大象传媒

... and maybe it didn't happen at all. This is how my grandfather would end each of his war stories that he passed on. His tales from World War II were gripping, compelling and almost unbelievable to a grandchild untouched by war, other than watching from the warm comfort of an armchair the news coverage of the Falklands and the Gulf Wars.

Andrew Hegarty (Granfa), born 1917 after his father had already been killed in WWI, was a newly-graduated doctor when he joined up in 1939.

His part in the War started gently enough - seven months based on Inchkeith, an island in the Firth of Forth, awaiting the arrival of German U-boats that never came. Of great excitement was the washing up of a lifeboat which he and others pulled up on to the beach. He took a paraffin lamp from the boat as a souvenir and he wired it for electricity - hanging in the stairwell of his home, it lit his way to bed for fifty-five years.

After his quiet island in the Forth Granfa boarded a troop ship bound for the Middle East. In the days before the Suez Canal, it was a long journey - the route took him around the Cape and, frustratingly, illness kept him aboard the ship while the others enjoyed a brief sojourn in Capetown.

Granfa always said he had a 'good' war. Aside from the obvious fact that he survived it, it was the most frightening time of his life but also the most exhilarating. His stories were never of the blood and guts variety but instead, more interesting observations, comments on human behaviour and many other little out-takes of life that just happened to be on a battlefield.

He told of people wounded that he sent down the line to either long stays in hospital, or signed off indefinitely and shipped back to England - many of these were unhappy at the idea of leaving their comrades behind and often reappeared long before expected or even requested. Others that were physically unhurt thought up any excuse to wangle a medical discharge or simply disappeared off on unnecessary errands that took them far into safe territory. At the time, Granfa found this cowardly in the extreme and had little patience with them, particularly on one occasion when it was his commanding officer who wasn't seen for days! Later years allowed a little more understanding that strength of character was not evenly bestowed and those without it should not be criticised, more pitied.

What moved Granfa most throughout his life was acts of personal kindness. In wartime, acts of kindness abounded, often from the strangest quarters. While retreating in North Africa back to Alexandria, his medical unit was overtaken by a column of German armed vehicles. It stopped and out of one of the cars stepped two German officers, one of whom was Erwin Rommel. Rommel enquired as to whether any assistance was required and if the unit needed any medical supplies. This humanitarian gesture that transcended enemy lines touched Granfa immeasurably.

Other verbal snapshots included finding he had a knack for poker and winning every time, to the extent that people refused to play with him; and, hearing the tune 'Lili Marlene' broadcast on German radio every night at 6 o'clock - he would recite it for me and I always found it slightly odd listening to the German words being sung in a Scottish accent in a small village in eastern Scotland!

Gambling and singing were forgotten on his D-Day landings in Sicily in July 1943 and a few months later, Italy in September 1943. In Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis are monsters that lived in what is now known as the Straits of Messina, a narrow stretch of water that separates Sicily from Italy. Scylla was a multi-headed beast that lived in a whirlpool and dined on passing sailors. Those that escaped her clutches were usually gobbled up by Charybdis who inhabited a rock on the other side of the stretch of water. The rock and the whirlpool are still there but it is only their geography that frighten sailors today as the monsters seem to have vanished. Granfa's ship had to negotiate this stretch of water in order to land. (Now here I must apologise - my inattention when Granfa was telling me this story means that I cannot remember whether the landing to which he was referring was Sicily or Italy or possibly I'm combining two stories - the beach landing must have been Sicily as he told me it was on 10-11 July 1943 - my father was one day old!, but the negotiation of Scylla and Charybdis may have been the landing at Salerno in Italy in September.)

Granfa was lucky enough to land on a different beach to that of the Americans who were a few miles north of his position and whose casualties were far higher, just as they would be in France a year later. Going ashore under cover of darkness, his unit camped for the night in the lea of a steep hill that bordered the beach - progress inland could only be made by a precipitous road that, in a series of 'S' bends, ascended the escarpment. As dawn broke, they prepared to move on and were just short of the first bend in the road when through the fog came an intermittent squeaking sound of metal on metal. The softer rumble of caterpillar tracks on tarmac followed and as the mist cleared they could see, directly above them, a German panzer tank rolling steadily down the hill. Someone armed themselves with a shoulder rocket launcher and as the tank came round the bend in front of them, fired. It was a direct hit and, fortunately, the tank was alone.

