The Lion & The Eagle
Thoughts On V.E Day.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ said the old man in a wheelchair as I was passing by on a busy street near a GP practice in town. Many years ago now. Before covid and before the world went mad.
‘Just been told my cancer is terminal’ The old man informed me, looked at me with a steady gaze.
Faced with this news I paused. A dull resume of my single life in IT and running a small business didn’t seem to cut it. It was a hot day and it reminded me of the heat that rises from the Plains of Alsace where I had family. I would visit and eat glorious easter cakes and marvel at the buildings, the medieval glamour of Strasbourg dominating the horizon. At the mention of this the man looked hooked.
‘Do you know Colmar?’ He questioned eagerly.
Do I know Colmar! Practically second home. Inseheim alterpiece - the museum. Glorious all.
“Do you know the plains?” The old man’s interrogation continued. Of course, I say, I can trace the routes between the villages dotted along the valley. Visiting my aunt and cousins. Winter and summer. The snow on the mountains, the dark Voges forest, abandoned castles singing songs of romance over lush farm land bursting with crops and grazing animals. A golden landscape of happiness that threads through my heart as surely as the Bas-Rhine flows through the region.
‘Lost my leg outside Colmar,’ the old man said bleakly, cutting across my memories, severing my chain of thoughts.
Dear reader, please forgive me but my next words were, ‘Well. I am sorry to tell you but I didn’t find it on my travels.’ My sardonic nature cut in before I could apply the usual filters. His left leg indeed was terminated at his knee. He caught my eye and laughed. I sat down on the kerb beside him. He refused my offer of water.
‘Worst fighting of the war - Alsace. The Germans knew they had lost Europe but believed Alsace-Lorraine to be their own. They would not surrender. There I was, infantry - battling across that plain. Bloody pocket. New Year’s day -winter cold. Vast space before us. Suddenly struck; immense light, noise and then pain. Knew at once a tank shelled us. I had lost leg. Hours - it took hours to get me off that black, thunder-filled battlefield. The boys carrying me - bumping and dropping the stretcher. I was screaming and then another immense explosion. Staggered I put my hands to my stomach and felt my intestines slipping through my finger. ‘Put me down boys,’ I sobbed.’ I’m done for.’
‘Shut up!’ they shouted back through that howling darkness-’ them’s not your guts, them’s some other poor bugger’s.
Eventually he was evacuated back to Portsmouth, met and married his wife. Enjoyed his family, children and grandchildren.
Every year he attended a military dinner . ‘Posh. Full rig. loved it. Good food, old memories. Went one year. Tall chap opposite. Handsome. Kept looking at me. Eventually went up to him. Do I know you sir?
He replied, ‘Hear you were at Colmar ‘45. I was too.’
‘So,’ the old man continued, I asked him What division were you in?
‘Tall man replied ‘Panzer’
‘Panzer!’ the old man exclaimed. ‘We didn’t have a Panzer division in the allied armies. Well then I stopped. Well then I stared. German! Are you German?’
‘German,’ the tall man said, ‘tank driver - here by request of Royal British Legion. Left Germany after war. Settled in England. Just down the coast.’
‘We looked at each other. Here was the man who quite possibly accidently on purpose blew my leg off.
‘What could I do?’
‘What did you do?’ I asked. ‘We shook hands,’ he said. ‘Nothing personal, was it? Quite a nice chap actually. I’ve had a good life.’
His family pulled up in their car to take him home. I stood up and wished him well and thought too late to thank him. Him and all the allied armies, for our ability to take holidays with family in the now peaceful landscape of the Vosges.
Rembering my family members killed or injured in WW2
My great-uncle Richard Britnell was killed in Italy. He never lived to see his baby daughter.
Great uncle - Uncle Pick Britnell - returned after taking part in the Battles of El-Alamein
My great uncle Norman Keen survived after enduring Japanese Prisoner of War camps.
The Eagle featured here is the heraldic design of Alsace. The Lion is the heraldic sign of England