1947-06-28 — Page 7

REMEMBER THE WOOD GREW IN THE PERFECT SHAPE OF A GIGAN. 'TIC VICTORY V.

D Day, the Wing's fighters, shuttling to and from France, zoomed over it from dawn to dusk.

V Day, when I was being flown back from Germany on duty, the last leg of my journey, was along the reciprocal of those fighters, ke that I came home again above it..

Looking down where the great V lies like. a brave shoulder-flash on a shoulder of the Downs beyond Lewes, the young pilots had acen in it a lucky omen; to me on V Day i was the symbol of a good promise come true.

For the second time in a few days I remembered a sermon preached the previous spring--Invasion spring-In our R.A.F. 2nd T.A.F. camp nearby. The padre had spoken in a simple parable of the wood and the V sign, of the imminence of D Day and the ancient significance of the initiala D.V. "Deo Volente," he said, "together we shall win the struggle against evil."

"It's over, it's over?

HE first time was that moment-two years ago--when Tour Wing got its first news of the Nazis' inal sur render. That i should remembe he paire't prophecy in ti'at moment was strange, for we heard the news too dramatically to allow time for reflection. It was brought to us by a pilot returned from the dead.

We were camped. under the command of Group Captain Johnny Johnson, the Battle of Britain ace, at Celle, near Bel- sen, and 200 of us happened to be enjoying an Ensn show in the Luftwaffe gymnasium.

Suddenly the show was interrupted by a knocking and a confused shouting outside the great double doors. The actors hesitated, the audience shushed, the doors were flung open, and there on the threshold stood a group of young airmen in battle dress and flying kit, led by the apparition of a pilot reported dead two days before,

Skin was burned from his face, his hair was singed from his head, one of his arms was in a sling, and he hobbled to warda us on a stick, shouting: "It's over, It's over! The war's over!"

Back from death

we remained

TOR & full minute

silent, wide-eyed, not at the

which we had known

news,

was

imminent, but at the bearer of it

name

was

Squadron-Leader (11

the he had Terry Spencer, and

Shanklin), from D.F.C, and came

all knew and come had whom we seen shot down for dead, in a blazing wing gone, Io Spitfire with one Wismar Bay.

of

Suddenly our silence broke and,

noise with a loud, inarticulate welcome and a tumult of backslap- ping and handshaking. we all con- verged on him and carried him to the stage and the ecstatic kisses of the whole the Ensa girls, before crowd of us hurried off for the wild joy of that night's celebration.

His escape, we learned, had been one of those providential miracles of warfare-the speed and sudden- ness of his crash, which had prevent- ed him from bailng out, pulled open his parachute so that it yanked him out of the plane just before the plane hit the water.

A kolier reason

for my keen recollec- spring is, I suppose, tion of the Invasion simply that the weather was perfect. In camp, weather has да lot to do with marale, and Pro- vidence -stage-nint- aged Maytime that year like heavenly propaganda for

Koodness of Be

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SÁTURDAY, JUNE 28, 1947.

The

Parable

THE AUTHOR

Flight-Lieutenant DONALD BUCHANAN

of the V-Wood

THE V-WOOD... WE REMEMBER

BERHARD WICKSTEED, OFC

BAW it at six o'clock one

I June morning at the end

of a Dawn Patrol. I was Koing home to breakfast then and to rest until called hout to battle again.

with front stalls for all the friends ald aliles of the free world gathered to gether 011 English

soil.

Week after week of sunshine prepared the way for the be ginning of the Liberation; and closer, for most of us, than ever in our lives,

the season's pageant

*unfolded before us.

Recalling the de- tails of that queerly anachronistic idyll," one needs write the more plainly for fear of rhapsodising. 198 and the difficulty in Creases with ench

memory.

The prace and calm 01 those trees in the inorning mist typified the haven hoped I would soma day and,

ARTHUR COOK WE passed 1: many times.

soon after dawn, on our way to link up with bombers going out.

"No pansy Aying at 20 feet," said the 0.0. We now below the German beamā→→ and we looked upwards to 500 thig V-wood those mornings...

ARCHIE FREEDMAN, DFC MY first sight of it was ou

Christmas morning 1944 Just after dawn on our WAY back to base from a night jab, We circled, admiring its perfect symmetry,

We talked Church and his sign, my navigator and I.

And I felt good and full of high purpose.

the

than

NOME evenings un- At each of our squadron dispersals the struggle against evil." Together, 111 bluck out, were lordly officer pilots who had God willing, must become our opera- when the navigation been clerks and shop assistants, and tive word, Now even more

than ever in man's lights of

ordinary "erks" who had been em- then, more Last section swam down to ployers. One squadron had six history mankind needs unity-world

its fliers, and unliy. millionaires omong falling like earth stars, our Polish squadrons would keep a camp fire burning and sit around, the red light on their rea

cep

the veteran

Lord GIS-

"Gizzy"

Then we achieved its microcosm bound adjutant of another. borough, was, the humble, earth-

to defeat a great danger; today we need its full dimension to avert Where is that unity now? The tale of it is a true parable far greater danger; and the awful need and our and greatness of our with a plain moral for today

padre's comment is still apt. danger alike of "Deo volente, together we shall win current phrase "One world or nonc."

faces, singing the gay the and sad

songs

their country to the 'music of a guitar,

Every

day the

pilots felt good to be alive, but every few days a fow more .pilots were shot down and were dead.

