{"id":21739,"date":"2016-11-04T00:34:39","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T07:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=21739"},"modified":"2016-11-03T10:47:39","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T17:47:39","slug":"part-of-operation-overlord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/11\/04\/part-of-operation-overlord\/","title":{"rendered":"Part of Operation Overlord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernard Jackson joined the British Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1941, and landed on a Normandy beach on \u201cD-Day plus one\u201d: June 7, 1944. (photo by Shula Klinger)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Bernard Jackson joined the British Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1941. The Second World War was in its second year and the Luftwaffe was bombing the centre of London. With Erwin Rommel\u2019s army on the march toward Alexandria, Jackson was equipped and trained for desert warfare in North Africa. The RAF\u2019s plans changed, however, and Jackson was sent to Portsmouth to board a ship bound for France, as part of Operation Overlord. He landed on a Normandy beach on \u201cD-Day plus one,\u201d he said: June 7, 1944. Seventy years after the end of the war, in 2015, Jackson was awarded France\u2019s L\u00e9gion d\u2019Honneur.<\/p>\n

Jackson took an active role in the war, right from the first bombings during the Blitz. \u201cYoung as I was,\u201d he said, he was a firewatcher on the rooftops near his workplace in Charing Cross, in central London. Gazing at the sky, a teenage Jackson observed \u201cthe RAF and the Germans fighting overhead. It was very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

With battle raging in the skies, below ground was a different story. \u201cMost people went down into the subway. Everyone was friendly, they found things to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s youthful fascination with the tools of the trade is still apparent. \u201cWe used stirrup pumps to put fires out, with water from a bucket. They were so ingenious. I often wondered what happened to those stirrup pumps.\u201d He offered a useful tip: sand is actually more effective than water at putting out fires.<\/p>\n

Jackson described civilian office workers picking their way through the flames, broken glass and shattered buildings after another nighttime bombing raid. Londoners must have been shocked, going to bed with an intact city and getting up amidst smoking ruins. \u201cPeople get used to anything,\u201d he said, speaking with the wisdom of experience.<\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s vignettes of wartime military life are varied. Prior to D-Day, he was attached to the Navy for combined operations training, on a destroyer. He spoke enthusiastically about this 10-day period off the coast of England. He also served in the RAF Regiment, guarding airfields and anti-aircraft guns, in the event of enemy fire.<\/p>\n

Recalling his June 7 arrival at Arromanches, Jackson described a \u201cchoppy\u201d crossing. He saw \u201cGerman soldiers, British wounded…. As far as the eye could see, there were tanks, landing craft, ships and battleships, and they\u2019re firing over our heads. An incredible scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obstacles had been cleared from the beach by that point \u2013 the enemy had littered the beach with mines and \u201chedgehogs\u201d (large constructions of iron and concrete) to slow down Allied progress, but the psychological impact of the battle was all too obvious in the men. They were \u201call grey and bent over, all weary \u2013 they were knocked out,\u201d said Jackson. He describes reaching a pillbox (bunker) above the beach, \u201csurrounded by dead German soldiers.\u201d By the end of the landings, 156,000 men had been brought across the Channel.\u00a0After one day of fighting, there were 10,000 casualties and 2,500 dead.<\/p>\n

Raised in an observant Jewish home, Jackson became a bar mitzvah at a synagogue on Menetti Street, near Charing Cross. He was glad to find two other Jewish boys in his unit of more than 100 men. His stories, which are peppered with local details, often refer to their \u201cmischief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bernard
Bernard Jackson (photo from Bernard Jackson)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jackson recalled with a laugh, \u201cnever mind [Bernard] Montgomery [who forbade fraternization with locals], we\u2019re living eight to a tent! I said to two or three of the boys, \u2018France is known for its cheese, let\u2019s see if we can get a decent meal.\u2019\u201d Off they went to the village of Arromanches, where they found a caf\u00e9 managed by \u201cMadame, on a high chair like a throne.\u201d Having explained in \u201cdoggerel French\u201d that they were hungry, the boys were served an omelette with crunchy bread, a delicious treat that was paid for with scrip, the money printed for servicemen to use overseas.<\/p>\n

