Transcript for the Piece Audio version of RN Documentary: Soldiering On

Documentary: SOLDIERING ON
Produced by: Chris Chambers
Length: 29’30”

Music: Eric Satie/Gnossienne III (threading through the introductory clips)
Details: (C208310) CDC 7474742 EMI
Composer: Eric Satie
Performer: Aldo Ciccolini
Title: Gnossienne III
Track 6

Clip: Robert Taylor
Fear is there all the time. The fear on the man’s face and the fear in the eyes. The colour of the skin even changes. Let me get through and if you do then allelujah.

Clip: John Jones
Funny thing war. It’s a horrible thing. It’s violent, no pity. Self survival. It’s a horrible thing.

Clip: Robert Taylor
I think myself anyone who says he was never frightened is failing to face up to the fact.

Link: Radio Netherlands presents ‘Soldiering On’. A look at a soldier’s experience in battle.

Clip: John Jones
Still vivid in my mind. Your body. Tiredness. I didn’t sleep for five days and after that you couldn’t cared less whether you were killed or not. But when we have our re-union now we always say that we’d do it all again but would we. A big question mark.

Link: Taking part are John Jones and Robert Taylor, both veterans of the Second World War. Together with the writer and historian Stephen Brumwell.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
Throughout the history of warfare technology changes rapidly. In the space of twenty years you can have a revolution in technology but the human emotions remain the same. Accounts of earliest surviving accounts can identify the same underlying emotions as those who fought in Vietnam. Fear and euphoria…they don’t change.

Music ends followed by an explosion.

Clip: Robert Taylor
My name is Robert Taylor. I was in the royal Signallers in WWII. And I took part in landings of Normandy in 1944. Coming over on the landing craft. On the Channel there were thoughts of will I get killed or wounded. Sweat. Nerves at high edge. Coast of Normandy swathed in smoke and fire. Ramp down and you splatter across as fast as you can.

Clip: John Jones
My name is John Richard Jones and I belong to the parachute battalion. I fought at the battle of Arnhem in WWII. On 18th September we went. I jumped out and could see the Germans taking aim and shooting. I went out. Shut my eyes. Without hesitating. But when landed there were five bullet holes in my kitbag. We lost 102 men on coming down out of 680. Heavy loss. All the machine gunners killed and next thing we formed up and made way to Wolfhesen. That was the First emotion I had when I saw these houses on fire. Looked awful but had to carry on.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
What motivates soldiers? That’s a question that has exercised many minds. But studies pick up on certain key points. Patriotism can be a factor but often short lived as soldiers become confronted with the reality of the battlefield.

Clip: John Jones
You don’t think of King and Country. It’s your own survival. As see men killed take no notice. I’m still here. You look after yourself. You want to stay alive. I’m still alive. The others getting killed well hard lines.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
What all studies of soldiering have identified as the key factor is esprit de corps. The reluctance o let down your comrades. It’s often argued that men fight because of fear. That afraid of consequences of not fighting is worse. Misinterpreted that it’s the fear of punishment but perhaps the overriding fear is not being seen as performing well as a soldier. To have let down your comrades.

Clip: Robert Taylor
I can’t show myself as frightened. You just go forward and do as you’re told. But can lose your head in the turmoil. But the fear is always there. Can’t deny it. The fear of death. The sweat on the body and forehead and the noise. The brain switches off and keep going forward. You stop to think logically. Let me go forward all the time.

Music: Satie

Clip: John Jones
At first you didn’t feel very much. You had a job to do. But later on, when we met stiff opposition then you start wondering am I going to make it. Got nothing else on your mind. Your mates with you. Who’s going to get it next. In the section I was in 5 got killed 3 wounded and 1 got away.

Music ends

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
Soldiers usually go into battle with the expectation that a certain train of events will
unfold. Perhaps they’ve been told to storm or defend a position and they’ll get support to do that job but as often happens in warfare, plans often unravel. When they do, soldiers are often left to think for themselves to muddle through. When you’re no longer part of a formed unit taking orders then the basic gut survival instinct takes over. For example the fighting at Arnhem in 1944 when British and allied troops were parachuted in to take a bridge r against the Germans. The fighting rapidly strayed very far from the anticipated plan. Units were left to fight alone. Arnhem is often seen as a classic example of the small unit where individual groups were left to fight there own individual battles within what was a far more sprawling conflict.

