"Overlord.My humble observation" Topic

Vergissmeinnicht
Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.
Keith Douglas (January 24, 1920 – June 9, 1944)

"Captain Douglas returned from North Africa to England in December 1943 and took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. He was killed by enemy mortar fire on 9 June, while his regiment was advancing from Bayeux. Captain Leslie Skinner (regimental chaplain) buried him by a hedge, close to where he had died on "forward slopes point 102". Shortly after the war his remains were reburied at Tilly-sur-Seulles War Cemetery (14 km south of Bayeux) in plot 1, row E, grave number 2."

The long and the short and the tall.

Rest in peace Captain Douglas. With humble gratitude for your sacrifice. Lest we forget.

Yes Nick well said.In my own way I grieve his death 70 years on.

Putting pictures with the names is good. It makes the contemplation more sensory. Their sacrifice is humbling when we feel the sorrow in the magnitude of what they did.

Well done Hawkwood. Douglas was a far better poet than Owen, but just doesn't seem to get the recognition. And I'm glad you've got the grave plot reference correct -it's more than Douglas' biographer did.

My favourite poem by Douglas is The Aristocrats, inspired by his service in a cavalry regiment – Sherwood Foresters – in the Western Desert as a tank commander

The noble horse with courage in his eye,
clean in the bone, looks up at a shellburst:
away fly the images of the shires
but he puts the pipe back in his mouth.
Peter was unfortunately killed by an 88;
it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance.
I saw him crawling on the sand, he said
It's most unfair, they've shot my foot off.

How can I live among this gentle
obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep?
Unicorns, almost,
for they are fading into two legends
in which their stupidity and chivalry
are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an immortal.
These plains were their cricket pitch
and in the mountains the tremendous drop fences
brought down some of the runners. Here then
under the stones and earth they dispose themselves,
I think with their famous unconcern.
It is not gunfire I hear, but a hunting horn.

I got the bit about his grave site from the much maligned Wikipedia.

He was a good poet indeed, Ted Hughes thought so.

The Sherwood Foresters were the first unit into Bayeux and the guidon they took into battle then was present, with a colour guard from their descendants, at the British & Commonwealth remembrance ceremony at Bayeux Cemetery today.

I got the bit about his grave site from the much maligned Wikipedia.

I've found that Wikipedia is a very good source of accurate information, except for political, religious, and other divisive and controversial issues. If nothing else, Wiki references can point you to the original sources, so you can follow up on your own.

And I'll add my appreciation to the others for Poet Douglas.

One of the many who gave their today so we have had tomorrow.RIP

Douglas' monograph 'Alamein to Zem Zem' is the best account of tank fighting I've read. "I like you, sir", says his driver early on in the proceedings, "you're or bust".

""

s--t

Lest we forget!

Well I certainly haven't forgotten .
I first heard of Keith Douglas many many years ago when this particular poem was read by Laurence Olivier in the very last episode of the World aT War.
link

at 17.50 minutes