|
at Christmas 1942,the Eighth Army's own weekly paper conducted a poetry competition.
My father was asked by General BL Montgomery to publish a book with the poems in it to be sold for the benefit of the Army Comforts Fund. The book is called "Poems from the Desert" and I have selected part of one as below These poems were all written in the Western Desert when the Desert Army was wholly engaged in "hitting Rommel and all his forces right out of Africa for six."
In the Desert today
What did I see in the Desert today,
Where the frantic lizard runs?
The song of death was shouted forth
As the gunners manned the guns.
The men who'd pledged for Motherland
Their freedom and their lives,
Swore as they sweated in the smoke
To man the twenty-fives.
What did I see in the Desert today,
Beside the rocks and the sand?
I saw the squadrons in the sky
Of Bomber and Fighter Command.
I heard the thunder of their work,
I saw their lightening stroke,
And far accross the skyline came
The rolling clouds of smoke,
Whilst incoherent in their rage
The chattering Bredas spoke.
What did I see in the Desert today?
Relics of what had died.
The pale enammelled shells of snails
Wherein the spiders hide,
And the dark fast-rusting shells of hate
Lie shattered side by side.
What did I see in the Desert today?
Anything new in the "Blue"
I found a crevice in the rocks
Where a single violet grew,
As fresh as in woods and lanes of home -
The green fields once we knew.
And I saw the Faith in the eyes of men,
And I knew their hearts were true.
L Challoner, Bombardier
Lest we forget
|