Fighting Through Podcast Episode 120 – Christmas at War 2024 – more interviews and stories.

More great unpublished Christmassy!

Intros

One pitch black night, they heard a plane buzzing around in circles. They could tell by the sound that it was an American plane, so after some time, my grandfather ordered the men to park the trucks along the edge of the runway on either side, and turn the headlights on.

Intro Passage 1 ww2 memoirs

Sicily Howard

Intro Passage 2 ww2 podcasts

Ken Cooke

Intro Passage 3 ww2 memoirs

We celebrated 'The Battalion's spirit' and oor comradeship wi’ the skirl of the Pipes, and a 'no-holds barred' game of fitba! What else could ye want?

Intro Passage 4 ww2 history

Hello again and another crackling Christmassy fireside welcome to the Fighting Through second world war podcast. 

I’m Paul Cheall and the aim of this second world war podcast is to share family stories, memoirs, and interviews with veterans in all the countries and all the forces. I dare you to listen!

Today, I’m featuring a few more Christmas at War stories that I’ve found for you, plus a chat I had with a lady local to where I live about her wartime experiences and more, as a child. Sicily Howard.

Finally, I’ve got a superb chat with veteran Ken Cooke from York who has news of his visit to the 80^th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy back in June. And you’ll be amazed at the people he rubbed shoulders with from all over the world. I’m getting a shiver up my spine just thinking about this – listen to the PS to learn more. Wow is all I can say.

Today’s Headline from the Newspapers

So, to get the Christmas spirit moving, h ere’s a few short snippets from the front page of the Daily Herald Dec 24 1942

New French gain in Tunisia French troops have forced a German detachment to withdraw on the Pont du Fahs section of their front in Southern Tunisia. They have also taken prisoners and captured equipment in repulsing counterattacks in the pichon area

Their Success was announced in a communique from allied headquarters in North Africa last night. 

Goebbels down in the dumps. Goebbels was in a gloomy mood in his Christmas Message in "Das Reich" yesterday. "wherever we look, he wrote, we see mountains of problems which must be mastered. Everywhere that path is steep and dangerous. Nowhere is there a shady spot where we may rest. We must make use of the hour - if it has once gone all possibility of reaching the submit is passed. 

And Marshall Sir Arthur Harris chief of bomber command has issued this special order of the day to all ranks of the command .

Greetings at Christmas 1942. Another milestone on the steep Road To Victory. There is farther but not so far to travel. The gradient eases. From that we gain advantage not respite. With stout hearts and unwavering purpose we go forward.

Finally …

RAF light bombers going out in force attacked targets in Holland and France in daylight yesterday. Lockheed venturas the fast new machines which made their debut in the big daylight raid on the Philips radio works at eindhoven on Sunday December the 6th flew out Seaward over the Thames Estuary at a high altitude leaving vapor Trails.

Escorted by Fighters they bombed Targets at Den Helder a port on the coast of Holland where there are Shipbuilding yards and iron works as well as docks.

Straight in – Ken Cooke

Now for a recording of a chat I have with Ken Cooke Veteran of day at the age of 18. He’s now 98 if my maths is correct. You’ll see he’s full of beans and the reason we’re chatting is because I sent him a Christmas card which prompted him to give me a ring. Bless him. 

Last June was the 80th anniversary of D-Day and Ken has the most amazing tale to relate about his visit to France to take part in the commemorative ceremonies.

>>>> 

Feedback

A couple of similar messages I’ve had on the subject of Second Leftenant Hewson of my Dad’s battalion, 6gh, who was killed firing an anti-tank gun at a Tiger tank during the Dunkirk campaign. He was fired upon by a tank while trying to re-position himself after disabling one tank.

Feedback 1 Sebastien Chaveron <

 Hi Paul,
As I live near St Omer, France, I paid a visit to Second Leftenant Hewson’s grave, in Longuenesse military cemetery, and said a little prayer.
Always great to make a physical connection with all the stories you tell in the podcast. How good is that!

Feedback 2 Maël Robache

Hello.

