大象传媒

My grandfather John Jelico Bennett served with the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry during world war two,
and was killed in action in Tunisia in april 1943.
After surviving the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, my grandmother said of him that
鈥淗e was never the same鈥�, as he suffered from nightmares, waking screaming in cold sweats,
though he would never tell what happened.
My grandmother told of how men could be heard screaming from flats throughout the night
neighbouring their flat after Dunkirk.
It鈥檚 a detail that seems to say as much as any vivid account from the beaches about the horror suffered.
One of the few details I know is that my grandfather was once late returning from leave in Ireland,
where my grandmother was from, and as a result was demoted from sergeant to corporal, I suspect
my grandmother pleaded with him to sit the war out in neutral Ireland, but she said he wanted to do
the honourable thing and returned, be it a couple of days late.
The last time my grandmother saw my grandfather, he refused to let her stand in the doorway and watch
him walk up the street, he made her go inside as he walked away.
I wonder at the bravery of men like him who witnessed the horror of the german
blitzkrig and still went back to fight again.

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