D Day thoughts

The D Day coverage has been far too much for this boy. I’m in bits. Not that anyone from my family was directly involved in the landings, but it was the beginning of the end of a long and terrible war for my mother and her family and there was light at the end of the tunnel for my 15 year old father and his family.

My mother Neeltje Verburg and her family were living in Rotterdam in their fourth apartment of the war, the previous three having been demolished by the Luftwaffe. Years of eating raw sparrows, trapped by her father Marinus on the verandahs of their apartments, were almost over. They had lost everything in terms of their possessions but they had escaped the fate of those who lost more than mere possessions. No pre war documents exist: they lost the lot.

In 1944, my father Anthony Johansen was already at sea, having lied about his age in order to serve his country on the liberty ships that navigated the infestation of U-boats in the North Atlantic, in order to bring supplies for desperate Brits. I often think about his courage and I shall be forever grateful to his generation who served their country with great distinction, often sacrificing literally everything so that we could be free.

In later life, Anthony often talked of visiting the beaches of Normandy and it is with great regret that I never had it about me to accompany him. Like so many, it was only when I talked with him, and other veterans, about the war when I realised fully the heroism of those who served. The stories touched me more than a million news clips or feature films could ever do. My sense of pride and admiration for my father reached new levels.

I regret too that I never talked much to my mother about the war. She told me stories how she watched from her apartment as Dutch marines were killed by the advancing Germany army and the grim austerity she and her family faced under German occupation. But she never told me about how events like D Day affected her. It must surely have given hope that soon they might be free, in the case of Rotterdam free to rebuild a city that was essentially rubble.

D Day represented the largest military operation in history. It secured to this day our freedom. It is worth remembering, especially in today’s divided and Broken Britain, of what enfettered nationalism and fascism can bring about. If we relearn that one lesson, perhaps the sacrifice will have been worth it after all.