I am sending you a message because I found your profile on the site "find a grave".

First of all I wanted to express how grateful I am to your father and what he did for our country. My brother and I are currently writing a book on the Gravelines battles in 1940 where your father fought in 1940 with the 6th Green Howard. And where Second Leftenant Hewson Hewson died and I went to see his grave in Longuenesse. We are looking for any more information and photos.

I live in grand fort Philippe (near gravelines) 

Maël robache

Mael and Sebastien merci beaucoup for your messages. I sent Mael some info on Left H and photos of Dad but sadly have none of Leftnt Hewson. It’s a long shot but if anyone has a family connection to LT, please get in touch. And Mael do get in touch when you’ve finished your book and we’ll se if we can’t give you a shout out on the podcast.

Interview with Sicily

Now for my interview with Sicily, which took place in Norfolk England a few weeks ago. I’d been asked to interview a few elderly residents of a village close to where I live, for a church project they had going. The chats were about their early memories and the conversation inevitably lead to the war and equally inevitably to Christmas. So how good is it That I can also use this material on my podcast! Sicily didn’t talk exclusively about the war, but I’m hoping you will enjoy hearing the wider aspects of her life story. So the chat starts off with a bit about Sicily’s early life but soon  gets into the war and later everybody’s favourite subject … Christmas!

Here goes.

>>> 

Thank you Sicily. Thanks for that insight into parts of the war that other memoirs cannot reach! And the lady who asked me to chat to you was none other than Jean Lindsay who I interviewed about her war time experiences as a young girl way back in episode 63.

From Family stories to funny stories now, from Gary Yee

New York, July 15, 1943 (UP)
In Sicily, Messerschmitts circled a nearby hill, but Technical Sergeant Richard Redding, stringing a wire atop a telegraph pole and a perfect target, worked on. Someone yelled up from below, "What are you doing up that pole?"
"Working," said Redding, too engrossed to look down.
"How long have you been there!"
"About 20 minutes."
"Don't the planes bother you?"
"Hell, no - but you do!"
At the foot of the pole was none other than Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., who had been doing the yelling, but he kept his peace.

BTW, the movie Patton had a re-creation of his speech to the GIs in England. Patton's version of that story was part of the speech. He praised the sergeant for his steadfastness in danger and dedication to the job.

Sniper writer Gary Yee

Funny

Some anonymous wag recently posted this idea up in Reddir ….Make Christmas more fun by sending cards to your neighbours with offensive messages like “to the git with the noisy motorbike, have an absolutely crap Christmas “then sign it from another Neighbour that you don’t like. Spread the cheer :-)

Family stories 3 Reddit Aussie

All about an Aussie assist to the Americans

When my grandpa was in New Guinea with the 39th of the Australian Army, he was punished for insolence to the Captain.

He and a few others were sent to guard an unused airfield, and then the Captain was rotated out in the great officer swap of early 1942.  I think it was April or May. Apparently the Captain totally forgot to tell anyone, because they were left there, unrelieved for months. Thus, they missed the brutal Kokoda and Buna/Gona/Sanananda campaigns. Captain thought he was punishing him, but I wonder what he'd say if he knew he was saving his life instead?

Anyhow, to the story. One night, they hear a plane buzzing around in circles. They could tell by the sound that it was an American plane, so after some time, my grandfather (platoon leader) orders the men up, and to park the trucks along the edge of the runway on either side, and turn the headlights on.

As soon as he did, an American plane came in to land.  Mom and dad did not ask what kind of aircraft it was when interviewing him, (Oh, to be able to go back and interview him myself!) so he did not say. The airmen were so grateful and relieved. They were about out of fuel, and they KNEW there was an airfield in the area, but it was too dark. They had all but decided to take their chances ditching into the sea when the headlights came on.

They asked the Aussies if there was anything they needed, any way they could pay them back.

Grandpa said they could use some flour, (since they were not being supplied, having been forgotten about) so a couple days later, the US Army Air Force dropped them some flour. He did not say how much.

