A soldier’s reflection on D-Day
In England in 1944, I was 10 years old. The town in which I was born was close to a major U.S. Army and Air Force base.
My late husband Eric wrote the following piece. He was very interested in both the World Wars. His father had been a soldier who served in and survived World War I’s trench warfare in France. We both grew up during World War II in England.
In England in 1944, I was 10 years old. The town in which I was born was close to a major U.S. Army and Air Force base. Our town was first infiltrated, then invaded, and then overwhelmed by American military men. We called them “Yanks.” We also had French, Polish, British, and British Commonwealth soldiers and even German and Italian prisoners of war, but it was the Yanks who filled our movie houses, dated our young women, stood in lines at the fish and chip shops, and monopolized the pubs and dance halls.
I remember one evening that spring when the entire main street and far beyond was filled with military trucks carrying American soldiers. I went from truck to truck just to watch, and if I was lucky they gave me some American candy.
And then the Yanks were gone. My memory makes their departure instantaneous, although I know it must have taken place over some time. We shortly were to know where they went: the Normandy invasion beaches of Utah and Omaha. I wondered how many made it through. I hoped they all did, but I suspect that some are lying, forever young, in the American military cemetery at St. Laurent above Omaha Beach, and elsewhere throughout Europe.
As the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, comes round, I think of those young men and women who have gone before in order that I can enjoy, in peace and freedom, the anticipation of another New England summer.
Eileen Jackson
Spring Road
