The Lost Band of Brothers Read Free Page B

August 1939, Molotov and von Ribbentrop had stunned the world by signing their two nations’ non-aggression pact, thereby virtually guaranteeing both the German invasion of Poland and the world war that would follow. Appleyard was one of those who permitted himself to peer into a bleak future, writing home to his family in Yorkshire:

    So Russia is in. How awful. And what a swinishthing to do. It means a long war, but I’m sure we must win. I’m certain we’ve got right on our side and I even feel we’ve got God on our side – if God could conceivably be on any side in anything so bloody as a war. We must win. Funny how relative everything is – you don’t really appreciate a holiday till it’s over. The same way you don’t really appreciate your liberty until it’s threatened. But I’ll never be made to say ‘Heil Hitler’. I’d sooner die.

    The Germans invaded Poland, Britain’s ultimatum ran its course, the war began and a weary, self-pitying, lacklustre Neville Chamberlain addressed the nation on the wireless. On 29 September 1939, crammed with 1,500 other mobilised troops into the SS Lady of Mann , one of the early vessels to be pressed into service to carry the BEF to France, Appleyard and his unit endured a rough crossing to France. There they joined the rear echelon in support, for they did not form one of the front-line fighting units: they were tail, not teeth. They spent that long, cold and muddy winter moving from billet to billet behind the static front line repairing vehicles and supplying various artillery units with ammunition from the railhead and waiting for something, anything, to happen. Transferred by his colonel without the option from Workshops to Ammunition Section and then to Headquarters, Appleyard was an inveterate letter-writer to a loving family back home in Linton-on-Wharfe, near Wetherby, Yorkshire. Prohibited by the censor from disclosing his exact location, he left them in no doubt about conditions, writing in October:

    With the arrival at this village quite a lot of the fun has gone out of this war. Quite suddenly winter has come with a bang, and there is mud everywhere. Mud, mud, mud wherever you go. It rains off and on all through the day and the sky is heavy, misty and overcast. Cheerful prospect! The village here is much smaller than Linton and consists solely of farms … The first night here the men were billeted in a cowshed – absolutely filthy.

    He added a little later: ‘I’m not learning to love this mud-soaked corner of Europe any more – it must be the most utterly God-forsaken piece of land in the world. Did someone say something about “ La Belle France”? I prefer La Bl… France.’
    As the months dragged by, Appleyard’s thoughts turned increasingly to home and an overdue leave. In April 1940 he was writing: ‘My leave prospects are very bright! There is every chance that I should get home on my original date; that is, leaving here the 8th May, home 9th, which is sensational.’ On 25 April he felt confident enough to write:

    Hurrah! My leave date is now definitely confirmed. I am leaving here May 7th, arriving home May 8th – possibly very late as it is a late boat that day, I think. That’s terrific, isn’t it! I’m thrilled to have so early a prospect of seeing you all again … Just think – only twelve days hence! And the date is quite definite unless leave is suspended again, or something else very untoward happens!

    Unfortunately for Appleyard and his eagerly anticipated home leave, something very untoward did happen. The British anglicised it to blitzkrieg but it meant the same thing: lightning war – the German thunderclap advance into Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France by a co-ordinated force of tanks, motorised infantry, artillery and on-call air support. As German mechanised units smashed across the Belgian border