Epilogue: Lessons Learned and Impressions Gained
EPILOGUE: LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPRESSIONS GAINED
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| The Dunkirk Jerks at the remnants of the Crested Eagle |
In the prologue to this blog I said that that our expedition undertaken by 3 old college friends was a true bucket list trip. We spent almost a year planning to build a journey of about 10 days centered on Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo. For some of the planning and reservation-making we used a travel agent I had used on previous trips to Europe. She was most helpful, as always. We wanted to make our own calls in general, however, to be sure that our itinerary included sites that were important to understanding WWII in general and Operation Dynamo in particular. We knew what we wanted to see and learn, and we knew that because of our time limitations that we would miss some places in England and France that most tourists would want to see. Also, importantly, we knew that we'd been friends for about 60 years, but had spent time together sparingly as gaffers, to use the British term for geezers. Traveling and living together for 11 days would be a test of the brotherhood we have shared for these past 6 decades, but we were confident that the idealistic bond of friendship we had pledged ourselves to was lasting, as it had been to date. My Dunkirk Jerk brothers tolerated and trusted my obsession with detailed planning, and I made it a priority to slow down on "trigger-pulling" and involve them in decision-making. It was, after all, a significant investment in time and money for all of us. We wanted an "all for one; one for all" experience, and we had it.
As it turned out, the synthesis of trusting an experienced professional travel agent to guide us with building the skeleton and each other with adding the moving parts was a recipe for success. Maria helped us with what Stephen Covey called in the "Putting First Things First" section of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People the large rocks, in this case air reservations, hotels, train travel, and tickets for the main tourist spots in London. She also gave us some good advice on restaurants and general travel tips for England and France. We assembled the rest based on our meticulous homework and communication.
The acid test of our choice of places to see and ways of trying to understand them better was how we felt about each one. After almost every place we visited, one of us made the comment that "I had high expectations for that, and they were exceeded." Each time the other two agreed. Some places -- the Churchill War Rooms, the Imperial War Museum, and Dover Castle, for example -- are widely known and were "slam dunk" stops for anyone with an interest in WWII. Others, such as the Fan Bay Deep Shelter Tunnels and the Eperlecques Blockhaus, were diamonds in the rough -- fascinating places we hadn't known even existed when we began planning but stumbled upon as we researched different areas. And the crown jewel for our excursion was our full day guided tour of Dunkirk with Emmanuel ... and he was the crown-maker -- a 6+ on a 5-point scale.
The "Not to Be Missed" List
Based on our trip here in no special order are sights we saw that anyone interested in Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo and WWII should not miss:
Dunkirk - it's different today, a scenic resort town, but the history lives on. Like the beaches of Normandy, seeing the beaches, the East Mole, the remnants of the Crested Eagle, and the military cemeteries leaves one with a sense of awe and reverence.
Dover - the secret WWII tunnels of Dover Castle are a must -- Chapter 1 in the Dunkirk story. The Fan Bay tunnels are a treat, though demanding to access ... if you're healthy and fit, do it. And the White Cliffs are iconic, scenic wonders that are especially breath-taking from the water.
The Blockhaus at Eperlecques - worth the time and trouble to get off the beaten path and see this. It feels like a movie set or a parallel universe. Scares the hell out of you if you think "what if?!?"
The Churchill War Rooms - the prologue to the Dunkirk story. Just incredible that one of the leaders of the free world and his staff lived and worked in such an underground place for 5 dark years.
Imperial War Museum - although a couple of hours scarcely does this impressive museum justice, it gives you time to cover WWII and to see some of other exhibits (in our case WWI). To do this museum right, one would need about a full day.
Leclerc & Moulin Museum - this relatively new and not "showy" museum in Paris gives Americans a look at WWII from the French perspective, which is quite different from that of the U.S. and the U.K. A truly educational experience, which is also quite inspirational.
I considered doing a "these are things I'd leave off" section, but there's really nothing I would pass up. Although the Portsmouth trip might have been foregone to have spent another day in and around London, e.g., the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, or the standard "must see" sights. Since this was a WWII trip, we'd have needed to have included Duxford, Hendon, and Bletchley Park. Although the inaccessibility of Southwick House was a major disappointment, we were impressed with the maritime history of Portsmouth.
Lessons Learned
The most important things I learned from our trip were that:
1) Dunkirk absolutely was a major battle in the war, but one that was and continues to be the subject of debate. Did England leave their French allies "hanging out to dry" when they evacuated Dunkirk, or did the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (and the often overlooked approximately 130,000 French troops) save France as well as England? As the display in the 1940 Operation Dynamo Museum in Dunkirk asked,
"Was Dunkirk a victory or a defeat?"
