Perspectives on the D-Day Anniversary

At the D-Day commemorations on Saturday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the following:

"Sixty-five years ago in the thin light of grey dawn, more than 1,000 small craft took to a rough sea on a day that will be forever a day of bravery.

On that June morning the young of our nations stepped out on those beaches below and into history. As long as freedom lives their deeds will never die. On D-Day the sounds of liberation on the march were heard across Europe.”

Ironic for a man who has done more than most to undermine freedom in this country and eradicate its unique character.

This anniversary is seen as a victory for freedom. In many respects, the ultimate victory for freedom.

But freedom can only exist when the will to maintain it exists. Regular contributor Dr. D commented:

With people like this less than 70 years ago, it is hard to understand why the UK is allowing itself to be overrun today. These people did not just rollover and accept servitude.

In many respects he is correct. It seems the erosion of our identity and the holes in our knowledge of history has a lot to do with our current woes, including the double-edged threat posed by Islam and mass immigration.

We have lost our will in the face of a brutal, implacable foe. Historically, those who lack the will to survive do not survive. Why should they?

GalliaWatch provided more food for thought on this subject.

Compare this, the speech given by Winston Churchill to Parliament on 4th June 1940 in which he promises that Britain will never surrender, to remarks by an ancient but until now forgotten enemy of Western Civilisation.

A brief transcript:

"Even though large parts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

Now, a quote taken from our oldest enemy and modern threat to freedom - Islam.

Sura (9:29) - Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya tax with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

The Islamic scripture:

"Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."

Here is what Churchill, who fought in the Sudan, had to say about Islam:

“How dreadful are the curses which Islam lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

Far from being moribund, Islam is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -the science against which it had vainly struggled -the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

I suppose the message here is that freedom is not free. As we reflect on the events which occurred over 60 years ago, it might be pertinent to take stock of what is happening in our major cities today.

Anniversary of the D-Day Landings

Commemorations for those who died in and those who survived the D-Day landings, the largest invasion fleet the world has seen, have been going on since yesterday.

Yesterday British paratroops were honoured by a German Bundeswehr band and cheered by French veterans and civilians. These men were dropped ahead of the landing beaches a few hours before the main assault to capture bridges and neutralise concrete gun emplacements.

Of 750 men from 9 Para dropped to spike the gun batteries at Merville, just 150 actually reached the target, many of them wounded. They still managed to destroy the guns before they could decimate British forces landing on Sword Beach, however.

To honour them, men of the current Parachute Regiment did a jump, some from a Dakota of the era.

At midnight the men of the Ox and Bucks light infantry who landed by glider to capture the crucial Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal were commemorated.

This was followed by a huge firework display all along the 60 mile front of invasion beaches were so many British, Americans and Canadians lost their lives.

Over 17,000 Britons were killed during the invasion.

All week veterans of each nation have been honouring each other; taking flags and banners to war cemeteries to remember fallen comrades in moments of quiet reflection, interspersed with applause and tears from crowds of onlookers.

Some amazing stories have come to light; here is the tale of Charlie Truman, 91, whose life was saved by a framed photograph of his wife Joyce.

Grandfather Charlie Truman, now 91, survived a machine gun attack on the beaches of Normandy thanks purely to the silver-framed photograph.

He was one of 150,000 Allied troops who landed on the shores of Northern France on June 6 1944.

As a 26-year-old infantryman with the Suffolk Regiment, he was one of the first soldiers to brave shells and mines of German-occupied territory.

A mile inland from Sword beach, Charlie was mown down in a burst of machine gun fire as his company stormed a German stronghold with fixed bayonets.

But the bullet flying towards his chest was deflected by the silver frame holding a picture of his young wife Joyce - that Charlie had stashed next to his heart just hours before.

Speaking from his home in Crowland, Lincs., Charlie said luck and love had combined to save his life that day.

He said: 'I was darned if I wasn't going to have that picture of Joyce with me in the battle.

'The bullet hit a corner of the silver frame and deflected through the arm of my tunic. The doctors told me later that it definitely saved my life.

'It was only much later when I'd recovered that I saw the damage to the picture and realised I'd be dead if I hadn't been carrying it.'

Charlie and Joyce met and courted at local dances in Crowland before marrying on Christmas Day in 1940.

During the war Charlie carried a photo of Joyce with him in an envelope, but was given a silver frame to keep it in by a family he billeted with in Weymouth just before D-Day.

