Aspects Of War # 5

HUMPH

On Victory in Europe Day
On the eighth of May 1945
Amidst the happy throng
Outside Buck House
He was joyfully playing
“Roll out the Barrel”
On his trumpet
Whilst being perambulated
In a wheelbarrow
And that was how
Lt Humphrey Lyttelton
Inadvertently gave his
First ever performance
On the BBC
Which survives to this day
On the BBC news reels

HEROINES OF THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE - ODETTE SANSOM HALLOWES GC, MBE

She was French born
But served as an agent for the SOE
In April 1943 “Lise”
Was betrayed to the Germans
Along with her future husband
Peter Churchill
And The SD interrogated them at
84 Avenue Foch, their HQ in Paris
Though tortured with red hot pokers
They kept to their cover story
That he was both her husband
And Winston Churchill’s nephew
Which seemed to do the trick
With confirmation from London
But she was condemned to death in June 1943
But was transferred to Germany
To be imprisoned at Ravensbrück
The Churchill’s nephew story stuck
And when the allies got close
The Camp commandant Fritz Suhren
Drove Sansom to the allied lines
To surrender to the Americans
Hoping to save his own neck
Which didn’t work
Odette testified in 1946
At the Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials
And he was hanged in 1950
Odette was subsequently awarded
A British George Cross, an MBE and
A French Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur

HAVING WON THE WAR

Having won the war we struggled in peace
We lived those post war days austerely
But truly believed it was for the best
Despite feeling the rationing severely
But out children charged on into the sixties
And lived the decade too cavalierly

THE WHISTLES BLEW

The whistles blew
And over the top
Went the company
Moving as one
Through the smoke
And strewn before us
Broken and bloody
In the Flanders mud
Lay the fallen,
Comrades all
Lifeless and cold
But on we walked
Each of us knowing
We might join them soon

OLD SOLDIERS WEARIED WITH AGE

Old soldiers wearied with age
Marching with faltering stride
Carry themselves with dignity
And wear the uniform with pride