Epilogue – Talking Old Soldiers

Frank Sorensen

Why hello, say can I buy you another glass of beer
Well thanks a lot that’s kind of you, it’s nice to know you care
These days there’s so much going on
No one seems to want to know
I may be just an old soldier to some
But I know how it feels to grow old

Yeah that’s right, you can see me here most every night
You’ll always see me staring at the walls and at the lights
Funny I remember oh it’s years ago I’d say
I’d stand at that bar with my friends who’ve passed away
And drink three times the beer that I can drink today
Yes I know how it feels to grow old

I know what they’re saying son
There goes old man Joe again
Well I may be mad at that I’ve seen enough
To make a man go out his brains
Well do they know what it’s like
To have a graveyard as a friend
`Cause that’s where they are boy, all of them
Don’t seem likely I’ll get friends like that again

Well it’s time I moved off
But it’s been great just listening to you
And I might even see you next time I’m passing through
You’re right there’s so much going on
No one seems to want to know
So keep well, keep well old friend
And have another drink on me
Just ignore all the others you got your memories
You got your memories

Written by Vicki Sorensen

During my adolescence in the 1970’s, my favourite recording artist was Elton John. One song in particular entitled Talking Old Soldiers caught my attention. It seemed to frame the musings and bewilderment I had about my father, a World War II Air Force veteran and prisoner of war.

I knew my father’s struggle with alcoholism was the outcome of his military service, but my understanding was limited. I certainly made no connection between his angry outbursts and wartime trauma, and over the years I came to resent the unpredictability of his mood swings, and the feelings of being let down every time I saw him with a case of beer.

I was fearful of how my father would react if I asked questions about the war, so I just followed what I thought was my parents’ lead. Don’t talk and don’t ask questions about the war. I wanted to play that song, Talking Old Soldiers for my father, but apprehension overrode my wish to reach out. Would he be mad? Would he break down? Would he start drinking? Would he have a nightmare? Then I would have to deal with my mother’s ire for triggering an episode. I had seen a few and didn’t want to be the cause of one.

As a young child, I learned to tread lightly and keep a low profile. One occasion however, poor judgement lured me into sneaking up on my father and scaring him. I got the blast of my life and as I was slinking away to pout, he did something unusual. My father offered an explanation. He asked me to imagine what it would be like to have bombs going off all around you, and once it was over, discovered you had tried to dig a hole in the ground with your bare hands. Lack of knowledge about my father’s war left me wondering how he would have been in a situation to be bombed. A missed opportunity to open Pandora’s Box, but I was only 10.

I thought many times, the song Talking Old Soldiers could be a catalyst. To what, I wasn’t sure. I imagined myself approaching him, asking if he would like to listen to this song. I thought about the lyrics that may ring true for him, as the aging veteran in the song conveys he’s “seen enough to make a man go out his brains” and wonders if “they know what it’s like to have a graveyard as a friend.” He laments about knowing how it feels to grow old and I wondered if my father thought about fallen comrades who did not grow old.

I envisioned my father weeping at the song’s end. “How could you,” I feared he would say. I lacked the courage to be a strong shoulder. Would he have told me about the friends he lost while a prisoner of war after a mass escape attempt from Stalag Luft III. That the anger he wore on his sleeve was a result of the execution of these friends. Perhaps an exposition of painful memories would have also led to an understanding of my father’s aversion to loud noises. Towards the closing stages of the war, POWs were forced to march hundreds of miles west across Germany during the winter and spring. They were targets of friendly fire which included strafing and bombings from the allied Air Force. I can only speculate it was during one of these fly bys my father found himself scrambling in a futile attempt to dig a hole that would offer no protection from the onslaught.

Talking Old Soldiers represents a wasted chance to set right the misunderstandings that marred our relationship. I think about the only Remembrance Day service my father and I attended together, three months before he died. His reticence gave little clue as to what he was thinking, how he was feeling, and I didn’t ask. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I believe my father was simply going through the motions of laying a wreath at the service’s memorial. In his mind’s eye, he was overseas in Poland, laying his wreath at the Memorial to the 50; “In Memory of the Officers Who Gave Their Lives.”

Drawing by Ley Kenyon – September 1944

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Frank Sorensen

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Trafalgar Square in Wartime

Note

Vicki Sorensen shares what her grandfather Marinus Sorensen wrote after the war.

From my window where I worked I looked out over Trafalgar Square. It gave me a kind of box seat to the play “London in the War Years.” From third floor heighth I watched the stream of people down there and from the roof of the Canadian Pacific Building in the watches of the night when the air raid warning sounded I saw death, suffering and destruction rained down over the city. Without realizing what was happening or what was at stake, there from my window I saw glimpses of the Battle of Britain when the few repelled the many and inflicted the first defeat on the German Luftwaffe.