The landing in France was like a pleasure trip to the seaside, with the best roller coaster ride ever, certainly compared to the horrors endured by the Americans at Omaha Beach. Watching other jeeps fail at their attempts to drive into the surf while their amphibious craft were at all angles to the beach, he waited until the ramp was at right angles to the shore before charging off. His delight at reaching dry land while still in control of his vehicle was given uproarous voice when he saw the ' Bus Stop' sign from London that had been placed in the sand by a joker ahead of him!

While in France he was nearly killed in exactly the same way as his father had been 30 years before. Although his mother always believed her husband had fallen to enemy fire, Granfa learned from a relative that his father was killed by being too close to a field gun when it exploded. He never told his mother, letting her believe that her husband had not died a senseless, wasted death.

He created more snapshots for me of his life in France. Once, while recce-ing what he and his sergeant reckoned to be an abandoned farmhouse suitable for accommodation for patients, he and his companion were startled by a noise from within as they moved from the kitchen further into the house. Standing stock still in something approaching controlled terror, they waited. With nothing further they pushed open the door, only to release a cat that had been trapped inside!

The cold and damp of the winter led him and his comrades to chop up doormats to fit the shape of their shoes in an effort to keep their feet warm.

Although all GPs are naturally practised in gynaecology, it was a part of his training that had not been called on since he had left Scotland. However, early one evening he was summoned from his camp to a house in a nearby village, to assist a lady who was clearly in the early stages of labour. Having examined her, he advised the expectant mother and her husband that he did not think anything would happen before the morning but, should he be needed, then he would come immediately when sent for - they were just to send word to the camp and ask for 'the doctor' as they had done previously. Morning arrived without him having been called. He decided to pass by the house to see how the mother was doing and was more than a little surprised to be greeted by the proud parents of a newly-delivered infant. 'Why wasn't I called?' he asked. He had been - or at least 'the doctor' at the camp had been called and, a very rare occurrence, there was another doctor who duly did as he was bid. When Granfa caught up with him later, he was able to explain how it was that he had been called out!

Granfa had a great friend who was an observer, one George Fanshawe. It was his job to clamber up the tallest point in a village, usually a church spire, to survey the surroundings and report where danger would be coming from. Naturally, the tallest point was an automatic target for both sides yet this chap seemed to be blessed - on several occasions he had vacated his vantage point, either to answer a call of nature or because he had completed his task, only for the building to be fired upon shortly after and destroyed.

Other friends were not so lucky - even after victory had been declared. One was joyously celebrating the end of the war by madly driving his jeep around a field, while Granfa and others watched and laughed from the road - they saw him drive over a mine and be killed instantly by the explosion.

One of the most enlightening ideas that he passed on to me is one difficult to accept for someone who has never been involved in such a conflict. He believed it was just accident of birth that put people on the side they were - he never felt it to be personal, although that did not detract in anyway from the tragedy of it all.

He left for the War in 1939 aged 23, a newly-qualifed GP. He returned in 1946 aged 29 and, having been inspired by one of his superior officers in North Africa that was a psychiatrist, applied to take a degree in psychiatry. To do this at his relatively advanced age one had to be recommended and this same officer that had so inspired him, did just that, keeping his promise. It was another of those kindnesses that he remembered all his life.

Although the war ended in May 1945, Granfa and many other soldiers would not be 'de-mobbed' until 1946. In all the years that followed, even on the major anniversaries, Granfa would not celebrate VE day, nor the D-Day in Normandy or any other of the dates that historians plucked from the calendar. VE day was not the end of his war and anyway, celebrating it glorified something that should not have been so applauded. Six years of fighting had ensured freedom prevailed, freedom for the victors on whose side he was fortunate to be on - but at such a cost to both sides, each of whom believed they were in the right.

But, as he would say, it was all a long time ago - and maybe it didn't happen at all.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.