"They were skeletons with skin still attached to their bones." Famine as a weapon of war.

80 years ago, my father, as a member of the RAF, witnessed and helped relieve the famine in Holland implemented by the Nazis. He would have been disgusted and outraged by the famine implemented by Israel on Gaza in an effort to ethnically cleanse it of Palestinians.

Below is an excerpt about his war in the Lowlands of Europe during the final months of WW"2. It is from the final chapters of his Green & Pleasant Land. Tomorrow on VE Day, I will post his chapter on entering Germany in May and his celebration of the war’s end on May 8th in Hamburg eight decades ago.

He would have been so disappointed by this world we have today thanks to neoliberalism.

Chapter 44: The Green And Pleasant Land

In March 1945, my mother sent a letter to me. It said, “The bad penny came back.” My sister's husband, Charlie, a deserter from the army out of money and no longer able to find work in the black market economy, surrendered to military police in London after being on the run from them for years. During World War II, over 100 thousand British and Commonwealth forces deserted their posts. There were too many to exact severe punishments like the Great War soldiers faced for deserting.. Instead, deserters were given hard labour that lasted no more than three years. Charlie’s war ended with him doing a year of breaking rocks in a military glasshouse.

Marching and riding, on the back of military transports across war-ravaged Belgium and the Netherlands, I didn't blame Charlie for taking his bows out early from the war. But I did think Charlie got off lightly for deserting my sister and ensuring she was harassed by military police and suffered shaming from their neighbours.

Despite being in the RAF, my war ended with a rifle slung over my shoulder. During those first five months of 1945, I encountered the enemy on the ground as my unit zigzagged through the lowlands.

Just before April arrived, we decamped for Holland in weather that smelled of rain and death. The unit joined an enormous convoy of troops, tanks and supplies that moved towards the front. In the distance was a persistent thud from artillery guns. Always above us, the drone of aircraft pregnant with bombs destined to fall on German forces and civilians who got caught up in the conflict.

NCOS told us to be mindful and on the alert. Remnants of the Wehrmacht were behind our front lines, and acted as guerrilla forces.

From the back of my vehicle with a tin helmet on my head, I stared out towards the shoulders of the roads we travelled on. There, I saw the steady plod of forced labourer refugees making their way to wherever home was. When supplies were handy, cigarettes and food rations were tossed to them. Once on this journey, a new recruit on our lorry said, “It was like feeding ducks at a pond in a park.” I told him to shut it and made a threatening motion with my gun.

On the way to our new encampment, we drove through small towns that cheered us on. But in the jubilation over their liberation, a spirit of vengeance corrupted the atmosphere. People were out for revenge, and often, punishment was meted out to women who were involved romantically or socially with German soldiers during the occupation.

I witnessed mobs drag women up onto wooden platforms, where they shaved their heads and doused them with orange paint. The rage was medieval, and sometimes the women were beaten so badly that blood soaked the streets of these communities like rainwater pooling in a gutter.

Our base was an airfield in Wassener near Den Haag, Holland’s seat of government.

On arrival, we were told to sweep the base for Wehrmacht stragglers who had resisted surrender. An NCO ordered me to enter a large hangar with Robbie and another unit member. If the enemy was present, shoot first and ask questions later was the directive.

Sunlight flooded into the darkened, stale space after I pulled open the door to the building. I walked my gun out, heart racing and nervous perspiration moistening the shirt of my uniform.

To the far right, behind some metal shelves, we heard a paint tin drop with a thud. Beside it was a brown tarp that slithered to the far end of the building. Robbie and I charged forward towards the camouflaged movement. We put our boots onto the end of the cloth. Suddenly, two teenage boys in military uniforms wriggled free from their cocoon.

We got them to stand, and with my gun pointing at their back, I marched them into daylight. They were no more than fifteen or sixteen. They were the last great hope of the German war machine. They were Hitler’s child-soldiers. The two boys began to sob. I put a hand on their shoulders and tried to comfort them.

The barracks at the airbase were torched by the retreating Germans. So my unit resided in Wassaner.

During those last 8 months of the war, the Germans starved the Dutch in part as punishment, but also because they needed to keep their own population fed to prevent rebellion and so stole food from occupied territories. .

For months, the daily food rations for an individual Dutch adult were under 600 calories, which was a starvation diet that led to premature death during the war and years after.

When we arrived in Wassaner, I came face to face with how evil nazism was because every dutch inhabitant who lived there was in a state of starvation.

The road where our billets were located was lined on both sides with a forlorn procession of emaciated children. They were skeletons with skin still attached to their bones. Hastily, we erected a mess hut in an open field near our billets. Once it was up, we gently led the children and their parents into the food tent where they were provided soup and bread. The meal was devoured but we had been warned not to overfeed famished survivors from Hitler's "Hunger Winter," lest they die from too much too soon. We told our dutch guests that food would be available every day in the mess hall, for them.

The following morning, we were sent to the airfield and assessed when the airbase could become functional. I asked an officer if the squadron was to be permanently stationed at Wassenaar. He said no because Germany was our destination.

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For the last 18 months, I've been piecing together my Dad's Green and Pleasant Land, which was unfinished at the time of his death. It covers his life from 1923 to July 1945 concluding with Labour winning the General election. The book at least in its beta form will be ready on May 8th to coincide with the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe. Let me know if you want a copy.

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