Armistice/Veteran's Day
Nov 6, 2019 15:15:48 #
slatten49
Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
Again this year, with our Annual Brother's USMC Birthday/Veteran's (10th/11th Nov.) Day Reunion this coming weekend, I will be posting appropriate posts for both somewhat early.
[Most of the following is from a Stars an Stripes article published on November 13th, 1918]
"The guerre will be finee at 11 o'clock. Finee la guerre."
You could hear it called out again and again.
"What time?"
"Eleven o'clock."
A pause.
"Say, you, what time is it now?"
It was one minute before 11. To the lanyards of the four big guns ropes were tied, each rope manned by 200 soldiers, cooks, stragglers, messengers, gunners, everybody. At 11, the handkerchief fell, the men pulled, the guns cursed out one last shot of the battery.
On the stroke of 11 the cannon stopped, the rifles dropped from the shoulders, the machine guns grow still. There followed then a strange unbelievable silence as though the world had died.
By 1918, the British were using microphones to help pinpoint German guns. Signals were recorded on film. This image of what the microphones registered in the minutes either side of the armistice was recently discovered in the archives of the Imperial War Museum.
NOVEMBER ELEVENTH
We stood up and we didn't say a word,
It felt just like when you have dropped your pack
After a hike, and straightened out your back
And seem just twice as light as any bird.
We stood up straight and, God! but it was good!
When you have crouched like that for months, to stand
Straight up and look right out toward No-Man's-Land
And feel the way you never thought you could.
We saw the trenches on the other side
And Jerry, too, not making any fuss,
But prob'ly stupid-happy, just like us.
Nobody shot and no one tried to hide.
If you had listened then I guess you'd heard
A sort of sigh from everybody there,
But all we did was stand and stare and stare,
Just stare and stand and never say a word.
--- Pvt. Hilmar R. Baukhage
It lasted but a moment, lasted for the space a breath is held.
Then a quite startling thing occurred. The skyline of the crest ahead of them grew suddenly populous with dancing soldiers and, down the slopes, all the way to the barbed wire, straight for the Americans, came the German troops. They came with outstretched hands, ear -to-ear grins and souvenirs to swap for cigarettes, so well did they know the weakness of their foe.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, The War to End All Wars had ended.
For me, Veterans Day is a day to celebrate peace, the end of hostilities — not to glorify war.
[Most of the following is from a Stars an Stripes article published on November 13th, 1918]
"The guerre will be finee at 11 o'clock. Finee la guerre."
You could hear it called out again and again.
"What time?"
"Eleven o'clock."
A pause.
"Say, you, what time is it now?"
It was one minute before 11. To the lanyards of the four big guns ropes were tied, each rope manned by 200 soldiers, cooks, stragglers, messengers, gunners, everybody. At 11, the handkerchief fell, the men pulled, the guns cursed out one last shot of the battery.
On the stroke of 11 the cannon stopped, the rifles dropped from the shoulders, the machine guns grow still. There followed then a strange unbelievable silence as though the world had died.
By 1918, the British were using microphones to help pinpoint German guns. Signals were recorded on film. This image of what the microphones registered in the minutes either side of the armistice was recently discovered in the archives of the Imperial War Museum.
NOVEMBER ELEVENTH
We stood up and we didn't say a word,
It felt just like when you have dropped your pack
After a hike, and straightened out your back
And seem just twice as light as any bird.
We stood up straight and, God! but it was good!
When you have crouched like that for months, to stand
Straight up and look right out toward No-Man's-Land
And feel the way you never thought you could.
We saw the trenches on the other side
And Jerry, too, not making any fuss,
But prob'ly stupid-happy, just like us.
Nobody shot and no one tried to hide.
If you had listened then I guess you'd heard
A sort of sigh from everybody there,
But all we did was stand and stare and stare,
Just stare and stand and never say a word.
--- Pvt. Hilmar R. Baukhage
It lasted but a moment, lasted for the space a breath is held.
Then a quite startling thing occurred. The skyline of the crest ahead of them grew suddenly populous with dancing soldiers and, down the slopes, all the way to the barbed wire, straight for the Americans, came the German troops. They came with outstretched hands, ear -to-ear grins and souvenirs to swap for cigarettes, so well did they know the weakness of their foe.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, The War to End All Wars had ended.
For me, Veterans Day is a day to celebrate peace, the end of hostilities — not to glorify war.
Nov 6, 2019 15:17:33 #
Absolutely!
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