Having managed to wangle the use of a truck once a week, the lads went on excursions together, said Jackson. \u201cBeing the boys that we were, we wanted to go and look at a ch\u00e2teau, and we found one! So, we were walking up the path to the ch\u00e2teau and saw a big horse in a field. It was the summer, and it was an apple orchard. There\u2019d been fighting through the orchard, so the apples were on the ground; it was awful, there was a plague of flies. We saw the horse go into the forest. It trod on a land mine. Blew itself up. We turned around and went back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson also described the accommodations made by troops, who slept in muddy ditches, with no bathing facilities. They used dissected gasoline cans as washbasins; the water was contaminated with arsenic, which gave the men impetigo. Even with proper medical care, this condition is extremely painful \u2013 and these boys had no antibiotics.<\/p>\n

In spite of the immense hunger and hardship, Jackson spoke of the warm hospitality of locals in the months after the war. While his unit was stationed in Louvain, just outside Brussels, they were \u201cparked in a field for a good while.\u201d He recalled an impromptu but hectic social scene, which led to numerous interesting conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cUs three Jewish boys managed to pal up with a husband and wife who owned an apartment block. They rented out rooms. This Belgian couple had hidden in their rooftop attic a Jewish couple, husband and wife, for two years. Quite a few air force fellas used to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The end of the story is bittersweet. \u201cThere was also a Jewish doctor and his wife, they had a beautiful girl, 18 or 20, who\u2019d been in a concentration camp,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the boys proposed to this girl and they were going to marry, but she died very suddenly. She had picked up something in the camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson spoke animatedly of the war machinery that made the landing possible. In particular, he recounted how temporary \u201cMulberry Harbors\u201d allowed Allied troops and vehicles to land in occupied France when all of the ports were held by enemy forces. When he drove back to the scene in his brand new Austin 10, one year later, he was dismayed to find the pride of British engineering \u201cin bits, laying all over the beach. It\u2019s buried in the sand, all rusty. It\u2019s a disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trip was worth it nonetheless, he qualified. He and his pals attended a French celebration to mark the end of the war, which he described as \u201cmarvelous, marvelous.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear from Jackson\u2019s stories that \u2013 in his words \u2013 he \u201cleft home a boy and came back a man.\u201d In any conversation with a storyteller of his calibre, there are many golden moments. It\u2019s as if the air almost crackles with the immediacy of his memories, the descriptions of the grey-faced survivors of the D-Day landing, or his helpful instructions on how to boil water in a discarded German helmet. Quite apart from his resilient spirit and natural leadership, his candor is impressive. Speaking about such events \u2013 even 70 years later \u2013 can be difficult for many war veterans, not to mention that he actually went back only a year later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a traumatic experience in many cases,\u201d he said of why many people do not like to talk about their experiences in the war, or go back to where it took place. \u201cI never talked about it to my children because, you see, my generation came out of the war saying there\u2019ll never be another war after this one.\u201d In other words, the information may have seemed redundant. But, Jackson added, \u201cLook where we are today. It\u2019s something in the human psyche. It\u2019s greed. It\u2019s power politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to Jackson is a tremendous privilege; his vignettes of wartime \u2013 and postwar \u2013 Europe reveal a society in turmoil, where looting was common. He offered accounts of Russian dancing and vodka, gunfire and generosity, stolen yachts and black market cigarettes, hardship and hospitality.<\/p>\n

Jackson is an astute observer of humankind and its many failings. But, as well as the stark and troubling stories, he has tales of compassion, generosity and the universal nature of the human experience. \u201cPeople forget,\u201d he said, \u201chow the French suffered, on top of being occupied. They were short of food, coffee was unheard of, they hadn\u2019t seen it in a long time \u2013 they used grass with acorns to give it body. They had no clothes; they stripped the dead for their clothes, even German soldiers, they just stripped off the epaulettes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Russian prisoners of war who insisted on sharing their meagre, greasy meals with Jackson and his comrades, he said, \u201cThey put dances on for us, someone played the accordion and they did these Russian dances.\u201d<\/p>\n

From peasants who could neither read nor write to highly educated ballet dancers or leading aircraft men like himself, Jackson said he realized, \u201cthey\u2019re just like you, just like everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shula Klinger<\/strong> is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North <\/em>Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernard Jackson joined the British Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1941, and landed on a Normandy beach on \u201cD-Day plus one\u201d: June 7, 1944. (photo by Shula Klinger) Bernard Jackson joined the British Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1941. The Second World War was in its second year and the Luftwaffe was bombing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6512,6513,3189],"class_list":["post-21739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-british-army","tag-d-day","tag-second-world-war"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}