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The longest battle |
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Written by Associate news editor Rodney Venis
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Tuesday, 06 May 2008 |
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RODNEY VENIS
But perhaps his worst experience of the Second World War was meeting the officer who drank diesel.
The sailor told his son he couldn't figure out why the officer disliked him so. It turned out to be quite simple -- the sailor was lucky enough to escape the war unscathed; the officer wasn't and was understandably bitter.
That was because the officer lived and breathed the Battle of the Atlantic, which Prince George commemorated with others around the world on Sunday. It's best remembered as the longest battle in history -- six long years, the entire course of the war, in which more often than not the ill-equipped, under-trained sailors of Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. crossed the Atlantic Ocean again and again while being savaged by the U-boats of Admiral Doenitz's Kriegsmarine.
Unlike most battles, which revolve around a hill, fortress, field or town, the struggle took so long because it involved a basic idea: Hitler wanted to starve Great Britain of the food and material it needed to stay in the war. So he tried to sink every ship that tried to help the island kingdom. It took, among other things, the deaths of 30,248 merchant sailors, and the loss of 3,500 merchant vessels and 175 warships to convince him otherwise.
Some of those sailors drowned, some were burned to death, some were machine-gunned in their lifeboats, others were killed by aircraft, battleships, cruisers or were just washed overboard by pitiless storms.
And some survived like the old sailor and the officer who lived and breathed the Battle of the Atlantic every day because he had little choice.
The officer's ship was hit by a German torpedo. The ship split open and dumped him into the sea, along with the vessel's surviving diesel fuel.
Now, according to the wonderful Web, diesel poisoning is uncommon because the harsh taste of it makes it unlikely anyone would be silly enough to ingest in large amounts. Unfortunately it was fairly common during the Battle of the Atlantic because it's hard not to gasp when you're trying to stay afloat in diesel-sodden water that's freezing and burning.
The officer was saved but he couldn't escape drowning twice -- he survived the water but the diesel he swallowed burned his esophagus and destroyed his lungs.
It's something to keep in mind whenever you hear about veterans marching, wreaths being laid or see a picture of a ceremony that seems so quaint and sombre.
They mean something. They salute the men who swam in poison so the rest of us could breathe freely.
-- Associate news editor Rodney Venis
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
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