He was born into a world of illusory peace, during the years that followed World War 1, and over the years he was gently lullabyed into being happy. It was the age of the first black-and-white films, gramophone records, smoky chimneys and hard-working parents. There was hope for the future and he may well have lived his whole life amidst the slow and gentle changes that go hand-in-hand with the soft and sleepy breeze and blissfully uneventful beauty of a happy and humdrum life.

But he didn’t. And nor did anyone else.

The creeping and pernicious ascent of Fascism began to harden into a dark and menacing horizon and he began to understand the true meaning of words like “uncertainty” and “foreboding”.

Change came and cristallised, quickly and threateningly, but no-one was in the least prepared for what would eventually happen, and the screaming crashing onset of World War 2 swept away any dreams the young man may have had of living for his own future. The art of warfare began to teach, once again, it’s cruel and deadly lessons as it tore pitilessly around the world, changing destinies and designating the dead. Youth was mortgaged against conflict, innocence against cynicism, the sanctity of life itself was trampled underfoot and young men the world over found themselves trapped by military uniforms and the clash of ideologies which would hurl them towards salvation or oblivion.

The young man thus became a warrior.

He became a navigator in bomber planes and his job was to guide his plane to Berlin, over which aim was taken, bombs were dropped, and as much horror and destruction as possible spewed down onto industrial centres and military installations, notably Luftwaffe (German air force) communication sites, and airfields. They were prized targets because of their very inconvenient tendency to send up fighter planes to try and shoot his plane down.

His luck lasted until the middle of the war, when his plane was finally hit by machine-gun fire from a German fighter. Two engines were destroyed. “Are we going to make it home?” he asked the Pilot. “Sure we are” was the answer. But wishes are not wings as the Goddess of flight would say, and a third engine stalled, sending the massive black bird into the long and spiralling final dive that amorced it’s imminent death.

Three of the seven-man crew managed to bail out though, and the young man parachuted silently and slowly down to earth, where he was immediately taken prisoner, and that was the end of a decidedly bad night’s work. It was also the end of his war because he was subsequently sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Switzerland.

The war followed it’s course, and the Allies began to re-invade Europe. Once they had gained control of France, the Germans decided to move valuable prisoners (officers for example) deeper into Germany in order to avoid their being freed and “re-deployed” by the Allies. They had a major problem though, which was that they had lost millions of men by this time, and prisoner escort demanded large numbers of personnel. That’s why it was decided to give this work to non-combat personnel, such as those unfit for combat, women, teenagers and older men.

So, on a chilly November morning in 1944, the young man and his fellow-prisoners were lined up into columns three-abreast and told that they were being transferred. They were immediately marched off, flanked by an oddly-assorted and more-or-less armed escort, towards a train waiting four miles away.

Now, at this stage in the war, no-one wanted to try to escape and risk getting shot when all they had to do was wait patiently for the inevitable release which would follow the now-ineluctable end of hostilities.The escort knew this as well, of course, and so it was that conversations were struck up easily between the guarded and the guards. These conversations were mostly centred around the general relief that the carnage was going to end soon.

The young man began to talk too, to the German guard shuffling along beside him. She was wearing an old Luftwaffe overcoat and had a sub-machine gun slung around her waist. They agreed that the sooner the war ended, the better it would be for everyone. He noticed her coat and asked her if she had been in the Luftwaffe. She said that she had, and that she had worked for most of the war in a German Luftwaffe Command Centre in a bunker near Berlin. They began to talk more, and they came to the conclusion that it was highly probable that she had been at least partially involved in the operation that had brought down the young man’s plane. They laughed about the irony and coincidence and absurdity of it all. He trying to kill her and her trying to kill him!!!

They finally got to the train, and the young man asked her for her address so that he could contact her later in order that they reminisce about how they had each spent the war. She agreed, and scribbled down the address of a relative on a small scrap of green paper and gave it to him. He put it in his pocket and climbed aboard the train. He looked at her. She had dark eyes, wavy hair, a warm smile. The train moved off and a white winter butterfly alighted for a second onto the barrel of her gun, then took off again and fluttered away, silent and unseen....

He wrote.

She wrote back.

They met and fell in love.

They married in 1950 and had children a few years later.

Two girls and a boy.

The boy was me..................I am looking at that small scrap of green paper as I type these words, and I shall keep it near me forever.

Michael C

Headline Photo - homeofheroes.com
Bottom photo - my father