Living in a hun- dred and one camps each more or less like the one along the

consi, Invasion splendid brotherhood

#

of nil nationalities

of

to

The unit's tents svere pitched and pli sorts and conditions within sight of the V wood, in the men prepared for It Hour on D Day. lee of another, smaller wood. This It was as though every man whose

upposed of heart and hand were And, as though that luck were not smaller wood was like a lake

to the enough, he fell so close Inshore that bluebells studded by a little archipe- Nazism had found his way he was able to wade to safety, re-lago-of-primrose-tults, nod-scented--invasion-camps. ceive flest nid, and then return to by the primroses, wild apple blossom,

After duly hours the ins of the base in time to le first with the news hawthorn, beanflowers, and honey- neighbouring villages of Germany's surrender.

towns were Babels where English and American speech mingled with the sound of Polish, Czech, French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, and al-

The sunshine

suckic!

with the

Every night was loud song of nightingales-and, to tell

and little

most every language in the world.

There is no exaggerating the unlty of all men of good will of all clashus and all nations which we modelled in miniature in those days.

are summed in

The Japs Will Repeat

All Their Old Tricks

By Candidus”

the

econo-

CARCELY a day passes today is running the risk of

without the newspapers being internationally, publishing news of the mically and diplomatically side- of Japanese trade. tracked because of the inability revival Manchester, England, has re- to keep her house, in order. I ceived a very large shipment say, unfortunately, because it is of Japanese cotton ma.erial. indeed unfortunate for the other this represents reparations, sponsors of world peace and there may be some advantage order that China should not be in encouraging the Japanese to able to play her part with de- reinstate themselves. There termination and unity. A uni- had have is, however, the fear that the fled China would the world's markets with of the peace-seeking world, and Japanese will once again flood tremendous effect on the rest goods at prices which nations even Russia would have thought enjoying higher living stan- twice before in any way creat- dards will be unable to ing international distrust as lo combat. For many years be- her ultimate aims. fore the last war, the Japanese In the meantime, Japan bene proved themselves to be unscru- fits. She will take full advan- Pulous copyists even going to tage of China's impotency in the extent of imitating world- world affairs, and it may well mered in a heat haze. Even the Mexican. In our Ops, caravan at famous trade-marks. Protests be that America realises that dawn patrol raised dust clouds when one time were Prince Jean de Lianc, were in vain, and they waxed with encouragement and 18- of ille are becoming so rare as to be the queue of aircraft taxied

of the Belgian contingent, and from "Bud," an Eton schoolmaster, under fat, thanks to their utter dis- sistance, Japan will stand as memorable, while fantastic "impos- sibilities are now so real and tre- dispersal, and on their return their the commund of a very gallant wing regard. for the most elementary a Far Eastern Bulwark against quent that the mind tries to Ignore ground crews who run to them were commander who had been a dance commercial probity.

Communism, The situation them?

stripped to the waist.

Once again we may expect to gives rise to very serious would do see the "So Sorry" little grovel thought, and China lers insinuating themselves in well to study carefully the spheres of decency-spheres effect on her constitution and which are foreign to them in economic outlook of an Ameri- every sense of the term. - can sponsored Japan. It can- not be said that opportunity has not knocked at China's

ONE

NE reason for telling all this is the truth, every morning at break-

that. until thus reminded, I had fast everybody said: "Those forgotten the higident, remarkable birds kept me awake again half the

...... night." though it was; while, on the other hand, an apparently unremarkable experience of the war years-nothing

In sunshine and moonlight the more than the sunshine and ordinary happiness of our country life, in our coinfields rippled in long, slow waves camp by the wood. in the English that broke upon the hedges. springtide that led to D Day, has been in my mhid over BANOVI

Is it that the ordinary happinesses

EDITORS PHCSS SENYICE. THE. —RUSYA TORE

#

All day long the airstrip akim-

A Chinese reconnaissance pilot whom we called "Charlie Chan" was a fighter pilot among my friends, from Sweden, Lithuanians, and

band musician.

cem

THE FILM STAR

•

Tis surprising that America door!

should ignore the protests of Britain, Australia, New Zealand DVERTING to Japan's threat to and Norway against Mac-world markets in the matter of Arthur's determination to per- dumping, one has only to recall the mit the Japanese to send out some years before the war to

cement dumping in Hongkong for realise whaling expeditions, and one the danger which exists today. It

für America's is truo that wonders how

I become necessary to introduce a dictatorship, certainly as far as to control or alleviate the Japanese ota" basis in order. "quota" Japan is concerned, will be per- stranglehold on overseas markets; milled to continue.

however that had but little effect. In It is to be hoped that the Hongkong,

ng, Japanese piecegoods and United States has not forgotten other products were Imported, and

as British Pearl Harbour in the desire to thus qualifying for the

exported

Empire trade inl follow the dictates of the 'al-

treatment accorded mighty dollar. Her apparent goods made within the Empire. The anxiety to see the Japanese re- tricks of the past will be attempted

again,

and we may rest assured dat

in securing revenue

that

instated presents a queesion no pancsoll be neglected by

which may have several an- the swers. The fact remains, that from the rest of the world by re- the Japanese are undeserving peating the low-down scheming of of any special treatment or con- the past-scheming which allowed Japan to build up her navy, army sideration.

and air force In order to destroy those who had, by trading with her. provided the means of destruction.

UNFORTUNATELY, one can- 17 America's intention is to use the ndt think of Japan without Japanese for her own ends, she may sympathising with China. The yet live to rus the day that she ever

succoured back to

life and activity great possibilities which ber the race which endeavoured to des came China's at the end of the troy her at the time of the Jap war have dissipated into thin American talks in Washington in air, and instead of taking her December 1941, when history's greatest example of mobbingha rightful place as one of the five friend in the back-was-so-foully big nations of the world, China demonstrated.

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