft sky like glowing sapphires.
with a gentle ripple of whitecaps on the surface of the water and magical blanco clouds in the deep azure sky above. The Mediterranean Sea, sea of history, was for us, too, a sea of some historic
moment. We knew that one day soon we'd either fly it or sail it. We felt reasonably sure that we'd not walk it. The city of Bizerte in Tunisia lay a mile or two around the corner of our slope. It was late August 1943.
For an airborne outfit, ours, the 325th Glider Infantry, spent a great deal of time walking on the land and sailing on the sea. Current preparations suggested a sea crossing with a beach landing. This was the one maneuver we had not practiced. Nights on the forty-five-degree-angled slope beside the transparent blue Mediterranean were pretty romantic, even from a slit trench. Girls were out that season, but radios were in. Possibly under the influence of the relaxed atmosphere of that part of the world, their volume was kept low and soft. As everyone knows who remembers the war in North Africa, it had about it a romantic quality unlike any war in any portion of the European conflict. This was not all due to Rommel and the British Eighth Army. Nor was the romantic aura due to the movie Casablanca and the song "As Time Goes By." They helped. They contributed, as did the German
song "Lili Marlene," which had long since been won over by the British and was now being played over Allied radio. A portion of the romantic nature of this area of military operations was the country
of Tunisia. The veiled women, the ancient cities, the camels and small donkeys, and the semi-desert nature of the landscape compounded an atmosphere of strangeness. The days were blistering
hot, but the night air in late August was exhilarating, and the stars, as always in Tunisia, seemed within our grasp. They sparkled in the cushion-soft sky like glowing sapphires.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Military parades 1944
Bill Stigall on military parades: Late
in July and again in the middle of a sultry August, we walked miles to practice
and returned more miles to be reviewed. At one of these events we paraded for
the commander in chief of the entire Allied Forces … He told us he needed the
inspiration of seeing us parade by him to support him in the demanding
decisions he was called upon to make. Fortunately, a friend kicked me in the
shins; no one heard my cursing.
Chapter 14: England Again
At sunset we sighted the English coast. First some cliffs, then a small village, finally a lovely red brick house set in a deep green valley touched with the benign light of a declining sun. Dusk and peace in an English harbor with the silhouette of the custom house bearing an unmistakable resemblance to Old Philadelphia. Only when the ship was secure to the dock did I breathe a tremendous sign of relief knowing at that moment for certain that we'd not turn back to Normandy. I then slept the quiet sleep of a mind freed from anxiety and a body relaxed from tension.
*** ***
We came back to England for rest, furloughs, and replacements. I discovered the astonishing fact that on D-Day two of my new tent mates had been home on furlough. The world was indeed picking up speed. Our pace, which was relaxed in early July, quickened in early August. We worked longer days, occasionally into early evening. In no time at all we were in shape and ready to be presented to the peacocks. So, we had a couple of parades. The war in Europe was rolling at a terrifying pace, with mounting ferocity and murderous violence. While few of us wanted any more of war, parades seemed to me to be the last thing we needed. As it turned out, it wasn't we that needed the parades; it was the generals. Late in July and again in the middle of a sultry August, we walked miles to practice and returned more miles to be reviewed. At one of these events we paraded for the commander in chief of the entire Allied Forces, Gen. Ike Eisenhower. After we marched by him, he got on the "mike" and told us why we were asked to parade. He began by saying that we must sometimes wonder why we are asked to parade. He, too, when a young officer at West Point, used to wonder the same thing. But now he knew. He needed the inspiration of seeing us parade by him to support him in the demanding decisions he was called upon to make. Fortunately, a friend kicked me in the shins; no one heard my cursing. General Eisenhower, in one of the most glorious positions ever held by any man in the history of the world, needed a bunch of jerks like us to give him inspiration. Vanity, vanity, saieth the Preacher. All is vanity. Looking back upon it now, I know the only good thing about that day was that never again would I be called upon to parade. Never again have I even had to look at one.
*** ***
We came back to England for rest, furloughs, and replacements. I discovered the astonishing fact that on D-Day two of my new tent mates had been home on furlough. The world was indeed picking up speed. Our pace, which was relaxed in early July, quickened in early August. We worked longer days, occasionally into early evening. In no time at all we were in shape and ready to be presented to the peacocks. So, we had a couple of parades. The war in Europe was rolling at a terrifying pace, with mounting ferocity and murderous violence. While few of us wanted any more of war, parades seemed to me to be the last thing we needed. As it turned out, it wasn't we that needed the parades; it was the generals. Late in July and again in the middle of a sultry August, we walked miles to practice and returned more miles to be reviewed. At one of these events we paraded for the commander in chief of the entire Allied Forces, Gen. Ike Eisenhower. After we marched by him, he got on the "mike" and told us why we were asked to parade. He began by saying that we must sometimes wonder why we are asked to parade. He, too, when a young officer at West Point, used to wonder the same thing. But now he knew. He needed the inspiration of seeing us parade by him to support him in the demanding decisions he was called upon to make. Fortunately, a friend kicked me in the shins; no one heard my cursing. General Eisenhower, in one of the most glorious positions ever held by any man in the history of the world, needed a bunch of jerks like us to give him inspiration. Vanity, vanity, saieth the Preacher. All is vanity. Looking back upon it now, I know the only good thing about that day was that never again would I be called upon to parade. Never again have I even had to look at one.
Monday, February 5, 2018
The shower of frogs
The sameness was occasionally broken by a drive into an Arab village, passing on the way small donkeys, dirty-looking "Arabs" [apologies to the contemporary reader, and I don't know what the quotation marks mean either] and once a magnificent group of wild horses racing one another madly along the dust-filled fenceless roads.