As the troops made their way across the Channel they were told to leave their packs in a heap on the boat.

But Charlie could not bear to risk losing his beloved photo, so on a last minute impulse tucked it in his tunic for safe keeping.

He said: 'There was no guarantee I would get my pack back. I don't remember being scared but I wanted Joyce with me.

'I didn't know that it was going to make the difference between life and death.'

The nine-inch by four-inch solid silver frame still bears the mark of where a tracer bullet aimed directly at Charlie's heart deflected off the metal and hit his arm instead.

Another bullet caught him in the lung but he was picked up by army medics and ferried back to the Royal Hospital Haslar in Portsmouth.

There he hovered between life and death and doctors sent five-months pregnant Joyce a telegram to say her husband was seriously ill and could die.

Charlie was even taken off resuscitation and read the last rites, before the thought of his unborn child pulled him through.

In hospital, he showed Joyce his photo and it was only then that the couple realised the bullet-scared frame had saved his life.

They went on to spend 61 years of married life and have two daughters together before Joyce's death in 2001.

The frame now sits in pride of place in the regiment's official museum in Bury St Edmunds in honour of her memory.

Colonel Tony Slater of the Royal Anglian Regiment, which was created in 1964 after the Suffolk and Norfolk regiments merged, said Charlie's story was incredible.

He said: 'It is a fantastic bit of history and another important part of the story of the Suffolk regiment.

'When they landed on D-Day their objective was to take a hill three miles inland, codenamed Hillman after the car, going uphill in the open air towards heavily fortified Germans.

'What started with Charlie Truman being wounded and the luck of the photo frame saving him went through to extraordinary acts of bravery by many of his comrades that day.

'The regiment was in the thick of heavy fighting in Normandy and Charlie was one of the lucky ones.'

Colonel Slater said of the 650-strong battalion that landed on D-Day around 120 were killed and three of four times that many were injured.

He added: 'It is incredible talking to these men who survived how much was down to pure luck.

'It was a case of the man standing 10 yards away got hit by a bullet and they did not. There was no rhyme or reason to it.'

Five D-Day veterans and 91 serving members of the Royal Anglian will attend a ceremony on Hillman hill in Normandy tomorrow to commemorate those who died.

Frail Charlie, who suffers poor eyesight, will visit Crowland war memorial and mark the day in the company of fellow veterans.

For me, this sums up everything. A hundred thousand individual stories locked together to make history. It is surprising just how much is down to luck and chance.

God bless, Charlie, and God bless each and every one of those men who fought for freedom that day - especially those who paid the ultimate price and didn't come back to tell their tale.

Obama in Germany

After he compared Palestinians to every fashionably oppressed group on earth yesterday in a speech given at a university from which rabidly anti-semitic clerics and Islamic terrorists have graduated, Obama flew on to Germany.

After speaking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, they went on a 'personal' tour of Buchenwald concentration camp.

Naturally, Obama seized on the opportunity to pretend that modern animus from the West to those who wish to destroy it is the route not only of all evil, but to another tragedy such as the Holocaust - merely one day after appeasing those who wish to launch the next Holocaust, including the Muslim Brotherhood:

Obama said he wants to "reflect on this difficult history" on his visit because it is a reminder of the "dangers when peoples are in conflict and not acknowledging a common humanity."

But Obama stressed that he also wants to "celebrate how out of tragedy you now have a unified Europe," and he wants to highlight the power of "reconciliation, forgiveness and hope."

We may have a unified Europe for now, but unity is not about stifling conformity - it is about the recognition of differences and also the right to be different.

I'm fairly certain that if Europe's unity was important to Obama, he would not be pressing for the admission of Turkey to the Union.

Difference and hostility are not the same thing. Accepting that some things don't fit or won't work is not xenophobia or hatred.

Anyway, Obama was very keen to play up his personal connection to Buchenwald - his grandmother's brother Charles Payne, now 84, was one of the first U.S. soldiers to come into contact with the wickedness of the Holocaust - his unit liberated Ohrdruf, a sub-camp attached to Buchenwald.

Mr Payne was not present at the tour, but he will attend tomorrow's D-Day landing commemorations in Normandy.

What is interesting is that last week, the Telegraph ran an article in which Mr Payne, pictured below, took the unprecedented step of showing Obama up for the vain, posturing politico that he undoubtedly is.

Barack Obama faced unprecedented public criticism from a member of his own family when his great uncle said he was only visiting a concentration camp next week for 'political reasons'.

