The day before...

The things we make our young people do…

I write these words on the 5th of June. That means that on this night, 77 years ago, my father, then aged 22, flew his third combat mission as navigator on a Stirling bomber of the Royal Air Force’s 296 Squadron. A laconic entry in his flying log tells the tale.

4.6.44 No. 3 Operation - Invasion France - 18 Para
3 hours and no minutes, night time
All in a handwriting that remains deeply familiar to me

That entry isn’t the only trace of what happened that day. He also kept a reconnaissance photo of the Normandy coast near the coast of Ouistreham. That’s the nearest coastal town to the city of Caen, which was soon to become the target of fierce fighting. The mission on which my father was flying that night was to drop paratroops who were to hold bridges over a canal and a river, in the opening move of that campaign. The log entry shows that his plane was carrying 18 of them.

Reconnaissance photo composite of the French coast at Ouistreham

I visited the University of Caen in the early 1980s. It’s housed in a fine, if slightly soulless, modern building. The original university, founded in the fifteenth century, was completely destroyed by Allied bombing during this particular phase of the fighting. The French may have been allies, but the Germans held the city. So it was bombed. Something like 35,000 people were made homeless and some 3000 civilians died.

An account I found of the 5 June mission say the first plane took off at 23:19 that evening. My father’s log entry shows he was in the air for three night hours, so he returned in the small hours of 6 June 1944. That’s the morning of D-day, the allied invasion of France, the first action against Nazi occupation of Western Europe. 

Soviet armies were moving from the East. Soon American and French troops would land in southern France. Together these offensives end the Hitler regime.

My father’s logbook records the operation as being part of the “invasion of France”. I can imagine how exciting that must have been. Brought up in a francophone neighbourhood of Brussels, he was deeply attached to France, and it must have been a great feeling that he was now helping to liberate the country, after four years of Nazi occupation.

According to the account I read, however, while all the planes completed their task, some were hit by anti-aircraft fire, some of the airmen were injured and one plane was lost with its crew. My father’s made it home unscathed: it wouldn’t be until the autumn, during the operation to secure a bridgehead across the Rhine in Holland, that my father’s plane would be shot down.

Unscathed he may have been in the small hours of 6 June 1944, but he clearly flew through the same anti-aircraft fire that brought down one of his friend’s planes and killed the crew. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, flying at night through gunfire of people who want you dead. He wasn’t even the pilot, so any evasive movements they could make weren’t in his control. Besides, although I don’t know much about it, I assume you can’t do a lot of swerving around if you’re trying to drop paratroops at a specific place. 

All in all, I imagine the excitement of taking part in the liberation of France might have been just a tad tempered by the terror of that moment.

The young man on the wing of his bomber is my Dad

After the 5th of June 1944, my father would fly another 24 missions, including the one when he was shot down. He survived that with only a minor injury. But a lot of young men like him, in the air or on the land, wouldn’t make it. The war had just over 11 months to go and the Allied forces on the Western Front alone would lose going on for another 200,000 killed. 

It never ceases to appal me that my father did all that when he was 46 years younger than I am today. Or that a lot of other kids his age were asked to do the same. In my childhood, I expected to have to face the same horrors too, and I’m profoundly grateful that I never did.

Frighteningly, there are lots of young people, even today, who aren’t going to be that lucky.