I've often wondered if that incident was recorded by the US Army Air Force, and if so, how I could research it.  Seems like a lost plane coming back from the dead the next day, and a special mission to secure and drop some flour would be noted somewhere. Would be awesome to get US confirmation of the story, and hear their side of it.

Davey Reddit

Family stories 4 Reddit WW2 German

To celebrate victory day/Tag der Befreiung here is a text my Grandmother wrote few years ago, how she experienced the war and its end

I was born on the 30th of January 1936 in a small town, Adolf-Hitler-place 15 (market square). I was always a little proud of my birthday, because he was marked red in the calendar as the “Tag der Machtergreifung” (day of seizure of power by Adolf Hitler). 

In 1942 I started school. Miss Ida was our teacher, she was already retired and had white hair. We were 72 kids in the classroom.

Living at the market square was interesting. You could see how a party rally with podium and box trees was prepared. Then we would listen to the speech of the local SS leader and the songs the crowd sang. We had four Flags for the windows that we would attach to the flower boxes on such occasions; this was mandatory.

In 1942 there were already airstrikes on Nuremberg and with that came the air-raid sirens. The mayor brought the siren from his bookbinding shop to the middle of the square and with the help of a crank the alarm was set off by hand. Of course, there were drills. Everything had to be practiced for a real case.

It was terrible for me to put on the “Volksgasmasken” (peoples gas mask), even though there were smaller ones for kids I felt a shortness of breath and horror.

A blackout obligation was in place. At night it was not allowed for any light to shine through the windows. We got used to it. When there was an air-raid warning we would also cover up all the lights. Alarms in the middle of the night were horrible. Woken up from deep sleep, we had to put on all our clothes with shoes and coat, to go down in the basement or the public bunkers (not really bunkers but very old buildings with large cellars). In the museum street were “LSR 2” (Air safety room) in the old dormitory and “LSR 3” in the abbey. They were old vaulted cellars in the old monastery complex. We could hear the air strikes over Nuremberg (27 km / 16,7 miles distance) and saw the bright lights and the red sky. The biggest inferno was on the second of January 1945.

I remember the low-flying shelling of a passenger train near our station because the wounded passed our house as they were brought to the emergency hospital. Again, and again they brought somebody, it just didn't stop. For me as a child this was horrible. It was a sunny Easter Sunday the first of April 1945.

Our father was in the “Volkssturm”. He had to build anti-tank obstacles on the main road. The enemy was near. 

On the seventeens of April 1945 my sister Elisabeth had her 18. Birthday and mother had backed a cake. On this day American tanks rolled into the city. The basement of our house lay deep underground. Seven families, all who lived in the house, sat tight and scared in there for many hours.   

 When we came back up in our apartment, we realised that a grenade had hit the house the other side of the square and fragments flew through the bedroom window and hit the closet. Our father had to go to dismantle the roadblocks. 

As a child you have no idea of the enemy. How will he treat us after we lost the war? These thoughts haunted my head, I was nine. Adults witnessed the first world war and knew that there is still a live after the war.

For us at the marketplace, the following command was now in effect issued by the occupiers:

The windows and the shutters had to stay shut. One of ours had a knothole, good for our curiosity! Curfews were issued in which you weren't allowed to go on the street. We couldn’t leave the house for about two weeks. A woman who was evacuated from cologne lived with us. Her daughter in law and granddaughter lived a few doors down. To visit her, we would climb on the hayloft of our neighbors, go through a window in a small garden and back in on the first floor of the next house.

The women from cologne had diabetes, 1946 she died with 66 years because she didn’t get insulin. Everything was scares, especially food. We were four adults and one child. I picked up the milk. For two days we had three quarters of a liter. Because of the lack of bread, we had “roasted field chickens” in the morning, that’s what my mother called them. She had cut cocked potatoes in halve and roasted them in a pan; spread with jam you could eat them to your “coffee”. She also roasted grains, that I had to grind with the coffee grinder to replace coffee. Soup was made from boiled bones that after the third time you could trade in for a piece of soap. From cocked turnips she made salad, very good!