Clip: John Jones
When we had a briefing before the drop the plan was to get within the bridge within 24 hours. After the first day we knew we’d never do it. The Germans split us all up. And with the radio not working we lost contact with each other. Each group was fighting on their own. Was a queer feeling. Don’t know where you are. Where the enemy is, what’s your position. I must admit that I prayed. I’m not a religious man but I prayed once or twice. Because when you hear the shells and mortars and especially the rockets, the noise is deafening. You lose a sense of your mind and I prayed. I know quite a few who did.. It’s in yourself but at the same time you’re with the battalion and you try to sick together.

Clip: Robert Taylor
There’s so much going on all the time. There’s the noise of the weapons, of mortars and artilleries and you haven’t the time to think sensibly. The brain switches off and you make these movements automatically. On the beaches there was a lot of confusion there’s no doubt. There’s chaos in air raids, in battle before and afterwards.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
What must realise is that warfare is a chaotic business. And even in those periods where assume that it was well organised and well controlled. Important to remember it was never the case. For a major set piece battle like Waterloo in 1815, from the beginning the battle field is swathed in pungent smoke and the field of vision is limited to a hundred yards to range of own musket. Eyewitness accounts don’t adopt the Olympian vision which is often easy to get when you read accounts of military history with maps and neat oblongs and squares. It wasn’t like that at all. One thing which you have ot bear in mind is the sheer scale of the noise. The firing of artillery, the rattling of musketry. The shouts and screams of wounded and dying. The barked commands of officers to keep formation. The noise would have been continuous and itself a form of assault on the participants in the battle.

Clip: John Jones
Now one of my best friends Jock Duncan, there were five of us in a circle when he said that was a bit sharp in my chest and there was blood seeping through his smock. He had a tiny hole in his beast bone but in the back he had a hole that you could put your fist through. He lived for about one minute. That was my best friend and then after that you start to worry and the emotion kicks in . I’ve seen many men getting killed. Friends but not close friends. It hit me a bit when he got killed. But we had to carry on. We got to a place called Oosterbeck in Holland, the Hollow. There were about thirty five of us in the woods and everything coming over bar the kitchen sink. Rockets, machine guns, mortars, shells and we were getting heavy casualties. It was the first time I’ve seen a man’s stomach ripped open without his stomach coming out. It was a thin skin holding his stomach in. Two of us bandaged him but he died ten minutes later. Next to me there was Major Page. I lay beside him and he pulled his flask out to have a drink the next thing all his brains over my face and the top of his head just disappeared . As his body fell forward I grabbed the flask. I kept my head down and I drank it. It was brandy. It was the first time I’d seen brains, they’re like tiny little sausages.

Clip: Robert Taylor
I was severely wounded on the 11th June 1944. The Brent carrier I was in was obliterated. One passenger was killed and another stood on my head to get out Behind me were three all lying dead. Killed by mortar and rifle fire. Then another explosion and
I was wounded in the head and legs. It’s a hot searing It’s a hot searing feeling but afterwards when the pain does set in the first thing you think about is your mother. That’s what I found. I was lying on the ground and having time to think. Am I bleeding to death? Who’s going to get me out of here? Are you going to die? What’s on the other side? How quick? How painless? So many things go through your head. You think about your past life. It comes back as though a picture in front of your eyes. and then you have a deathly fear of everything until someone speaks to you and you settle down then. I calmed right down but there was no fear or anything. No fear of dying or pain and the stitches put in I didn’t feel the prick of the needle until afterwards about half an hour later there was a dull thump and that was all.

Clip: John Jones
When you watch a man getting shot, there’s no sound. He just drops. When I got shot the first time through the arm I felt a sharp pain in my forearm and the bullet had gone straight through. You don’t feel much at first then about ten minutes later you begin to feel. What am I going to do? Can I carry on? Am I going to let the lads down? That was at half past two. At half six when a shell busted about thirty yards away and the shrapnel hit my hand. My thumb was hanging off and it was painful. I couldn’t do much after that but I was still there as a member. Then at half eleven at night we were trapped in these houses and moved from house to house and eventually, something came and I was hit in my side. That was the end of my war. I wouldn’t fight anymore.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
In battle soldiers see good friends and relatives killed, yet they carry on. It’s not because they don’t care but in the heat of battle it’s not the time to stop and mourn. It will come afterwards when the post battle trauma sets in. When the adrenalin that keeps men going in battle and the sheer assault upon the senses that forces soldiers to concentrate upon getting the job done and ensuring their own survival. Once those factors are stripped away in the quiet after the storm that’s the time to grieve for those who’ve been killed. A famous example is the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. He was in acute danger on many occasions yet on the evening of the battle it had become clear to him how many had been killed including those on his staff, it’s clear that some kind of deep trauma set in with Wellington and he was reduced to a state of grieving and any elation that he might have felt at clinching what has become one of the great battles in history has been outweighed by the human grief of those he loved.

