Irish Famine (eBook)

A Little Interesting & Entertaining Introduction

Well, where does one begin to explain this book that you are about to read? Well, let us start at the foundation to this project; my love of history and where that all began...

Soon after leaving school in 1978, I found myself working for Shell Oil company in a petrochemical refinery; situated over the canal, 4miles from where I lived. At night, the flare from the refinery would light up all around and cast a shadow upon the back-bedroom wall.

As a young boy, I had watched a Thames television series called “World at War”. It was narrated by Laurence Olivier a fine British actor and a man with exquisite voice-over capabilities. His tone, his articulation, his emphasis, his pauses, all went to make this not only a work of documentary history, but also a work of art in television communication; the music, the voice-over, all went to accompany a fine narrative and visual performance of storytelling. So, the germ was sown into this young boy’s mind, a latent affection for historical knowledge told well.

It all lay hidden in the mind and only needed the yeast of stimulation to make it grow. That yeast came to me in the form of a man called Bruce. Bruce was an ex-British Tommy (slang for British Soldier) from WWII.

After watching the World at War TV series, I would often ask any British Tommy’s who came into my realm, about WWII. “What was it like? The proverbial answer was “It isn’t like the bloody movies,” always the same refrain; “It ain’t like the bloody movies. It was hard to get them to open up and usually they would sooner forget.

My father told of me of a chap who was at Pegasus Bridge, one of the first to land in occupied France many hours before the lauded actual invasion itself. I was fortunate enough to bump into this man whilst out walking my dog. He was on a bridge overlooking the M62, a main arterial motorway connecting Manchester and Liverpool which ran behind my house, half a mile away; cutting a deep trench through the moss or large market garden area of rich arable black soil used for growing vegetables. He was peering aimlessly at the traffic which passed rapidly below.

“Hello; my dad Paddy says you were at Pegasus Bridge ... one of the first into occupied France?” Without turning to face or look at me, or even acknowledge my presence or willingness to communicate, he just uttered “yeah”. “You must be very proud to be one of the first in?” …… no response. Which was what I was getting used to hearing! Should I carry on with another question or query or just leave it? The man certainly was not forthcoming. I decided to beat a retreat and walk on. “Well, I’ll see you then”. He never looked up or took his gaze off the traffic below. So, I left him deep in his thoughts.

Questions to Tommy’s about their experiences during WWII were laughed off, shut down or, “it ain’t like the bloody pictures you know”. Bruce was an ex-Tommy and when I asked him about his experiences, he too would reply “it ain’t like the bloody pictures you know.”! Bruce worked on the polystyrene plant, making that crumbly white stuff which comes in packaging; we drank, chatted, and worked together. Now in this plant was another man, whom I shall call “Ernie” unlike all the other ex-British Tommy’s’ “Ernie” was full of it.” He whistled military tunes, marched into work at so many paces per second and was only too willing to chat about the famous British Parachute Regiment. This was unusual in my experience of British Tommy’s.

Having a cup of tea with Bruce in the plant’s little tearoom, one day I just happened to mention this observation to Bruce; well Bruce exploded like a Saturn five rocket on the launch pad of Cape Canaveral. He rose into the air, both feet off the ground and exploded like a premature firework, one or two feet from the tearoom floor. “What the bloody hell does he know? He only spent the whole of the war at Ringway Airport, he has never been fighting… the blood, the guts, the shit! If he had to crawl on his belly over dead people just to have a shit or pee or crawl half a mile to get a hot cup of tea, he would not be so happy to sing his tunes! He’s never had to put his crawling hands into someone’s blown up faces, crawl amongst the dead and dying, crawled amongst the blown-up detritus of blown-up human bodies, your mates! He wouldn’t be so full of himself.”

“I hit the beaches on D-Day and crawled on my belly all the way to Berlin, because if you dared to lift your head up, you had it blown off.” Bruce was livid with rage, incandescent a mouthful of fury torment and awfully bad repressed memories.