As we were driving back from Kairouan one afternoon, a dark cloud came over the camp and it rained water and hundreds of tadpoles, which squirmed around on the hood and floor of my jeep. We thought it very odd, being pelted by small living forms from the sky, each about half the size of the head of a pencil. By then we were so used to the strange sights of Tunisia that only later, when my honesty was questioned, when it was thought that there was upon me "the spell of Arabia" or that I had a Moses complex, only then did I search for the scientific explanation for this "plague" of frogs.
Water, in being blown up from the ponds, also sucked the infinitely small tadpole. Fierce winds, common in Tunisia, blew both water and tadpoles some distance and eventually dropped the living matter with the rain.
As we were driving back from Kairouan one afternoon, a dark cloud came over the camp and it rained water and hundreds of tadpoles, which squirmed around on the hood and floor of my jeep. We thought it very odd, being pelted by small living forms from the sky, each about half the size of the head of a pencil. By then we were so used to the strange sights of Tunisia that only later, when my honesty was questioned, when it was thought that there was upon me "the spell of Arabia" or that I had a Moses complex, only then did I search for the scientific explanation for this "plague" of frogs.
Water, in being blown up from the ponds, also sucked the infinitely small tadpole. Fierce winds, common in Tunisia, blew both water and tadpoles some distance and eventually dropped the living matter with the rain.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Shower of Frogs - Chapter 4: Kairouan
On June 15, I drove my jeep into a wobbly C-47 and was flown a thousand miles over the Atlas Mountains. The flight lasted about five hours. When not asleep, I watched the green-and-brown mountains, some with small white patches of snow. We flew over the golden cultivated fields of Algeria. From the small window in the plane I could make out grove upon grove of what I later learned was a part of the main crop of Tunisia-the olive. We landed near a great walled city of white adobe houses with blue shutters.
...
A few days after arrival, I drove into the large walled city with a huge mosque towering high above the wall and over all other buildings. Approaching the city, we whiffed the strong smell of sulphur coming from the graveyard near the edge of the city. Later we understood that this was a holy city and that many bodies, alive and dead, were brought here for burial, some above ground. The bodies were covered with sulphur. The city itself, with the walls, was, I now realize and did to some extent then, straight out of the Middle Ages. It is called Kairouan, a word derived from the Bedouin word caravan. The streets were unpaved and are still almost entirely unpaved. The whiteness of the houses, the whiteness of every single house, was, in the brilliant sun, a stunning sight, indeed a near-blinding sight. Blue had been adopted over the years as the best color to both match the cloudless sky (an aesthetic choice) and ease the eyestrain (a practical choice). A spot of red or yellow here or there came from clothing, rugs, or flowers. There were a few patches of green trees, that were remarkably cooling, both aesthetically and practically.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Shower of Frogs: Chapter 3 conclusion
And, above all, of the tormenting sun.
For, in North Africa, we had lived by the sun. We were its prisoners.
For six solid weeks at Marnia from sunup to sundown, from reveille to taps, we lived in its direct presence. There was an occasional cloud, a spare tree, a jeep's shadow, but the total effect was unrelenting sun. When it dropped behind the mountain, almost as if on signal, a breeze entered the valley.
The mornings were lovely and quiet. Birds hopped and sang in the nearby fields; sheep cried in the moist morning air; stooping reapers moved along the skyline. The morning was purple and gold and lingered in its loveliness until shattered by the rapid notes of the bugler.
At the peak of noon the sun scorched the land. Tall whirling funnels of wind and dust moved erratically along soft, undampened roads. The crucifying sun circumscribed a great arch across the valley. The reapers moved almost imperceptibly abreast the fields. By mid-afternoon the land simmered. It awaited the sun's subsiding.
Come evening the mighty and commanding sun paused to reflect in its own image till finally it disappeared in its self-engendered splendor. The heat receded. The earth gave way. The patient reapers straightened their backs and moved off to thatched huts. Once a white horse did gallop off in the distance. A gentle breeze drifted through the valley. Darkness gathered round our camp. The bugler seemed to linger over his note. The soft night in a deepening stillness glittered with enormous stars. Gentle sleep came with the cooling of the earth.
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Chapter 3: Mamia-Oujda [Algeria]
Whoever selected our campsite at Marnia in Algeria was well acquainted with Hell. He undoubtedly had been there and was determined to share his hateful experience with others.
What I found indigestible were the parades. We were the "proud recipient'' of virtually every dignitary in northwestern Africa. They flew in from all over the Mediterranean to have a look
at us. Most evenings we stood retreat. For a series of five or six days we practiced parading. We drove to dust-filled, well-broiled parade grounds in convoys of trucks, eating up gasoline as if it came from spigots straight out of the earth. We took out days of time, walked hours in the burning, brain-beating sun, to entertain general after general, foreign and American. We shined our boots, licked and
spit, until we were a damn fine sight. Just what this had to do with preparation and winning a war I never really understood. It was over a year later in England, after we invaded Normandy, at another series of parades, that I got the message from General Eisenhower.
Whoever selected our campsite at Marnia in Algeria was well acquainted with Hell. He undoubtedly had been there and was determined to share his hateful experience with others.
What I found indigestible were the parades. We were the "proud recipient'' of virtually every dignitary in northwestern Africa. They flew in from all over the Mediterranean to have a look
at us. Most evenings we stood retreat. For a series of five or six days we practiced parading. We drove to dust-filled, well-broiled parade grounds in convoys of trucks, eating up gasoline as if it came from spigots straight out of the earth. We took out days of time, walked hours in the burning, brain-beating sun, to entertain general after general, foreign and American. We shined our boots, licked and
spit, until we were a damn fine sight. Just what this had to do with preparation and winning a war I never really understood. It was over a year later in England, after we invaded Normandy, at another series of parades, that I got the message from General Eisenhower.
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