Asked if his great nephew was following in his footsteps, which the White House has suggested as a reason for the trip, Mr Payne told the German magazine Der Spiegel: "I don't buy that. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons."

Denting the normally smooth-running presidential public relations machine, he added: "Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards."

Exposing the haste with which political biographies can be formed, Mr Payne expressed surprise at how his great-nephew had used his wartime experiences on the campaign trail. As a candidate, Mr Obama used the wartime service of his white mother's parents and family to allay concerns about his heritage.

"I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before," he said, adding that he enjoyed a "warm and friendly relationship" with his great nephew, though he was not part of his inner circle.

The first time they discussed his participation in the war was when Mr Obama wrongly said during the campaign that Mr Payne had "liberated" Auschwitz. Opponents swiftly pointed out that had been done by the Red Army.

"He couldn't have gotten it from me since we had never talked about this particular episode in the war," he said. "My sister and her husband were both great storytellers and sometimes made up the details to go along with it. They told him about my deployment with the 89th Infantry Division and apparently they mixed up a few details."

Mr Obama soon called Mr Payne to check the details of his war experience, he said. "He wanted to know where this camp was that I had helped liberate. I told him that it was Ohrdruf and that it was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I described a little bit of what I had seen," he said.

Well, there you have it from the horse's mouth. Not only is Obama not really interested in his own family's history (well, the non-Muslim, non-Marxist parts at least), he is not really interested in Europe's past or future, or the tragedy which befell the Jewish people and millions of others over 60 years ago.

He is slightly more dangerous than 'all talk, no action', however; he wants to take actions, no matter how ill-advised or proven foolish by history, which make him look good today - and sod the consequences tomorrow.

It's not as if he has to live in a defenceless Israel or a Europe in which tens of millions of illiterate Muslim peasants have freedom of movement, after all.

He can sit with his bodyguards behind gates and tell his grandchildren that he is the great peacemaker, the man who united the people of the world into one mind.

By that point, perhaps there won't be anyone left who wishes to contradict him - such are the gifts ego and ideology combined give to formerly free people.

Sarkozy Snubs the Queen

According to the Daily Mail, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is too busy trying to win favour with Barack Obama to worry about the contributions of Britain and Canada to liberating France during the D-Day landings.

Not only has Sarkozy failed to invite the Royal Family, overlooking the fact that the Queen is the only serving Head of State to have actually served in the war (above, as a mechanic), but publicity for a television special, 'Barack Obama on the Invasion Beaches', makes no mention of the sacrifice of British and Canadian troops at all.

Buckingham Palace voiced anger last night after the French snubbed the Queen over next week's D-Day commemorations.

Aides said senior royals had repeatedly made clear their eagerness to support the historic 65th anniversary events in Normandy.

But last night French officials crushed any remaining hopes, admitting they had never had any plans to invite members of the British Royal Family.

They said President Nicolas Sarkozy was focused on the 'main event' of hosting U.S. President Barack Obama.

There was also anger at the British Government for failing to secure a Royal invitation from their French counterparts. Protocol means they cannot simply invite themselves.

The failure to invite the Queen - who is head of state of both Britain and Canada - will be seen as an insult to the memory of the 17,556 British and 5,316 Canadian troops who died to free France and are buried there.

The figure does not include many airmen and sailors whose bodies were never found.

President Sarkozy's officials were dismissive of the whole issue.

A French government source said: 'There were never any plans to invite members of the British Royal Family, although an invitation has been extended to Gordon Brown after he said he wanted to come.

'He will, of course, be concentrating on the British commemorations, away from the American beaches, as is appropriate. This is very much a Franco-American occasion.'

Presidents Obama and Sarkozy will attend the main international events at St Mere Eglise - the first town liberated by U.S. paratroopers - and Utah Beach, one of the two American landing sites.

France's equivalent of BBC1 plans blanket coverage in a day-long programme called Barack Obama On The Invasion Beaches.

Publicity for it makes no mention of British or Canadian troops.

It says: 'Surrounded by French and American veterans, the presidents Obama and Sarkozy will pay homage to the thousands of Americans who lost their lives on the Normandy beaches in their fight for liberty.'

The French president has been branded 'Sarko the American' over his attempts to curry favour with Washington. Relations with the White House have soured in recent weeks, and many believe he is pinning his hopes of repairing them on the D-Day celebrations.

