RAF 36: Will They Get Us, Dad? What Are We Going To Do, Dad?

Mar 1

The Free World Paused, an Island Resisted

Those were the questions my mother asked upon seeing the newsreels of stormtroopers descending by parachute upon Holland in 1940. Suddenly, the news was suggesting that Britain, too, would fall. And when Joseph Kennedy, the notorious anti-British and pro-Nazi American ambassador to the Court of St James (London) propagated his hatred, it is understandable why many believed him. That man did not bargain for two leaders, his own President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nor the very sudden changing of the guard in London, and the King’s invitation to Winston Churchill to form a government of national unity.

Kennedy felt the wrath of the country against which he had so vehemently acted, and could not quite grasp how swift, even diplomatically brutal, was his recall to Washington D.C.

My grandfather’s advice to my mother (aged 12), at 36 Elmfield Road, my Mum never forgot and could still recall in 2016. It went something like this.

Oh, no dear. Now, don’t you go worrying about that. That won’t happen. You just listen to Mr. Churchill!

Across town, a mile as the crow flies, mum’s future husband, stood looking out of the bedroom window above the front door of 25 Windsor Street as he saw, for the first time, the dreaded Swastika on the tail fin of a Messerschmitt BF 110 Destroyer twin engine fighter-bomber. A teenager (13) he recalled seeing the face of the gunner, the noise of the rat-a-tat-tat of the machine gun raking the rooftops on the streets below, and also seeing his father and the next door neighbour, Mr. Goldsmith, lying face down in the gutter. Both had fought in the First World War, what they did regularly in the trenches on the Western Front, just 22 years later, they were now doing just feet from their front doors and again taking cover against the same nation. The aircraft was brought down over Brockworth, near Gloucester, a few minutes later. Later that day, people spoke of a man killed while shaving by the bathroom window. I have not looked into this. I rely only upon my father’s recall. And, as in all conflicts, it is important to keep in the forefront of our minds that phrase the fog of war.

1 March 2024
All Rights Reserved

British People in 1940People of Ukraine in 2024PutinismMesserschmitt BF 110 Destroyer

Kenneth Webb

Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.

He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.

Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.

In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.

https://www.kennwebb.com