I was assured in my assumptions that Ernie was different, he had not experienced the true horrors of war, the blown-up humans, your pals, acquaintances, fellow tea drinkers. When Bruce finally touched back down onto the tearoom floor, he opened up about his experiences for the first time, in my presence. Following that explosive episode, we got on great. I would ask questions and Bruce was only too willing to extrapolate and relate upon any issue. Bruce had experienced extreme post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I was so surprised; I thought PTSD was something new, something only the boys returning from Vietnam experienced! Bruce explained that after the war he was finding it extremely hard to adjust back to normality. He missed the buzz, the intense excitement, the very real adrenalin rush, but not the horror. He could not find a job, any job, that he could hold down, he was a stunt man for a while leaping off buildings into boxes of cardboard placed below.

I was so surprised about all this daring do. Eventually he got a job which gave him succour, respite, and excitement and in his own words saved his life – he joined the British Fire Brigade. With its moments of excitement, strict drill, comradeship, Bruce was saved, and he eventually married, had children, and returned in one piece, back into normality.

Whilst we were having a cup of tea in the tearoom one day, Bruce mentioned to me about “Diem Bien Phu”; he knew I was inquisitive about WWII and he thought I must have heard about it. I was perplexed “what’s Diem Bien Phu?” Bruce explained that at the end of WWII the French wanted to reoccupy French Indo China. The Vietnamese had other ideas, they had been occupied by the Japanese and had had enough of foreign occupiers. France, according to Bruce wanted to reoccupy French Indo China to get back some military pride, acumen, and glorification and possibly, as I would learn later, some valuable resources and exploitation to earn hard currency to payback America for its Marshal aid after WWII. Diem Bien Phu, Bruce explained was a French debacle!

As WWII came to its climatic end in Europe, a lot of battle-hardened troops who had fought on the Nazi side, were at a loose end. They all collectively thought, what would happen to the Belgian, French, Dutch and Norwegians who had fought on the Nazi side, would they be welcomed home? Would they have a home to go back to? These battle-hardened soldiers along with German Waffen SS and German Wehrmacht soldiers were given in many cases, a reprieve or second chance at life and liberty, you could face the consequences of your actions or you could join the French Foreign Legion or the French army and be sent to S.E. Asia as part of the French Union’s Far East Expeditionary Corps.

Now Bruce like every other Tommy of both World Wars had nothing but admiration for their deadly foe the fighting German soldier, they all feared the German soldier with tremendous dread, respect, and battlefield awe. If you did not respect the German enemy, you were either dead or about to become dead.

Only the foolish and the dead did not respect the mighty German Wehrmacht! This was another idiom often quoted by ex-Tommie’s.

Bruce explained that the army the French sent to Vietnam was full of some of the best battle hardened combative, martial orientated professional soldiers the world had ever seen. These soldiers knew ultimately every dirty little trick in the book, how to ambush, how to sabotage, take prisoners, deep patrol and booby trap and mine every innocent looking piece of furniture, vehicle, cupboard, food, or piece of military equipment. In a word this was the finest toughest army Europe had every fielded. Six years of combat on the Eastern front, France, Germany, and Italy had seen to that; and they were crushed toot sweet (sic) by the Vietnamese army. (Americans should have taken notice!) They were surrounded by the Vietnamese just as the Americans would be at Khe Sanh later on. They were surrounded and reduced to an ever-smaller encampment day after day, week after week, from an operational area of 7 miles by 3 miles along the valley floor of Diem Bien Phu, the mightiest European Army was slowly reduced to an area of 3000 yards by 3000 yards. This small area was defended with absolute resolution and determination. French pockets were repeatedly taken, overrun, and retaken by the “French.” This went on week after week of dogged determination Stalingrad style. Finally, the “French” were beaten into the ground with a massed attack of 25,000 Viet Minh.

North Vietnam had won its very hard-fought freedom and beaten into the ground; the finest army Europe had ever sent into the field in 2000 years of...