Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

46 endless struggle with the war would have been less successful without the support of the TA. For at least a decade after the war nightmares surfaced almost every night. Sleep has the nasty ability of opening up wounds that can otherwise be controlled, somewhat, when awake. Overall, he adjusted well over the course of many years. In hindsight, he probably was depressed as he grew into his sixties and could have benefited from a mild anti-depressive medication. He was a little fixated on a sudden and early demise. To his surprise, he lived a quarter of a century past his sixtieth birthday. As he got older, he said it was more difficult to suppress the nightmares as they began to resurface over fifty years after the events of war took place. A Student of the War My childhood seemed to be a partnership, at times, with my dad’s interest in WW II. The BBC put together a monumental documentary series on the Second World War. I remember that I wanted to share my father’s interest in the topic, because that is what sons do. It aired weekly for forty or more weeks, for an hour. I watched black-and-white air raids and sea battles, ground troops in mud and rain, tanks, Dunkirk, Africa, Italy, and the siege of Stalingrad. I remember my dad saying “you need to see this” when the Allies came across the concentration camps. I remember the scenes of throwing skeleton thin dead victims of the Holocaust into mass graves - hundreds of naked bodies piled on top of each other. For my father he felt a need to study the war. Fragmented news came through to the POW camp, but there was no holistic perspective. An event of such importance to my father needed context. He read about the war, watched TV programs about the war and took trips to Europe to see battle sites. I observed his interest in the war flatten out over time as he put the facts in place. I think he was able to add clarity to what happened to him, and the role he had played.