Mr Brown will attend events on June 6, but is not expected to be at the main gathering of British veterans at Arromanches beach - the last time the dwindling band are expected to march together.

Peter Hodge, secretary of the Normandy Veterans Association, said having the Queen present would have been 'the icing on the cake' for his members.

He said: 'The veterans have immense respect for her and feel a very special bond. The fact that she took the salute at Arromanches at the 60th anniversary was very special to them.'

But he said it 'wouldn't make a scrap of difference' to most veterans whether the Prime Minister turned up or not.

He said as many as 400 veterans would not be able to make a hoped-for pilgrimage to the battlefields where their friends died because the Government's offer of help came so late that ferries and hotels were fully booked.

Downing Street insiders said the question of a Royal invitation had 'not arisen' in discussions with the French.

A spokesman said: 'This is an event organised by the French government. It is for them to issue invitations. The Prime Minister is pleased to have been invited and hopes to attend.'

VE Day

According to the Mail, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy gave a speech yesterday to commemorate the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny and the unconditional surrender of Hitler's forces, he made not one mention of Britain's sacrifices during the conflict, despite lavishing praise on US forces.

I would like to pay tribute to all those who contributed to Europe's freedom; Britain, the US, but also those who so often get overlooked - troops from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Rhodesia (all of whom were represented in the Battle of Britain at least); Canada; the free Poles, the free French and the free Dutch.

I think it is quite clear to see that Nicholas Sarkozy is not a man who knows a lot about, or at least interprets very much from history.

Statue of Sir Keith Park Deemed 'Too Traditional' for Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth has been empty since it was constructed in 1841.

In the mid-90s, someone came up with the bright idea of using it to showcase contemporary art, and some pretty hideous concoctions ensued; there was a statue of a pregnant, naked disabled woman, a plastic cast of the plinth placed on top in a kind of mirror image, and a strange model of a tree with its roots wrapped around the plinth.

The next bright idea has seen members of the public apply for the privilege of waiting in a queue and taking it in turns to stand on the plinth for an hour in the pose of their choice.

Is this nonsense really becoming of Trafalgar Square, built to commemorate one of Britain's greatest naval victories?

Not really.

But planning officials at Westminster Council disagree. They claim that the 'provocative art' is actually the highlight of the square, and the rest is quite boring. They said as much when they turned down a proposal to place a statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, head of Fighter Command over South East England and London during the Second World War, on the fourth plinth, saying it was 'too traditional' and would 'clash' with the other rubbish they already have planned.

New Zealander Sir Keith is the man whose strategic genius is credited with winning the Battle of Britain. The vanquished Germans called him 'the defender of London'.

It seems even helping to defeat Hitler doesn't buy you much favour with the trendies these days.

Sir Keith is exactly the sort of man who should be standing in Trafalgar Square. He was an air ace in the First World War, but also fought as an ordinary combat soldier. Here is a brief run down of his extraordinary life and service to this country:

Sir Keith, a New Zealander, fought in the First World War as an artillery man at Gallipoli and the Somme.

On 21 October 1916, Park was blown off his horse by a German shell. Wounded, he was evacuated to England and graded 'unfit for active service'.

In 1940 he was made Air Vice Chief Marshal in charge of RAF 11 Group Fighter Command, responsible for fighter defence of London and the South East.

During the Second World War, the Germans called him 'the Defender of London'.
After the aerial battle was won he served in Egypt, Malta and south-east Asia. He died in 1975, aged 82.

RAF pilot Douglas Bader, who fought in the Battle of Britain, said that 'the awesome responsibility for this country’s survival rested squarely on Keith Park’s shoulders'.

He also found time to fly around Britain in 1919, an age when air travel was still in its infancy.

The mealy mouthed bureaucrats at Westminster Council will find space in Waterloo Gardens at St. James's for Sir Keith's statue, and will place him so he appears to be gazing east, eternally scanning the sky for enemy aircraft.

Despite Sir Keith's heroism and contribution to the war effort, he is not widely known in Britain.

One of the commenters on the article opines:

I'd much rather see modern art then ANOTHER statue of some war hero. There are too many of these around.
- Harry, London, 5/5/2009 17:05

There's gratitude, eh?

We all ought to be thankful that back then duty counted and there were 'so many' around willing to sacrifice everything to defend this country and what it stood for.

J. G. Ballard 1930 - 2009

The British fantasy writer James Graham Ballard died on 19th April at the age of 78.

His unique and often controversial work coined the term 'Ballardian', such was its impact and originality.