The stream down on the square, its one way traffic comes from Whitehall and The Strand. It passes Canada House corner, the National Gallery into Charing Cross Road or The Strand. Right before me when I looked out was the National Gallery with its domed roof. Over in the corner was St. Martin-in-the Fields. To the left, Canada House, with Canadian Military Headquarters next door, and to the right, South Africa House. Then, if I turned around and looked out to the Admiralty Arch and the Admiralty. Such is the layout of Trafalgar Square. In the centre is the monument. The Nelson Column towers up and is like a beacon to the stranger; a landmark to help you spot your bearings. More soldiers have been photographed by the lion, grouped around the column than anywhere else. The whole American army was there – and Canadians too. Or the photographer would put a few grains of corn in their hands and took them while the pigeons were sitting on their outstretched arm. A much favoured position for photos. Weather would have to be very bad if the pigeons and the photographer could not gather a ring of onlookers.

Trafalgar Square was truly the hub of the Empire. Yes, more than that, the centre of the world. Here, commences Whitehall with its many historical buildings. From the Nelson Column to Big Ben with side streets like Scotland Yard and Downing Street. I blew in from Petsamo in the Artic in June 1940 and was there until 1946. Thus, I had a fine observation post during the war. For if you cannot be with your own, where would be a better and more interesting place than London. I was there when the bells were silenced when they became bells of warning to tell us that the enemy was invading the land. I was there too when that danger was over and they could ring joy and relief and thankfulness over the land. We heard them often from St. Martin’s. Perhaps you would see a crowd on the steps to the church waiting to see the bridal couple. But that would also change to a different mood when sorrow had its hour. As when the 50 Airmen from Stalag Luft III were murdered. Stalag Luft III where my own boy, if all was well was imprisoned. All was well, and he’s back again.

For the greater number of people who come to it, St. Martin’s is for moments of meditation and prayer. It’s a week day church, it’s on a busy thoroughfare and during the war years its crypt was used as a lunch canteen. Church services are not only hymns and rituals and preaching, it’s also the good we can do to help. The help we can give our neighbour, the improvement that we can bring into our community. “Love a neighbour” had good soil in England during the war. In our danger it grew whether it was implemented by the authorities or it was service my neighbour rendered me.

Well do I remember St. Martin’s on D-Day? For years had we seen the preparations and long had we waited for the day? Now it was as if everything was at stake. The great concentration of our strengths which was to be the beginning of the end. The end that would bring relief to suffering millions. The end that would set prisoners free and unite families again. We were told that all was well but it was a solemn gathering at the church. It was as if people understood one another so well. Your son and my boys – are they not there. When they were born it was a gift of God. There for the good fight and its well that a day like this we should come here in humble prayer for our country’s cause and for them. That day short services were held in factories and places of work and in all the churches of the land. It was all prepared beforehand. Only the date was unknown. And when victory and peace came did we give thanks and praise as fervently as we prayed? I think so.

As clouds continually change the picture of the sky, so with Trafalgar Square the frame and the setting is the same but life is changing. New people move in on the stage continually. London was not only the capital of England and a centre of the empire, it was headquarters for the free world and the hope of the oppressed was ever focused on London. Here on Trafalgar Square was reflected the help that came. The Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, the forces of New Zealand, India and Newfoundland. There was not a colony so small that it was not there. Even St. Helena and lonely Tristan da Cunha sent their young men, and there were the soldiers from France, Norway, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Yugoslavia and even from my own native Denmark. London was a milestone on their way and Trafalgar Square was the rendezvous for friends.

Here from my window was much to see. Processions, parades and demonstrations. Soldiers on their way to the front, soldiers coming on leave. From Trafalgar Square the great war loans were launched with many speeches and much display. The war had taught people to queue and they even learned to queue for war loans. My impressions of Trafalgar Square are many and varied. But strongest perhaps is the impression of a tall young man in civilian dress with a raincoat over his shoulder in a manner of the navy. It was clear that he must be a naval officer. From Monday to Saturday of one week he came at a quarter to eleven, kneeled at a column, the Nelson Column and when Big Ben struck eleven, he rose and walked away. This was in the darkest hours of the war. Did he come to the Nelson Memorial for inspiration, to dedicate himself to a task allotted to him? I believe so, and I thought well fought country with such warriors.

All poets have been prophets. In Milton, Shakespeare, Blake, Shelley, Tennyson and many others we have evidence of their preview of things to come. But Victor Hugo had also visions of England. He’s alleged to have written the following in his exile in the Channel Islands:

“Over that sea in calm majesty lies the proud island whose existence consoles me for a thousand continental crimes and vindicates for me the goodness of Providence. Yes, yes, proud Britain, thou art justly proud of thy colossal strength – more justly of thy God-like repose. Stretched upon the rock – but not like Prometheus and with no evil bird to rend thy side rests the genius of Britain. He waits his hour but counts not the hours between. He knows it’s rolling up through the mystic hand of destiny. Dare I murmur that the mists will clear for me, that I shall hear the rumbling wheels of a chariot of the hour of Britain. It will come – it’s coming – it has come! The whole world, aroused as if by some mighty galvanism, suddenly raises a wild cry of love and admiration, and throws itself into the bounteous bosom of Britain. Henceforth there are no nations, no people, but one and indivisible will be the world, and the world will be one Britain. Her virtue and her patience have triumphed. The lamp of her faith, kindled at the apostolic altars, burns as a beacon to mankind. Her example has regenerated the erring, her mildness has rebuked the rebellious, and her gentleness has enchanted the good. Her type and her temple shall be the Mecca and Jerusalem of a renewed universe.”