I sill remember very well the dried-up stock fish that were once allocated. They looked awful and were rock hard; in the attic we hung them in the air. Before the cooking they had to soak in water for a long time. They were good as cook fish in white sauce.

A popular meal at the time was toasted blood with onions and spices (like collared Pork, but only blood) and potatoes as a side dish. You bought it in slices; everybody only got a equally big part at the butcher´s shop. To get it you had to stand in the crowd before the shop very early. 

On Christmas we backed the so called “Waschkorbkonfekt” (laundry basket confectionery), a frugal cookie recipe. The women came in the bakery with their dough bowls and let the cookies bake on the big trays in the oven. At home there were no electrical ovens yet. 

Cloth was also scarce. From the fabric of bed linen my sister made checkered dirndl. She made me a red skirt brocaded with white rickrack, very beautiful! 

1945 I was in fourth grade. My teacher was Mr White, in the afternoon he would prepare us for the upper secondary school, mostly maths  problems. We had to do an Entrance examination on three days. Then in September we rode the crowded trains, partially between the wagons, to Ansbach. Our way to school passed by the bombed houses of the train station district. In February the allied forces had bombed the train station as a strategic target. 

We had Overcrowded classes, not enough classrooms,  and partly non qualified teachers. There was one very used book for two children - and there were school fees, that had to be paid - this is how it was. 

For the children coming from Heils bronn there was a bad train connection, and sometimes we didn't arrive until the evening. For a time, the train would only go half way, then we would ride another train in another town and from there somebody picked us up with an open truck.

We just had to put up with it, you couldn't complain or go on the barricades. I was not unhappy as a child during this time, but I did miss my father. As a customs officer he was ordered to borders as far as Estonia.

The mourning service in the monastery for the baker couple remained in my memory; they had lost there three sons in this war. 

I always wished there would never be another war, especially after I was married and had two sons myself. 

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Coffees

Time for a few thank you’s to people who’ve bought me an assortment of coffees calvadosses and Christmas crackers.

My grateful thanks go to

Dan Knofel

Mark Lupton

Jon Watson Scotland

Glenn from Australia

Patreons making a regular contribution

Lisa Loftis Springfield Missouri

Thomas Oliver, Morro Bay USA

Round up

Thank you so very much for your support and for making the time to listen to me.

And please – FOLLOW THE SHOW

write, like, rate, review or share the show - howsoever it pleases you. Above all – enjoy. Please do hear me next time.

Please do have the very best of Christmases and a fab New Year

PS Fazny

A Christmas Memory by fazney

TROOPS ON TROOPSHIP -LESLIE HESFORD

STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR

The sound of "Holy Night" or "The First Noel" bring back memories of Christmas to all of us, but my father Leslie Hesford ,remembered a rather different piece of music taking him back to an unusual and distant 24th December. He recalled :

A fine clear sunrise on Christmas eve over a calm Atlantic ocean was a cheering sight after the very stormy weather that the 23000 ton troopship 'Stratheden' and the other ships in our fast convoy had faced on previous days. The convoy was steaming eastwards, and in the afternoon, Cape Spartel in Morrocco appeared above the horizon. At a signal from the commodore ship the convoy turned 180 degrees and sailed away from the land. Just before sunset, we changed course again and headed eastwards, to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar during the hours of darkness.

To entertain the troops for Christmas Eve, the pipes and drums of the Scottish rifles (Cameronians) who were amongst the units on board, performed the ceremony of "Beating The Retreat" on the open deck and lit by a spectacular sunset over the deep blue of the Atlantic, I heard a tune on the pipes which will always recall the scene to my thoughts.

After darkness had fallen, the convoy in line ahead and in total blackout, sailed slowly through the straits with the troops lining the ships rails - gazing with envy and amazement at the bright twinkling lights of the villages and roads in Spain, far away on our Portside,to disappear from sight as we steamed into the darkness of the Meditteranean and Christmas day.

My unusual Christmas carol ? "The 79th Highlanders' farewell to Gibraltar" a reminder of an out of the ordinary Christmas Eve!