Among his most famous works is the novel 'Empire of the Sun', a fictional work which draws heavily on his own experiences as a civilian internee of the Japanese military during the Second World War.

Born in Shanghai's International Settlement, he was 13 when the Japanese invaded and his family were sent to Lunghua Civilian Assembly Centre.

Japanese war crimes and brutality during that period are fairly well-documented, particularly regarding Chinese civilians and Western POWs. However, it is not widely known in the West that over 200,000 Western civilians, mainly Dutch, British, American and Australian were captured and interned by the Japanese for the duration of the war.

Many suffered terrible abuses, and there were summary executions, widespread starvation and mistreatment and even cases of Dutch and Australian women forced into prostitution for Japanese soldiers.

In 2008 Ballard released his memoirs of this period, and they are well worth the read. The Mail published a serialisation on Saturday.

Ballard recounts how he knew something of the horrors which were happening around him, but being very imaginative and being a child gave him some much needed escape; he started ff in awe of the Japanese, particularly the pilots, but found a new fixation when American Mustang pilots would fly low over the camp on their way to bombing raids.

He managed to take mainly positive experiences from his ordeal, and treated the internment as a bit of an adventure. It must have had profound effects deep down, however, because much of his fiction was filled with themes such as the misery of modernity and the limits of the human mind.

Here is an extract:

Looking back, it puzzles me that my parents decided to stay in Shanghai when they must have known that war was imminent.
But the cotton works were my father's responsibility and duty then counted for something.

In March 1943, my parents, four-year- old sister and I were interned with other foreign civilians at Lunghua camp, a former teacher training college outside Shanghai, where we remained until the end of August 1945.

Our assembly point was the city's American Club. There we found a huge press of people, mostly British, sitting with their suitcases around the swimming pool, many of the women in their fur coats.

Some of the men carried nothing apart from the clothes they were wearing, confident that the war would be over within days. Others had strapped tennis rackets, cricket bats and fishing rods to their luggage. Together we waited at the tables where Americans had once sipped their bourbons.

Then we were taken to Lunghua, my last real childhood home, where I would spend the next two-and-a-half largely happy years.

Many found his work controversial; he is best known for 'Crash' a novel about the sexual fetishism derived by a couple from car crashes.

However, many of his lesser known works were truly great works of fiction, despite their often eerie detachment from all known reality.

Ballard was not only a great writer who will be sadly missed, but a member of the dwindling group of people who remember a Britain before what we have now, who knew there was worse than the 'evils' of Western civilisation - because they had the misfortune to experience it first hand.

Rest in peace.

The Great Escape

In March 1944, 'Harry', one of the many tunnels built by interred Allied airmen in Stalag Luft III in Żagań, Poland was completed satisfactorily. The events that followed, by all measures courageous and tragic, would become the stuff of legend - spawning the film 'The Great Escape'.

Many of the US airmen who helped to build the tunnel were transferred just before it was considered safe, so on the evening of 24th March 1944 - a moonless night, therefore considered most desirable - 76 men managed to escape from German captivity, many of them all too briefly.

The tunnel came up short of the pine forest it was supposed to lead into, but 76 prisoners managed to go through it and emerge outside the camp before the 77th man was spotted by a guard and stopped at 5 am on 25th March.

The 76 men who escaped comprised 21 British, 6 Canadians, 6 Poles, 5 Australians, 3 South Africans, 2 Dutchmen, 2 New Zealanders, 2 Norwegians, a Belgian, a Greek, a Lithuanian, a Czech and a Frenchman.

Of these men, 73 were recaptured; the only ones to reach Allied territory and safety were the 2 Norwegians, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller, and one of the Dutchmen, Bram van der Stok.

It is said that Hitler initially ordered all of the 73 men who were found shot, but relented under pressure from Goering. As it was, 50 were still murdered, selected by General Artur Nebe.

17 of the survivors were sent back to Stalag Luft III, 2 to another PoW camp, whilst 4 were sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp to be worked to death. However, they managed to escape again, tunneling past double electric-fences, razor wire and specially trained guards, although they were recaptured.

They included Sydney Dowse, who died in April 2008 and 'Jimmy' James, who died in January 2008.

A small ceremony took place earlier at the site of the camp, in memory of the brave men who died.

These men and thousands like them encapsulate the spirit of this country, its history and our civilisation. They refused to give up their status as free men and submit to tyranny, no matter what the personal cost.

May they rest in peace.