Clip: John Jones
There’s only one thing that dwelt, and I’m going to talk of killing again which I don’t like…three of our men got killed by a sniper. Three of us were ordered to try and find him. He was in one of the houses. We got within thirty yards of the house and then a shot came out and we knew where he was. With my gun I put a shell through the window. He was dead but in the corner was a young lass maybe twenty with a baby about six months old. Whether she died the same time as the German but it dwelt on my mind for a long time.

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
Throughout history it’s apparent from the letters and accounts taken from survivors of battle that during battle itself basic instincts of self preservation, just preoccupation with doing your job, loading your weapon, obeying your orders and trying to keep alive blank out a lot of the emotions that would otherwise occupy your mind. But once that immediate danger is over. Once the soldier can stand and take stock. That is when the cold reality is apparent. That is when the trauma really starts to have an effect. That is when the depression which is noted by so many participants from the earliest times of recorded history. That is when the reality of war and what it means really sinks in.

Clip: John Jones
Funny thing was that when I came home I never thought about the war. It was completely out of my mind. I know someone who keeps going back to it. I don’t like to. Look forward that’s what I like to do. The only thing that’s vivid in my mind is the shooting of that young girl. When you shoot you don’t know who you’re hitting but when you do any individual killing, that plays on your mind more than if it was done by someone else. You know for a fact that you did it.

Music: Satie

Clip: Robert Taylor
Well having seen so many people having lost their lives lying on the deck mutilated. One starts to think what for. Why should I kill someone I never knew and was likely taken into the army under duress on the German side and I was a volunteer. Why should I knock him off which I found rather stupid and after that I started to think quite hard on the subject. Why should I take the lives of my fellow men? But it was a fact that it was either you or I.

Music ends

Clip: Stephen Brumwell
Given the traumas experienced by soldiers particularly those who see comrades maimed or mutilated. How do they deal with the trauma and stress associated with those experiences? Evidence suggests that the only way is to blot it out from their minds. If they were to dwell upon every sight, to let it dominate their thoughts every day in the way a civilian would after a road traffic accident then the soldier would not be able to do his job. There is evident to suggest that men in traumatic situations cope with it by putting it into a compartment which may not be unlocked for many years to come.

Clip: John Jones
I’ve always thought myself to be stubborn, unsympathetic. Always number one but when I went back to Arnhem in 1981 to the cemetery in Oosterbeck, I had my eldest daughter with me. We were in the middle and all the little children came to lay their flowers. My daughter said to me are you alright. Take no notice. The tears were pouring down my eyes. So I said to myself I’m not stubborn. I’m not unsympathetic. I thought I was hard but I’m not.

Clip: Robert Taylor
The thing is that there’s so much instilled in to the men themselves. These special units. You’re the best, you go in and sort them out. But you also think like a human being. What for? But you don’t know until many years afterwards. What’s the use of all this lot? What do we get out of it?

Music: Satie (threaded through until the end)

Clip: John Jones
When you look at the gravestones and you see their name Known to God. It hits you hard. There’s somebody’s son lying there. You don’t know who it is. It’s an awful feeling when you look at it. All young lads. Nineteen, twenty.

Music

Makes me wonder today why? I’ve been to Germany three times and I couldn’t wish to meet better people. They’re lovely people. It makes you think. All those lives wasted on both sides. It’s an emotional feeling now when I go back to Germany. We’re well treated and even the bridge, Arnhem bridge, it used to be called a bridge too far. Not now. It’s called a bridge to the future. Which I completely agree with.

Link: ‘Soldiering On’ was produced by Chris Chambers. This has been a Radio Netherlands presentation.

Music

FX: Explosion.

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