Horst in Dresden

Lately, on a Sunday morning, I went down to the Starbucks inside the Safeway near me, and an old man (I am about to be 72, so I mean really old; I guess he was in his eighties) asked if he could sit at my table with me. I said yes, and, contrary to what I usually do in such situations--I am not trying to pick up men in coffee shops--I started talking to him.

First I noticed that he had a European accent, so I asked him what his native language was. German.

Next I said I was reading a book about World War II (I forget which one now, most likely fiction). He said he didn't have to read about it, he was in it, and that was enough for him.

Turns out he was a boy in Dresden when the British and American Allies bombed the city in four different raids between February 13 and 15, 1945, killing an estimated 22,700 to 25,000 people. 

My coffee-shop acquaintance was not outside during the bombing, but his younger brother, whose name I don't know, and his older brother Horst, were. Horst was killed, his parents had to bury what little of him they could find, and Horst's foot, still in his boot, was not found until a week later.

When the younger brother went back to the house, his mother asked him where Horst was, and the boy said, "Dead, I guess." My acquaintance used this as an example of how inured people get to  violence around them during wartime.

Of course, the bombing became controversial in 1953, and my acquaintance, who emigrated to the United States as a boy or young man, had probably already come to this country. While the people analyzing the command decisions of the Allied military said that the bombing was a strategic necessity, critics said that the city of Dresden was not an important target and, as a historic and cultural treasure trove of European civilization, should have been spared. 

War Stories

I kind of collect World War II stories that I run across or that people tell me about.

First, my own family's. My dad flew a TBF Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber with squadron VT-15 off the USS Essex in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23-26, 1944. This battle was the largest naval battle of World War II and maybe the largest naval battle of all time.

By his actions and those of his mates, Japan "lost four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy and four light cruisers, and eleven destroyers," according to the Wikipedia article, Battle of Leyte Gulf. For his actions in battle, he and his entire squadron were awarded the Navy Cross.

He shipped home soon after V-J (Victory over Japan) day, so in the case of the Navy discharging personnel, this would have to be September 2, 1945, Japan's signing of the surrender document, when World War II in the Pacific ended.

I was born about nine months later, on June 1, 1946.

My dad was a small-town boy raised in Santa Barbara and he went on to matriculate at the University of  California, Santa Barbara, and, later, Berkeley, graduating in 1942. Then he enlisted in the Navy and became a pilot, fulfilling a life-long dream. Family legend has it that, when he was a little boy, his mother had to arrange his string beans into an airplane shape before he would eat them.

In later years, he saved his Navy Cross, but felt ambivalent about it, because it was a reminder of how many people he had killed. The only other thing I know about that he saved from the war, besides a stray ribbon bar or two, was his map of the Pacific on a silk scarf, which airmen carried in case the plane went down.

But he suffered from what we now know as PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) until he died young of a household accident in 1970.

Forgetfulness

One factor of aging is that old memories tend to return; hence, as I mentioned in the wicker-cage post, you may be fortunate enough to remember parts of famous passages you once memorized.

Another factor of aging is that some memories tend to slip away, old and new alike, a process aptly described in Billy Collins's "Forgetfulness." The poem first came to my attention on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac for Tuesday, March 22, 2011, on National Public Radio (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/?date=2011%2F03%2F22).

Now, Billy Collins was born in 1941, in March, nearly eight months before Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941). So before the United States entered World War II. As his poem suggests, he had to memorize the names of the nine muses in school (or maybe he did not have to, but was a very eager student who took it upon himself to do so).

I was born at the end of World War II, exactly nine months and two weeks after V-J, Victory over Japan, Day (August 15, 1945). And since memorization had become unfashionable in education, a discipline much swayed by fashion, I did not have to memorize the names of the nine muses, although I had to have read their names over at least once and learned where to look them up.

So, I think, as I hear the poem on the radio or read it over for myself, who are they, these nine muses? What are their names and what creative endeavor is each associated with? There is something to be learned here, and, since it's classical, probably something with some interesting follow-ups. Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse!

So we have Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry), Euterpe (song and elegaic poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (hymns), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), Urania (astronomy). Soon enough, you will notice that I rarely pass up an opportunity to spoon up (or force feed) the classics.

And what of import did we learn here? Well, sadly, not much. But my faith in the knowledge of the classics remains unswerving, and, the next time I post, I will be sure to call upon my muse, Thalia.