Eye - 11 March 2011

From paratroopers to simple gifts

by Eye 11th March 2011

Any blankets?

Conscientious objectors can end up in the most extraordinary situations in wartime, our Friend Mary Penny reminds Eye.

While doing a ‘spring clean’ of papers, which included some from the end of the second world war, Mary found a fascinating article, with hand-written words at the bottom: September 1944. It tells the story of a bizarre incident in France on D-Day:

‘The AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) report that German and British officers and the Press have expressed wonder at the dropping of unarmed medical assistants, who were conscientious objectors to war, with the first wave of paratroopers on D-Day. A captured German officer made this report: ‘When the thunder of British ‘planes filled the air and down on French soil tumbled hundreds of British paratroopers, I scattered my men where the paratroopers had landed and warned them they must be swift and ruthless. I then set off to kill my own personal Englishman. What happened when I found the first Englishman is the reason I say your people are mad. I lifted my revolver and fired at him twice. The two shots missed and the British paratrooper dodged behind a tree. But, instead of firing back, he cried out in German: “Tell me, Herr Officer, have you fellows any blankets I can borrow?” “Who are you? What’s all this nonsense?” I asked. “I am a conscientious objector,” he said calmly. “Then what are you doing here?” “Oh, our blankets dropped into a marsh and we’ve got wounded, including a couple of Germans, in a cottage up the road, and I’m looking around for something to keep them warm. Can you help me?” The British truly are mad – stark, staring, mad. But it is a glorious kind of madness just the same.’”