Here's what Churchill said in the wake of the evacuation ...
‘'…our thankfulness at the escape of our Army… must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster…. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations ….’'
And yet had those 250,000 British soldiers not survived and returned to fight for England, when, if ever, would D-Day have occurred and France have been liberated? Hitler's reign of terror ended? How might our world have been different for the past 80 years?
2) Friends/allies are vital. France and England, historically mortal enemies, banded together and with other neighboring countries, particularly the Low Countries, to resist German aggression and preserve the sanctity of their nations. They did this at enormous cost in lives, property, and money. Our country sacrificed too in wars that initially seem to have nothing to do with us, but out of some combination of duty to friends and self-interest, eventually jumped into both wars. And that may be the main reason the Prime alternative history series The Man in the High Castle seems pure fiction today. Like people, countries need friends ... sometimes those who will even make the ultimate sacrifice for us, and we for them. Sometimes we forget that making and keeping friends can literally be life and death matters. In my trips to France and England I have felt welcomed and valued as an ally. I hope that the leaders of our country now and in the future never lose those international bonds of friendship or the lessons of history.
3) I understand the relevance and connection of WWII to WWI better. Although it is hardly acknowledged in the U.S., WWI was a horror and tragedy for France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and all of Europe. The U.S. was involved in what we tried to define as Europe's war for one year, but for European countries it lasted 4 terrible years, resulting in ~20 million deaths (about half of which were civilians), another 20 million wounded, destroyed cities, and scarred nations. How could France, England, and the Low Countries not want to do everything in their power to avoid plunging back into the hell that was another world war just 20 years later? And how could the German people, despite their wounded pride and financial hardships, entrust their nation to the total control of a megalomaniacal, murderous madman, again assuming the role of villain and merchant of death and destruction? Those are how's and why's with no sane or acceptable answer.
4) As Jerry asked many times during the trip as we saw the scale and aftermath of the war in Europe, "How different could our world have been and be now if instead of incredible expenditure in dollars and lives in killing each other and taking other's lands, the people and leaders around the world had decided to make that same investment in making lives better and doing good for all?" Indeed! This question reminds me of a story in Michael Shaara's 1974 Civil War novel The Killer Angels in which his main protagonist, Union Col. Joshua Chamberlain, tells of a discussion with his father. He tells him of the passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet in which Hamlet (as did Rado, Ragni, and MacDermot in the rock musical Hair much later) describes man as follows:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel!"
... to which his father replies (giving the book its title), "Well, boy, if he's an angel, he's sure a murderin' angel."
Our witnessing and pondering the effects and cost of WWII over 80 years after it was fought gives abundant credence to the elder Mr. Chamberlain's assessment. Yes, many wars have been fought in Europe and in other parts of the world by Europeans; and we were reluctantly dragged into the two big ones. But our history (and even our present state) tells us we're not immune to the lust for war. Perhaps it's in our blood ... historically most of the immigrants who have come to America have been from Europe. And although not much military conflict from other continents (outside of Egypt) appears in our world history books, we know enough to understand that indigenous peoples in the Americas, Africa, and Asia warred with, killed, maimed, enslaved, and took lands and riches from each other. If there is a cure for the "murderin' angels" we've not yet found it ... at great cost to humanity. As the lyrics to Peter Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone plead, "Oh, when will you ever learn?"
At the risk of ending on a maudlin note, I'll say that we three Dunkirk Jerks were awed by the beauty of places like Malo-les-Bains and the White Cliffs of Dover; the intelligence and creativity of humans in building instruments of death and destruction that we saw in museums in London, Portsmouth, Dunkirk, Eperlecques, and Paris; and their determination to persevere and rebuild as they have in London, Dover, Dunkirk, and Paris; and to show gratitude and respect for those who made the ultimate sacrifice to bring us peace in Zuydcoote and Dunkirk. But Jerry's ultimate question made us heed Robert E. Lee's paradoxical admonition that "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it." Or as John McCrae reminded us so beautifully in his 1915 poem In Flanders Fields ...
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| Example of the universal embrace of poppies from WWI as memorials to war dead is these in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia |
As I put this entry together, I have decided to add what is essentially a P.S.S. of an appendix by putting together a photographic story of Dunkirk. Look on to that final entry if you're so inclined. And thanks for traveling with us ... which makes you an honorary Jerk!
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| Dunkirk Jerks loitering after 2 intense hours at the Imperial War Museum in London |
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