Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

73 Relationships changed with mothers, fathers, wives, sons, daughters, friends and employers. Ex-POWs had to learn how to behave and integrate back into society. As a generation of men, the expectation to “suck it up” or present the “stiff upper lip” was high. For most, the generation did so successfully. How they did this after what they went through is amazing in its own right. Nichol and Rennell concluded their book by noting: “Not one of the men we interviewed regarded himself as a hero. In their words, they were simply doing their job and survived, while many friends did not”. As one POW said, “The tortures of war are many, and the chances of survival are few. Each day you prayed that you would meet the challenge and pass the test”. In my father’s account of his experiences after leaving Lamsdorf, reproduced above, he concluded in his 1946 letter to Elfride Grond, he concluded: “...here I am back in England, and as far as I know none the worse for the time spent in Germany”. While this may have been the optimist in him, he was putting the war behind him and moving on. At the beginning of their book, Nichol and Rennell noted that, “Having to surrender was rarely anything other than a humiliating experience, and the trauma of it could last a lifetime.” For my father, (and I am biased obviously), he gave up his freedom (along with 40,000 others) for five and a half years helping to delay the German advance allowing 330,000 plus men to return from France. I am reminded of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. While the character of Sydney Carlton was not like my father, Carlton gave his life in place of the aristocrat Charles Darney and was executed by the guillotine. Carlton’s last words were “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have done before.” My dad would probably have said, “You must be bloody joking!” if I had raised this characterization of his deeds. But I think he knew he had done his job and lived with the consequences, quite well I think.