Читать книгу Remembering D-day: Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes - Martin Bowman - Страница 15

an English schoolgirl.

‘We lived in a rented house in Derby Road, Southampton, a very neighbourly area. I was one of five sisters who had moved back to Southampton from Bournemouth with our mother after being evacuated in 1939. US convoys were parked all along the streets, waiting for the “off”. One was composed of black men – they didn’t mix races. My 14-year-old sister and I were besotted with one of them. He was charming. But after a couple of days they moved on. They were replaced by a convoy of white soldiers who included Julius Kupke, a German who had become a naturalized American and hated what the Germans were doing. He was short and squat – no oil painting, but my, could he sing. Whenever I hear “Rose Marie” my mind goes back to D-Day.

‘My mother took pity on the men who were desperately tired and had been forced to sleep in their lorries. She invited several into our home where they crashed out on beds and chairs. My mother didn’t have much to offer because of rationing but she made gallons of tea and cut up piles of bread for cucumber sandwiches, which they thought so English. In return, they gave us their rations. They made our eyes pop out – tins of meat, fruit, sweets and chocolate.

‘When the convoy moved off we said fare-well with promises to write. My mother was upset, knowing where they were heading. Julius returned early the following morning to say thank you again with another parcel of goodies. They had been held up at the docks, waiting for a boat. My mother kept her promise and wrote to him and his fiancée in America for quite a while but we lost touch when we moved around after my father was de-mobbed.’