Sepia Saturday - A Wartime Winter's Tale

Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs.

I  had to be inventive in responding to this week's prompt, as all my snow photographs date from the 1970's and no-one in my family has ever taken part in winter sports.  

But I had two snowy photographs in my father's collection, recalling his time in Luxembourg in 1944.  So, here is his wartime winter tale, told in his own words.

Introduction
Dad  served in the RAF Codes & Ciphers Branch and was indoctrinated into the mysteries of Enigma and the One-Time Pad code, with training at Bletchley Park and Whitehall. London.  He then became part of the Special Liaison Unit, a team of analysts formed by  Frederick Winterbotham to scan, digest, and file the messages, with channels established for forwarding key messages to the appropriate field commands. 

After training, Dad   was seconded to General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group HQ. He landed at Omaha beach just after D-Day and advanced via St. Mere Eglise, Avranches, Versailles, Paris, Verdun and Luxembourg through to Wiesbaden in Germany. 

 

"We arrived in Luxembourg.  General Bradley's Hotel Alpha was opposite the badly damaged railway station.  We had a good hotel at the back and were able to buy some very good cakes in the town. I became friendly  with a former member of the government [Mr Battin]  and was invited to his house. He produced champagne from his cellar and served them with lovely cakes with kirsch in them"

Dad (left) with Mr Battin and his daughter - 1944

 

 A rare chance to sample some home life in time of war!

Dad on the right with the Mr Battin's daughter.  

A picturesque scene of  Luxembourg, found in Dad's album.

Two more photographs below from the same album 

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Dad maintained contact with the Battin family for a long time after the war, exchanging Christmas cards etc.  In 1961  we moved to York and he named our new house  "Arlon" after  a place  in Luxembourg which obviously held fond memories for him.

His story continues......

A Meal of five Boiled Sweets

"It was now December 1944 and bitterly cold – lots of ice and snow. Out of the blue at 4a.m. on December 16^th came a major attack on the American front.  It was pandemonium...... This was the Battle of the Bulge.  We carried thermite bombs in a safe in our operations vehicle to be used to destroy our codebooks and machines. We had rifles fully loaded with us at all times.......Anyone moving around that night not giving the correct password (which was Betty Gable), was shot on the spot......The weather did improve somewhat. We were dropped supplies of food and more important the GIs got further weapons and ammo. supplies. 

At one stage we  were being served up five boiled sweets for one meal!"

This meal of five boiled sweets became an, often repeated,  apocryphal family story.  It was only much later that I came to realize it masked the awful scenes he must have witnessed.  

Copyright © 2014 · Susan Donaldson.  All Rights Reserved

 

 Click HERE  to read other snowy tales from Sepia Sepians