大象传媒

This story was submitted by Sarah Bourdice, for Derek Havard Story.

I have made several visits to the American Military Cemetery in Cambridge but I will never forget the first time. As I walked around in the late Spring of 1996 I was overwhelmed and surprised by how emotional I felt. Each time I looked along the row upon row of Crosses, and the many Stars of David, the care so obviously taken was a touching, if inadequate, testment by the living to the sacrifice made by these eternally young men. The precision is awesome. I looked at those Graves, and the Remembrance Wall, with the uncountable names of men, from all parts of the U.S.A - Virginia, California, Texas, Illinois- on and on- far too many to take in- many whose remains were never found, and my mind raced back to another Cemetery a long way back in what seemed like another life and I wondered if some of these names belonged to GI's I had known, as an eight year old boy, in those months before D-Day.

Precision hardly described that old Cemetery in my home town where I played as a boy. It was a higgledy-piggledy place where the ravages of time had moved the ancient gravestones all over the place. There was just enough of the engraving left to tell a tragic story of another time. Abandoned years before and overgrown, it had served to bury the many cholera victims in the several epidemics that had swept through Merthyr Tydfil in the unhealthy, overcrowded living conditions that accompanied the Industrial Revolution of the previous century but, by the middle of the twentieth century , it had become a wonderland of a playground for me and my Gang. Although forgidden territiory it was isolated enough to keep the watchful eyes of the authorities and our parents away. It was walled and gated but we knew how to get in and out through secret places. Along one side of the cemetery ran the old railway line that had carried thousands of tons of iron and steel from the famous Dowlais Iron Works to destinations all over the world. Long disused, it had become a 'Lovers Land' and sometimes, when we tired of war games, we wouls spy on the couples by lying in the long grass at the top of the high wall and try to figure out what it was that 'Lovers' actually did. We were well trained in the arts of stealth and camouflage, as you would expect from children growing up in a war, so they were completely unaware of our presence, most of the time, but we did occasionally get it wrong. It was as a result of one of these errors of judgement that we first met the GI's who were to become our pals.

The Americans came to town in the Winter of '43. We lived in the centre of town and there were five cinemas in close range so I had obtained a good working knowledge of the U.S.A. I was a familiar with the Wild West and the Big Cities, inhabited by Cowboys and Cavalry, Gangsters and the Bowery Boys, as I was with the alleyways and back-streets of my home town. We were well used to soldiers but the 'Yanks' greatly impressed us.

The evenings were drawing out in the Spring of '44 and, combined with Double Summer Time, it was light enough for us to play quite late. We had finished whatever it was that we were playing and decided to spy on any action in Lovers Lane. The land was flat and reached the top of the wall on the cemetery side but on the other side the old rail track was some ten feet down to the ground. Creeping very carefully, as John Wayne and Errol Flynn had trained us, we reached the edge and took a peek over. There were several G.I's with their Girlfriends and they were laughing and joking with each other. It was getting dusk and I was beginning to worry about getting home when my pal, Ginger, had a moment of total madness. He dropped a clodge of earth on to the heads of one of the Soldiers and his Girl and laughed at the reaction when they both let out a yell of amazement. We all stood up and laughed then of course because we were invulnerable in our fortress. Or so we thought. What we had'nt reckoned on was the fact that these guys were up in the mountainous Brecon Beacons every day training to invade Fortress Europe and ten feet wall was, to them, a triviality. It quickly became clear to us that we were in deep trouble and, although I knew all about 'Rebel Yells' from my cinematic academy, I had not heard them that close or when they was aimed at me personally. We xcattered and our intimate knowledge of the graveyard saved us. I hid in an old tomb and waited. It was getting dark-there were bats flying around-and I was terrified. The Yanks had long gone by the time I had got enough courage to leave my sanctuary. It did'nt occur to me at the time that they had probably been quite surprised to climb over a wall and find themselves in a deserted cemetery.

However, I was in big trouble when I got home having stayed out after dark. School the day after was buzzing with wild stories. A boy in my class but not in my gang put his hand up and told Mr.Evans 'Please Sir, some boys from Thomas Street had a fight with the Yanks last night and the Yanks chased them in their Jeets with their guns blazing'. Mr Evans obviusly knew where I lived grahe was looking at me. I frozen. We'd been warned many times not to play in the old graveyard. I dared not look at Ginger and the others. Mr.Evans eventually looked away and said 'It is very rude to call our American Allies by the term 'Yanks' and it is extremely unlikely that they would drive their vehicles- which I think you will find are called 'Jeeps'- not 'Jeets' - through Merthyr whilst firing their weapons. I am quite sure that they will be saving that particular activity for Mr.Hitler, when the time comes'. Thats may not be verbatim but thats how I remember it.

That evening we went back to our haunt. When the soldiers arrived they called up to the graveyard 'Hey! Ghost!- come out-we want to talk to you' and we ended up sitting on the wall talking to them. They gave us chewing gum and chocolate and we became good pals. For a long time after, our gang was known as the 'Ghosts'. Nearby was the Miner's Hall which was the main dance-hall in town and we would wait impatiently for them to arrive in their truck from Brecon. They were our friends and we would talk for what seemed like ages. I remember the unfamiliar names 'Irwin','Hanks' and the like. They were all buddies of the Bowery Boys and one of them was Gary Coopers cousins. We were well impressed and did'nt doubt it for a moment. Betty Grable's Boyfriend could sing 'Deep In The Heart Of Texas' just like Bing Crosby and their close harmony 'Dont sit Under The Apple Tree' would draw applause from the people passing around us to get in the Dance. We knew all the 'pops' of the day and would sit on the steps of the Miner's Hall, in the summer evening sunshine, and talk, sing and laugh until they'd say, 'Okay kids- we're off to meet the Ladies now- see ya'round'. We were having such a good time that us 'kids couldn't understand why they prefered going into that boring old dance-hall and we'd go off home to bed and wait impatiently for the next encounter with the Yanks.

And then suddenly they were gone. We never saw them again. I never really knew who they were but their memory is always strong in my mind. As I looked at the Wall of Remembrance in Cambridge, and the awesome, precision of the gravestones, I was a boy again sitting on a wall in a higgledy-piggledly graveyard in Wales. It never occured to me as an eight-year old - why should it?- that those exciting new pals were about to make a personal intervention in a perilous adventure that would put lives at risk but, as I became a man, my thoughts often turn to the realisation and belief that, without their help, the future could have been very different.

I have made several visits to the American Cemetery since that first time and the same thought always comes to my mind, 'Please God - let my G.I. pals all be old men living comfortably in Virginia, California, Texas, Illinios and all the rest.

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