Re: Memories of a dutch schoolboy in the summer of 44
Kees Vanderheyden (keesv@SYMPATICO.CA)
Mon, 24 Feb 1997 16:29:15 -0500
The War In My Back Yard
War Games for Young and Old
In Oisterwijk, during that summer of 1944, my friends and I thought
of the war as a big game brilliantly conducted by the adults which
we, in our more modest but imaginative way, sought to emulate. The
accompanying death and destruction only dawned on us gradually.
The Grown-ups' War
The most spectacular of the grown-up games were the day and
night-time air raids. Their onset was announced by the wail of the
siren and anti-aircraft gun blasts. For hours at a time during the day,
the sky would be covered with hordes of bombers (Liberators, Flying
Fortresses, and Lancasters, according to my father) and their fighter
plane escorts (mostly Spitfires.)
When the sky was clear, I could see several little black blots left
behind as German anti-aircraft shells exploded around the planes. It
was like a big circus: as dazzling as it was terrifying. Every once in
a while a plane would be hit, catch fire, and plummet out of the sky
in a cloud of smoke after ejecting a small procession of white
parachutes.
At night, these aerial games became dangerous fireworks. The
white beams of the German spotlights criss-crossed the night sky
looking for planes in order to better aim their deadly shells at them.
These harrowing games, paving the way for our liberation by dropping
bombs over Germany, went on almost daily. The German soldiers
watched them as attentively as we did.
There were also daytime fireworks once when a Spitfire patrol set
fire to a munitions train parked in the village station. The explosions
went on for hours and dark clouds reeking of gun powder blackened
the Oisterwijk sky.
School
We regularly had air-raid drills at school. The principal sounded the
siren: a big, red cylinder with a crank on it to emit the warning
sounds. Our game of hide-and-seek began as soon as we heard the
first shrill cries of the red contraption. We tried to save ourselves
in various ways, depending on the severity of the anticipated attack.
Minor attacks meant we should hide under our desks. If a very
dangerous attack was at hand, we had to sit plastered against the
inside walls of the school corridor.
The principal cleverly explained that the bombs that fell upon a
house or a school would blow the walls outwards. This is why we had
to sit along the inside walls. I never understood why the inside wall
wouldn't fall on our heads as it exploded outwards.
These games were rather amusing. We knew that no bombing raid
was imminent, but it transformed the school into a playground.
Our War
By the spring of 1944, we were ready for our own war games. The
school had been occupied by the Germans and so goodbye homework,
hello holidays!
Inspired by the big war taking place all around us, my friends and I
spent countless hours preparing for a war of our own. Making
weapons for our future battles was our biggest pleasure.
I managed to make a sort of hand grenade with a bottle and a bit of
carbide. Carbide was a crumbly white stone which my mother broke
up and placed inside the lamp we lit at night. We no longer had
electricity or oil for our lamps. My father therefore patented a
"carbide lamp" for us, made of two tin cans fitted one inside the
other. The top can had a small tube with two tiny holes through
which the gas whistled as it produced a bright, white flame. The
bottom can contained the carbide stones. My mother would pour a bit
of water on them before quickly fitting the cans together. It was,
however, a dangerous device, and the lighting of the lamp kept us in
suspense night after night. If too much water was poured onto the
stones, the lamp could explode once it was sealed. It happened often,
but it caused more fright than real harm.
Nevertheless, I found this an interesting idea for manufacturing
bombs for our battles. The technique was to stuff a few pieces of
carbide into a not-too-solid bottle, add a little too much water, seal
it carefully, then toss it at the enemy. My top-secret tests seemed
conclusive.
One of our trials backfired, however. As the two camps faced each
other, we tossed a bottle bomb which refused to explode. One of our
brave warriors went to retrieve it so that we could reload it when it
suddenly exploded. My friend called it quits after receiving glass
fragments in his legs and we sounded the retreat as our enemies
hooted with laughter. Best to stick with proven weapons from now
on.
This first idea sparked what I considered to be an even more
brilliant follow-up: a flying bomb. When pig breeders slaughtered
the hogs, they always gave the bladders to children to make footballs.
All we had to do was dry the bladder on the clothesline before
blowing it up until it adopted the more-or-less round shape of a ball.
I concluded that the carbide gas that lit our lamp and made bottles
explode might well be used to propel a bottle strung to a pig's
bladder. I made a number of complicated sketches for this new
device, but the project never saw the light of day.
We also made bows and arrows. I manufactured extra-sharp arrows
by gluing the needles from my father's turntable with candle wax. My
arrows refused to fly straight, however, and ended up getting lost in
the trees. Our humble catapults were still our most reliable
weapons.
Plan and scheme as we might in preparation for our games, a very
serious problem remained, namely the lack of enemies. All our
friends wanted to be Allies, and no one wanted to be the Germans. As
a result, we ended up using our bows and catapults in a few games of
cowboys and Indians.
Almost every battle was accompanied by a joyful anthem of our
own, which we sang in unison: "Deutschland Deutschland Über Alles.
Deutschland, Deutschland ist Kaput!" It was a parody of the patriotic
hymn the German soldiers sang ardently. Our version went: "Germany
rules over all. Germany is done for!" I have to admit that preparing
and planning for our wars was generally more interesting and
exciting than the battles themselves were.
Kees Vanderheyden
Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Canada