The Lesson, Tragedy and Cost of War

So many stories are to be told and so many lessons are to be learned at the German Military Cemeteries in Normandy if only people would take the time to pay a visit and have the patience to listen.

I have lost count of the number of times clients tell me they have no wish to go to the largest of the German cemeteries at La Cambe. Somehow they seem, understandably, to feel that in doing so a kind of homage is being paid to the evil regime that put them there. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that these young men (80% under the age of 20) were all mother’s sons with two arms and legs, and had the same desires and aspirations of life as any other young man on this earth. Except that they had been born in Germany.

Every soldier on all sides fought with equal conviction for his own country. Every mother cried at the loss of a son. So what was the difference between them?

The difference was that Germany had elected a madman to power. Hitler and his Nazi party were regarded even by level headed Germans as saving Germany from depression, want and hunger. The tragic seeds of its destitution had been sown by the Treaty of Versailles which in 1919 had so impoverished Germany through demands of financial and territorial restitution towards the Allies that a return to a normal economic standard of living for German citizens was unattainable.

Then Hitler appeared and was regarded Germany’s saviour. He instituted work programs to motivate the economy and achieved a standard of living previously undreamed of. Then his sinister side emerged – an obsession with racial purity and the creation of a civilisation which would rule for a thousand years. Something in the German culture exacted the ordinary person to believe in Hitler’s successes and his evil doings were neither realised nor condoned except by a small minority. The Gestapo made sure of that.

The average German soldier fought fanatically for his country - what he believed was right and moreover had been ordered to do so. The Allied soldier the same. What individual would not fight for his country?

Returning to those unfortunate souls in the German Cemetery who paid the ultimate price for the ideology of a madman. My clients often hate them, chastise them and even spit on their graves for what they did. Does this hurt the dead? No. It only hurts the perpetrator. Like a miscreant child kicking and protesting against a parent, he only hurts himself. However the pain and resentment is entirely real.

The cure lies in understanding what those soldiers did and why they did it. From understanding comes compassion. From compassion comes forgiveness, and from forgiveness the seeds of peace, healing and reconciliation are sown as a powerful message to the world not to do it again.

As human beings those buried in the British, Canadian, American and German cemeteries were all the same. It is governments that incite, enable and condone wars, but it is also true that the people who elected them must also bear some share of responsibility.

It is that share of responsibility for which so many paid the ultimate price.

Serendipity

The start of the new season of 2010 is bitterly cold on the Normandy Beaches. The lengthening days are in full sun from morning to dusk but a bitter, biting wind blows from the north – straight from Siberia. I wear several layers to combat the cold, and I do not mind admitting to wearing a pair of long-johns which keep my legs insulated as much as possible.

Over the years working in Normandy I have come to realise that there is a greater power at work, perhaps even a spiritual force which endeavours me as a Normandy tour guide of the D-Day Beaches to do what I must.

One of my ritual questions to clients upon their arrival in Bayeux, Normandy is to ask whether there is any family connection to the D-Day Landings? If so, I ask them to be aware of coincidences, particularly in the area of Omaha Beach and the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer above Omaha Beach. There is nothing sinister in this, and any coincidences are always benign, but powerful. Like the discovery of new information about a relative from the Interpretive Centre at the Normandy American Cemetery, or even your own name and State on a headstone. I keep a catalogue and too many coincidences occur for it to be a coincidence.

Little did I realise that one day it would happen to me.

In early March, 2010 I went to London to visit the Imperial War Museum as I have always wanted to return since last having been there in 1967. I found myself gawping at the same diary that had been penetrated by an enemy bullet, thus saving the soldier's life that I remembered so well from the first time. But, of course, the museum has changed greatly since that time with a huge number of new exhibits including tanks and a V1 and V2 rocket. Fascinating. Then I went into the museum cafe for a much needed cuppa and gazed idly around the walls at the wartime exhibits of food frugality and my eyes rested on a blown up wall photo immediately above where I was sitting of a group of five cooks from the Army Catering Corps being trained in Aldershot in 1939, and heaven help me, but one of them was my dad!!

The photo of my father, aged 26, was previously unknown in the family and we are all agreed upon close examination that it is indeed him. It is one of 10 million photos held by the IWM.

So, what does this mean? What am I, or anyone, supposed to deduce by these coincidences?

Some say there are no such things as coincidences, but I may be forgiven for thinking that I do not know what that means either.

What is for sure is that it is the same guiding hand at work that inspired, empowered and encouraged me to take on my role as a tour guide of the D-Day Landing Beaches. There can be no greater reward than the fulfilment of a life’s dream in doing what you want to do, and be fortunate enough to secure sufficient income to live from it.

I am indeed very grateful.

Michael Phillips.

Normandy, March 2010.

Another paradox. La Pointe du Hoc, Normandy

Here we have a wonderful example of how priorities can change and indeed become completely reversed. La Pointe du Hoc, the memorable location in Normandy where the 225 men of Companies C D and E of the 2nd Rangers Battalion led by Col. James Earl Rudder stormed and climbed the cliffs at La Pointe du Hoc to attack and destroy a German battery which threatened the D-Day Landings further along the coast in both directions at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.

The story is well known. Rudder’s Rangers successfully climbed the formidable cliffs at La Pointe du Hoc using London Fire Brigade ladders and rocket propelled grappling hooks that had rope ladders attached to engage the enemy and destroy the guns. Except, after all the effort, there were no guns there to destroy. In the face of heavy and accurate aerial bombardment (because the geographical shape of the Pointe made it an easy target) the Germans, fearing the valuable guns would be destroyed, had moved them to the rear for safety.

Sergeant Lomell found the guns in a field a couple of kilometres distant from the site and destroyed them using thermite grenades.

The fire control bunker at La Pointe du Hoc has been closed for many years because of cliff erosion which threatens its stability. Many superb memorial tablets are contained therein and it has been a considerable time since I last saw them. It was clear something needed to be done, and urgently, if the bunker was to be saved. 2010 has seen the arrival of a huge crane, a concrete mixing plant and material and many workers to stabilise the bunker, shutting off a huge chunk of access to La Pointe du Hoc in the process.

Undoubtedly the project will cost millions of Dollars of US tax payers money and there is no question as to the validity of the project. But the irony, the superb paradox is that of the fact that what the US spent millions of Dollars trying to destroy in 1944, is now the subject of spending a fortune in trying to restore.

It is so ironical as to be almost hypocritical.