A Daughter's Choice by Margaret Ford

Author:Margaret Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

15

Let Me Go!

June–December 1944

One day they were at Tony’s and the next day they were gone. What had happened? Where did they go? For months now, the GIs had lit up the dance hall, and one evening, without any warning, the place was almost empty. The Americans had been the life and soul of the dance floor, for me anyway. They livened up every party. But now, my friends and I found ourselves competing for the few men in uniform who were left. A few days later, some of those had also disappeared.

The previous weekend, I had overheard Uncle George telling Grandad that there was something going on, some sort of ‘campaign to turn around the war’. But then they started whispering and I didn’t hear the rest.

The build-up and preparation for something big was unmistakable, but I had no idea what. Even Les, when he had said goodbye that night a week or so ago, had only hinted at some big project coming up, but said nothing more.

One evening at the beginning of June 1944, I was walking home with one of the few boys remaining, when the low sound of several planes grew louder and louder.

‘There’s no air-raid warning,’ he said. ‘So they must be our planes.’

‘They’re getting much louder now, like a grinding, unstoppable flood,’ I panicked. ‘It sounds like they’re heading straight for us.’

‘Not for us,’ he said. ‘Beyond us.’

We looked up as the sky grew black with planes.

‘There must be hundreds of them,’ I gasped in wonderment. ‘Where have they come from? Where are they going?’

‘Perhaps there are planes flying across other parts of Britain too, going south like these.’ He sounded as awestruck as I was.

As we stood there, watching them passing endlessly overhead, my thoughts turned to Les. Maybe he too would be flying his plane southwards. I said a fervent prayer for him and for all of them. It was a night to remember.

It was only days later that I discovered why: 6 June was D-Day – the beginning of our huge campaign to take back Normandy on the way to repelling the Germans from France. It wasn’t just RAF and US bombers going south; there were Canadians, Australians and other Allies too. The navy sent troop ships, landing craft, floating bridges and all kinds of seagoing vessels, packed full of men, mostly army, ready with their packs and rifles to land on the beaches of northern France and run for their lives, dodging artillery fire as they headed inland if they could.

I learned all this with interest from the newspaper hoardings and the radio news bulletins that Mother listened to avidly every night, while she knitted jumpers for the boys. As I sat with her on these evenings, I heard the newsreaders heaping praise on the huge and efficient organization of the Normandy landings, the largest seaborne invasion in history. They told how it involved all three armed services, with backup from US Coast Guards to rescue soldiers wounded or stranded on the beaches or in the water.

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