ray pool

JUDGEMENT DAY

by ray pool

Tuesday 19th September 2017 9:50 pm

the English played away on judgement day

over Europe's darkening skies

vengeful fleets of planes

made music of fear.

Blitzkrieg tit for tat to subdue old Dresden

masterminded by Bomber Harris

the laying down of a gentle blanket

a technique perfected

with excretions of terror and blast

incendiaries and bombs

destroying that treasured city at last

of refugees and haunted souls.

On that day the English played away

judgements were made about fair play

and the mystery of how life blows out

its candles that burn on judgement day.

🌷(2)

◄ IN THE FATHER REDCAP

MUSIC POEM ►

Comments

raypool

Sun 24th Sep 2017 16:51

Thank you Mark for your exhaustive resume to fulfil my curiosity. That is certainly a massive expansion financially into stricken territories - the expression "by the balls" comes to mind re the American "investing" military hardware and personnel and its consequences. A most interesting and enlightening account thank you again. To think it only took a cyanide pill and one bullet to put paid to the man that started all that.
Ray

M.C. Newberry

Sun 24th Sep 2017 02:53

In fairness, the Marshall Aid Plan was intended to be the
basis for the regeneration of a cooperating Europe and
went to 16 countries including the UK. Russia feared its
intention was to exert and extend US influence/power
and refused to participate - using its own influence to
affect those lands within its grip to play ball with its
own policies. The aid was a mixture of grants and loans
and Germany was seen by the US as essential to the
ongoing political and industrial security of Europe. The
Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)
and the European Coal and Steel Community (which
excluded Britain) were the forerunners of the EU, and
in 1953 Germany obtained a 50% debt reduction payable
over 30 years - not too onerous as its industrial rebirth
was going well. It's reported the UK had a direct loan
total of 4.6 billion USD, together with its Marshall aid in
post war Europe, and Ireland faced a debt repayment
obligation on its economy that was still running into the 1970s.
In short, the US considered its interests were best
served by bolstering the recovery of the countries most
affected by WW2 in Europe via pro-active financial
muscle amounting to over 140 billion USD in today's
values. How these were allocated and on what terms
had varying effects on the countries involved and most
in need.

raypool

Fri 22nd Sep 2017 22:11

A good point there Mark about regeneration - I didn't know about the Marshall Aid so thanks for that. I certainly have read the Scourge of the Swastika years ago - in which Lord Russell highlighted the death camps. Knights of Bushido i'll have to make a note of for the future. My wife and I just got back from Blenheim and are run through with Churchill and his exploits. I might consider a Churchill voice impression online soon - to invent a modern twist to current threats!

Ray

M.C. Newberry

Thu 21st Sep 2017 16:23

There is an under-appreciated irony that Germany was
to be helped back on its feet via the gift of Marshall Aid
- surely reaching its present state of prominence
largely due to it, whereas this old country was required
to repay what it borrowed to lead the way in the fight to
preserve freedom in the world, only recently freeing
itself from that onerous debt.
Two books: "The Scourge of the Swastika" and "Knights of Bushido"
(author: Lord Russell of Liverpool)
remain essential reading to remind today's world of humanity's capacity for inhumanity.

raypool

Wed 20th Sep 2017 20:05

Mark, thank you for expanding the theme. So many stories flesh out that period and the civilian numbers killed far outweighed fighting troops. Off to Blenheim tomorrow home of Churchill and his glass case of toy soldiers!

Thank you Tony for following this. It is hard to capture the horror in poetic terms, but the moral dilemmas will always be there to be examined. As I understand, the fighting of the Japanese was so insane that they wouldn't surrender, maybe triggering the H bomb event. Of course as with all technology, it had to be used to be proven in a way.

Fascinating log of travel Col. I was a muso in Germany three times and went to the Reeperbahn, and other cities. They just seemed to have more funding available somehow than our lot!

David, you can only get a feel for the realities of life by meeting old and wiser heads, those affected which after all is shared in common with the enemy, rightly expressed. Chess with the masters is what's wanted with those two.

The future of war Martin - what's it to be? - probably germ based I imagine. Thanks for your full comments .

Ray Love to all.

Martin Elder

Wed 20th Sep 2017 16:51

This is a very thought provoking piece Ray about which only a now aging population probably have direct memories of. But none the less present and future generations should not forget the fallibility of mankind. After all the first world war was meant to be the war to end all wars. slaughter of any kind on any scale can be very difficult to justify.
nice one Ray

<Deleted User> (13762)

Wed 20th Sep 2017 09:04

September 1985 I was driving up through Germany to Hamburg to visit a chap I'd met in the south of Spain - we were both driving VW Beetles (his was convertible mine wasn't!) and we'd stopped and shared lunch on the roadside somewhere.

He was heading for Malaga and I to Gibraltar, Cadiz, Seville, Cordoba and back to Valencia where I had been staying with friends. He'd said if I ever made it to Germany then come visit him in Hamburg so I thought well why not.

It was towards the end of my two month trip having left Spain for France, Switzerland, Paris, Luxembourg and up through Germany. The only time I have ever visited the country. I stayed a few days in Hamburg, went clubbing, went to a food fest in the revitalised dock area and pondered the fact that we'd bombed the hell out of this city.

It seemed the Germans had done a better job of moving on than we had back home, both in terms of the economy and socially. But Europe was a different place back in '85 compared with today as we wage our Brexit war of words. Your poem Ray looks back on those awful events but in some ways there are echoes to the future too.

Col.

M.C. Newberry

Wed 20th Sep 2017 00:03

Dresden...Coventry...Cologne...Plymouth - and so on.
Total war being waged for the mastery of the planet
by a bestial tyranny supported by a population fed on delusions and the deadly determination to dominate.
I'm reading a book called "Resistance" by a French
woman who was middle-aged when she was
sentenced to 5 years slave labour in German hands
for involvement in distributing pro-Allied propaganda
in France after its fall. It is a testimony to what lay
in wait for those in other lands had Germany won the
war and the world had fallen into the abyss that
Churchill prophesied. We have the luxury of hindsight
now but nothing was off the table in the drive to
extinguish the expanding evil that existed in the
heart of Europe. Russia looked to her allies to match
her deeds and her sacrifice of so many lives and it is
likely that one city would have barely measured
registered with them had they advanced that far into
Germany - except for a shrug of the shoulders and a
reminder of the cost that had been paid achieving victory.

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