大象传媒

As a child of the 50's the memories of war were still fresh in the minds of many people including my parents who both served during this conflict.

During my childhood, my twin brother and I were familiar with the the odd remnants of 'Bomb Shelters' in our locale near Bristol, and television was awash with many a Film depicting the Second World War.

We knew that our father (Joe Davies) had fought in Europe during the War in both the 'Kings Regiment' and at some point with the 'Dorsets' as a Brenn Gunner. I often remember asking 'dad' how many Germans did he kill, but I never got an answer.

Once when I posed the question he got out an old Army photograph of himself with many of his comrades taken on the successful completion of his basic training. He told me that from all those I could see in the photo, only twelve (including himself) came home alive!

He would never talk about his experiences, but would only say that he hoped that my brother and I would never have to go through what he experienced during the war. The only time he told me what happened was regarding D-Day, after we watched an 'Audey Murphy' war film on television.

He simply said that he went into D-Day after the intitial landings of the first day, with a wave of re-informents (he was 20 years old at the time). As they proceeded up the beach they came under German Mortar Fire with a Mortar round landing directly between him and his best friend.

His friend was killed instantly and my father received serious shrapnel wounds to both his head and body. He was evacuated back to Britain and I understand spent many months recovering.

I only recently discovered that he never even told my mother or his family what happened that day, they said he simply refused to talk about it.

He never collected his Medals: that was left to my brother and I who claimed both our father's and my mother's medals long after his death in the early 1970's.

After the war he became a Lorry Driver, a Milkman and just before his death he worked as a 'packer' in a factory. He never had the counselling that todays generation crave, he fought, he came home and got on with life, and raised a family before his untimely death in the early 70's.

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