PS Pontecagnano, Christmas Day

I just want to draw your attention to a heart warming photo – the first one in the show notes for this episode at FTP. It’s entitled

Pontecagnano, Christmas Day 1943

Christmas day at pontecagnano, Italy. My father, with 2/4 Bn the Hampshire Regiment, said the Officers, in white, served the food.

And it’s such a great photo, as described – worth a look – enough said.

PS Brian26 

Hi Owen,
My father, was one of eight who volunteered to swim across the river Garigliano with a rope around his waist, to breach a line.
He said, while swimming across there were a few from the Texan Regt, floating in the river, having sadly drowned after their boats were shelled by Germans.
The objective was to tie the rope the other side to stop boats drifting down river, in sight of the Germans.
The Germans could see what was happening and changed position, forcing the allies to change tactic.
The Allies built a Bailey bridge, which was shelled by the Germans, forcing the Allies to move further down. The second Bailey bridge was constructed and the Allies made a dash across. My father also said, he ran across and jumped into a trench, surrounded by mud, the trench had two dead American's in, my father couldn't move and a shell came down with a thud, just behind the trench but didn't explode. After the war, it was found that Polish POW's packed the shells in crates for the German's, and for every crate they put in two duds.
After Cassino Town was taken, my father marched through, someone had put a sign up saying, UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
Brian.

PPS

BBC The Christmas Tree by RomseyLad

I think it must have been at the time when the whole Country was playing a bit of a waiting game, preparing for what finally became D-Day. At this time Dad was serving with the RASC, (Royal Army Service Corps) based "Somewhere In Norfolk".

I recall that I was sitting on the kitchen floor - probably engaged in what I remember as one of my main sources of amusement and pre-occupation, picking bits out from the frayed edge of the lino and building tanks and towers out of it (an early-day form of Lego?).

I became conscious of a soldier walking into the kitchen, stepping over me and towards my mother, who was up to her elbows with her back to the door, trying to beat the last vestiges of grime from the family's weekly wash with a wooden copper stick.

He embraced her from behind, startling her at first, but then causing great happiness when she realised who it was. He turned and came back towards me, lifted me up and carried me into the "Front Room" -and there it was, leaning against the wall.

Dad had managed to acquire a 48-hour pass and on his way home had stolen the tree from Thetford Forest, from where he had walked all the way home to Cambridge, carrying it on his shoulder.

What followed was the stuff of family legend: Mum took one look and said, "You daft devil, we've got nothing to put on it!"

This turned out to be not quite true, because my two elder sisters, with a little "help" from me, spent a day cutting out, colouring and pasting (mainly newspaper, as I recall) until the tree stood proud and dressed, ready for Christmas.

It was the most handsome, beautifully decorated Christmas Tree I'd ever seen - or indeed have ever seen.

PPS

The last PS - Joe brown very special memory of

Scotland v. England Christmas 1945

We had a great day! The Officers had the privilege of serving Christmas Lunch provoking the usual lively joyous banter, and then we celebrated 'The Battalion's spirit' and our comradeship with the skirl of the Pipes, and a 'no-holds barred' game of fitba! What else could you want ? . . . .of course, our demob and return to being civilians! For me, that took another year . . . and then the joy of celebrating the end of 1946 and the start of 1947 as five Brothers came together for the first time since 1939 gathering round our Father and Mother and lovingly embraced them and each other! Now I am the last of that special gathering, keeping alive the memory of that wonderful moment. 

Joe Brown. 2013

Links

I’m Paul Cheall

Saying – I’ve got to go now  - I’ve got presents to wrap!

See you next year

Music attributions. With thanks to Freesounds.

20061222.christmas.ambiance.02.flac by dobroide -- https://freesound.org/s/27688/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

12-1_christmas_street_market.wav by 16gpizap -- https://freesound.org/s/499418/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Christmas Bell 3.wav by erickvillegas1986 -- https://freesound.org/s/414317/ -- License: Creative Commons 0

Tisno Old Bell Tower bells steps by Vortichez -- https://freesound.org/s/432464/ -- License: Attribution 4.0