Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

10 Why did you go to war dad? In one of the few conversations with a beginning and end that I had with my dad about the war, his answer to this question was straightforward. Born in the middle of WW I, his generation was connected first hand to conflict between nations. My dad volunteered in late 1939 when he was twenty-four years old. It was very obvious to him that the probability to win a war against Germany would be a lot higher across the English Channel. Fighting well organized German forces on English soil would be a lot harder. The decision was about the preservation of his friends’ and families’ lives and values, and about not succumbing to Nazi enslavement. Hitler in Paris. My father realized that a similar picture could be taken in front of Big Ben in London. Better to fight across the English Channel