We watched the last Winterwatch last night, excellent and very touching - including a bit of forgotten history - the story of what happened at Slapton Sands.
‘Operation Tiger’, or ‘Exercise Tiger’, was part of a series of landing exercises carried out on the beaches of south Devon prior to the D-Day landings in June 1944. However, ‘Operation Tiger’ is most famous for the disaster that occurred at Slapton Sands that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of men – some at sea and some on the beaches of Slapton Sands. Ten times more Americans died in Lyme Bay and on Slapton Sands than at Utah Beach on June 6
th.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/d-day-index/operation-tiger/
So many deaths, How easily we have been persuaded to fear, fight and kill each other. And how grateful I am to have found the Christian congregation- a worldwide loving brotherhood. And I hope that all those young men, on both sides, will awake from the sleep of death when the time comes and find themselves on an earth that is truly at peace.
So I will finish with one of my favourite Thomas Hardy poems:
THE MAN HE KILLED
by
Thomas Hardy
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
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