Letter to the Editor
A suggestion was put to children by a British radio chat show host a little time ago that they should ask their grandfathers what they did in the war. Some of the answers were stunning.
One 10-year-old English boy said, “What did you do in the Second World War, Granddad?”
“I flew fighter planes,” was his reply.
“Wow,” said the grandson very impressed, “what did you fly. “Spitfires or Hurricanes?”
“No,” responded Granddad, “I flew Messerschmitts!”
Granddad had been a German Luftwaffe pilot, shot down over England in 1940, taken prisoner of war. Instead of being repatriated in 1945 he chose to stay in England and made his home there. He married an English girl and their family, a further generation on, produced the grandson who posed the question.
We could easily get some very startling answers here. This would also help the Cayman Islands Veterans Association as we are attempting to track down Caymanian men who served in uniform in those dark days before the association was founded. Some may still be alive although others may have been killed in action when they were quite young.
The families of those who have gone on may have memories that should be recorded before it is too late. If a man was 18 in say 1944 he would be say 86 now. He may still be alive. Young Caymanians should start asking questions. It is most likely that Caymanian men served at sea. Here is a comment by one such sailor:
“What a miserable, rotten hopeless life … an Atlantic so rough it seems impossible that we can continue to take this unending pounding and still remain in one piece… hanging on in a convoy is a full-time job… the crew is almost in a stupor from the nightmare of it all and still we go on hour after hour…”
The Veterans Association recently received an enquiry from a friend of one such man who was in a cargo ship, torpedoed and sunk in 1939. The man was born in 1915 and was called Carvin William Smith. His mother was a Bodden. He would have been 24.
If anyone can shed any light on this man then kindly e-mail me on [email protected]
Graham Walker
Hon. secretary, Cayman Islands Veterans Association
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