|
Sally and George, two of Hitler's radio mouthpieces who had become "attached" to the 504 throughout the Italian campaign, informed men of the regiment in a farewell broadcast that they would never make it past the Straits of Gibraltar - German subs were on the lookout for the Capetown Castle, the ship that was to carry the regiment to England. German submarine commanders, however, lacking the confidence of the microphone commandos, failed to make an appearance and the voyage to England was successfully completed when the Capetown Castle docked at Liverpool on April 22, 1944. Past the flak towers that stood in the sea on long timbered legs like a family of herons, past the little boats and the big ships that call Liverpool home, past the green lawns that ran like carpets to the river's edge, the neat red brick houses of a Georgian cut, and past the shipyards, grey, gaunt, and menacing where a freighter lay, its bottom glistening in a coat of copper. This was England, and as the Capetown Castle moved upstream to its pier, 504 men hung over the rail and gaped at the panoramic riverbank much as they would at a technicolor travelogue of the High Llama's secret heaven in the hidden fastnesses of Tibet. Here was system, order, and reserve; the men saw it in the hedged fences that ran along the brick walks and they saw it in the Bobby who paced imperturbably along the length of the pier. Above all they felt it everywhere. There were no Arabs displaying watermelons on the dock, no ragged waifs begging for "caramelli"; the heavy sweet smell of fish and perfume that clung to ports fringing the Mediterranean was absent. The Americans were unusually meditative; they were impressed perhaps because they were looking for the first time on England's soil, and from where they stood it was beautiful - not dingy as they had expected. The Irish Guards, who with the 504 comprised the ship's troop complement, were thoughtful, also. They were seeing England not for the first time in their lives, but for the first time in several years and they, too, pensively contrasted the serene and ordered beauty of the river bank with the wreckage of impoverished and romantic Italy. And then a ferryboat, crowded to the gunwales, glided by. There were girls aboard, lots of them, and in the warm sunlight red, blue, yellow, and white skirts and dresses blazed in carnival colors. The girls bent over the rail of the ferryboat and waved. The crisp tinkle of their voices fluttered lightly across the water.
* View the list of men who jumped with the Pathfinder Teams in Normandy * |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||