JUST across the road from where I lived for the primary seven years of my life in a flat above the engineering works established by my grandfather, there may be a splendid and weird war memorial. The memorial was created similtaneously Grandpa was organising his business, within the early Twenties; but little could he or his wife have imagined that, just 25 years later, more stone tablets could be added to the memorial, and the family name could be inscribed not only above the engineering works (by now, a motor engineering works), but in addition on the memorial.
Their second son, Arthur “John” Dalton Cherry, was killed in August 1944, when the Avro Lancaster bomber on which he was a flight engineer was lost in motion. He was 19 years old on the time.
My grandparents continued to live in that very same small town until they died within the Seventies. Dominating their sitting room was a photograph of John in his uniform, with one other of him together with his colleagues in front of their Lancaster; and his medals were in a small display case. One day, my grandmother told me that she was still waiting for the day when there could be a knock on the door, and John could be home eventually. They say you shouldn’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs; so I didn’t say, “Come on, Grandma. You know that’s not going to occur.” I kept silent; but I did begin to wonder why she thought that way. Now, 50 years later, I believe I understand.
MY GRANDPARENTS married in March 1917. Grandpa was a merchant seaman who did a temporary conversion course to equip him to maneuver from Merchant to Royal Navy. He was deployed on HMS Stonecrop, a decoy, or Q-ship. It was a heavy, slow, coal transporter, flying a Merchant Navy standard, but armed with concealed guns and torpedoes. Like all Q-ships, its task was to draw the eye of U-boats, lure them into considering that the ship was harmless, in order that they might hold close, after which sink it with deck guns, avoiding the expensive use of a torpedo.
Q-ships sailed aimlessly across the shipping lanes, in search of to draw the eye of the enemy. When a U-boat got here near, half the ship’s crew abandoned ship, while those that remained manned the guns and the engine rooms, and, when the captain judged that the U-boat was at its most vulnerable, opened fire.
ON 16 September 1917, Stonecrop sank a U-boat. The next day, it was itself torpedoed. Several men were killed immediately, and the ship slowly sank. Some of the survivors crammed right into a couple of lifeboats, however the 26 others — including my grandfather — had nothing greater than an unseaworthy raft, with three gallons of water and one tin of biscuits between them. Over the primary day, they did what they may to enhance the raft, using bits of wreckage that were floating around. On the second, the high seas turfed all of them out. They lost the whole lot except considered one of their water bottles.
By this time, the lifeboats had got to safety, and a seek for the raft had begun, nevertheless it was abandoned due to the high seas. The missing seamen got up as lost, and their relatives were informed. I can imagine my grandmother’s despair, receiving this news just six months after their marriage.
The raft drifted helplessly before the lads were eventually rescued, six days after the sinking. More than half the lads on the raft had died, some crazed by drinking sea-water and throwing themselves into the ocean. The survivors were so dehydrated, weak, and traumatised that not only could they not walk or take care of themselves, but they were all unable to talk.
I don’t know anything about when my grandparents were reunited, or how long it took my grandfather to get better physically and mentally from the experience. I’m, nevertheless, confident that he was never the identical person again.
MY GRANDPARENTS’ second son was killed within the Second World War, but that they had an older son who was also within the RAF and was also shot down. He survived, though the injuries to his foot weren’t treated while he remained a prisoner of war. When he returned home after the war, he still had a bullet in his foot and was profoundly malnourished.
The suffering of the shipwrecked father, the death of the second son, and the injury and imprisonment and subsequent lifelong disability of the eldest son — what must this have been like for Grandma? All those days, nights, weeks, and months of uncertainty. All the rumours and stories of what the war experience was like. All the troubles about her latest husband, or her sons. The almost complete lack of agency or power with regard to any aspect of what was happening.
The query what to do with all this, day in and time out, will need to have borne on her very heavily. She had a daughter who, after the war years, remained single, because the lads whom she might need desired to marry never got here back. After the war, she was a terrific carer of Grandma, but throughout the war she was herself in a spot of danger and trauma as a nurse on hospital ships within the Mediterranean. That, too, is service and sacrifice.
GRANDPA was at home throughout the Second World War, running the local fire service in addition to his motor engineering works. And, within the background of all this, the youngest son — my father — was absorbing the toxins, terrors, and traumas of war at second hand, while being subjected to that “It’s all best for you” gaze.
It is true that we wear poppies for remembrance; and it is true that the names of those that made the last word sacrifice are recorded and skim out; and it is true to recollect all of the civilians who lost their lives. But, as we do this, we must always perhaps allow ourselves to read between the lines of our war memorials — to see through the names, and to keep in mind that the suffering and sacrifice of war shouldn’t be limited to those lists.
The price of war is paid not only by Henry V’s band of brothers — that “joyful few” — but in addition by their moms, sisters, and fiancées, and by all those whose young lives have been wounded, scarred, and pulled off form by war.
The Revd Dr Stephen Cherry is Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.