What a glorious vision. I could end with nothing better.

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Chapter Forty-Three – 23 September, 1945 – On Leave

Foreword written by Vicki Sorensen

My father, Frank Sorensen, immigrated to Canada from Roskilde, Denmark with his family in August 1939. He volunteered in the Royal Canadian Air Force in March 1941 and trained to become a Spitfire fighter pilot. He was shot down while serving with RAF 232 Squadron, over Tunisia, in North Africa on April 11, 1943 and became a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III. He was an active participant in the tunnel digging operations that was later known as The Great Escape.

After my father’s death February 5th, 2010, when he was 87, I came into possession of letters written by him to his parents during the war that they had saved and given back to him. Along with the letters were numerous photos and service record documents. There were 174 letters in total which start from C.O.T.C., 1940, #1 Manning Depot, #3 Initial Flying Training School, #2 Elementary Flying Training School, #11 Service Flying Training School; all in Canada in 1941 to #17 A.F.U. (Advanced Flying Unit) and #53 O.T.U. (Operational Training Unit) in England in 1942. Then, his service from 1942 in RCAF 403 Squadron, in England, transferring to RAF 232 Squadron in Scotland, then to North Africa. Numerous letters are from 1943 and 1944 from Stalag Luft III, and then a handful from 1945. There were only two short letters from the long march from Sagan to Lubeck – one in March letting his parents know he was still all right, and one in May when they had just been liberated.

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September 23, 1945

On Leave

384 Earl Street, Kingston, Ontario

Dear Lilian and Dad;

As you see I’m still hanging around, waiting. After my 42 days leave I reported to Toronto. They could do nothing for us then so they told us to wait, to go home if we wished and wait for a recall. This I did and the 17.9 I reported again. I got cleared from Toronto (2 hours work running about getting signatures) and was posted to Lachine September 28 for medical and dental examination and the final discharge or in my case retirement, as they put it. I don’t think I’ll make university or college in any way or form this autumn and besides I’d like to go out and do a bit of rough work for a change. I discovered the other day that I’m entitled to both university education and the privilege of borrowing $6000 for either full time farming or a small holding in the outskirts of a town. The provisions laid down in the small holdings act state that you must have a good job and a steady income before they’ll grant you the loan. $2300 of it is written off by the government over a period of 10 or 25 years and you only pay back to the remaining $3700.

So if I take a BSA at O.A.C. (Ontario Agricultural College) and discover that I have no desire to enter industry or civil service, well then I can still take out the $6000 and start farming with a capital of $16,000. With an education and practical experience and $16,000 any fool could make good.

Talking to Mr. Wolff, he mentioned the fact that he was getting tired of playing about with bulls, boars and stallions (he’s in charge of artificial insemination at O.A.C.) and his ambition was to go farming for himself.

Regarding this small holding if one is not compelled to live on the place or if one could get around that somehow or even if I find that I would be living on this small holding we might be able to make something of it sometime in the not too distant future. Just a suggestion you know, worth considering when time comes.

I have collected all the unserviceable clocks in the house and got them going. The total of 6 alarm clocks are lined up on my table all ticking merrily some working over time and others working under time. I’m regulating them with the aid of my Omega wrist watch. Remember the little red alarm clock one I won in Roskilde 12-13 years ago, well she’s still doing fine.

So glad you like the leather bag. I couldn’t help stroking the leather myself. You didn’t mention the tobacco but I suppose it got through. I have plenty of it here which I bought on the boat. Reading through Lilian’s letter I noticed that you had mentioned the tobacco.

Dad’s of September 8th arrived today September 24. Yes my kit bag arrived alright. I inquired about it at Lachine and found that they had sent it on to Brome and the Brome people had sent it back to Kingston. The picture posts and Listener also arrived.

I wrote to Bedstemor yesterday. Must write to Holmgren too. I wonder how I could pay him back for those pots and pans he sent me.

Nothing has been received from Eric for some time. It’s about time he got out of that Kriegy mood. After all – he’s on the free side of the fence, I did tell him not to let the wire get him down. I don’t blame him – I guess I’d be good and truly browned off if I were in his shoes. One gets to the stage when one has omitted writing for so long that a long newsy letter is the only answer, but then one sits down to write that long newsy letter only to find its hopeless – one finds nothing interesting at all to write about. Yes I know how he feels I think I’ll let Mother finish this off.

Love to you both, Frank

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September 30, 1945

On Leave

384 Earl Street, Kingston, Ontario

Dear Lilian and Dad;

I couldn’t think of a better way to inaugurate this room and study table than writing to you and telling you the news that I managed to enter Queen’s this autumn.

Because of the slight possibility of getting discharged before the fall term began, I had almost given up the idea of studying this winter. But when I finally got a date fixed with the discharge centre at Lachine for September 28, I decided to hand in my application for the pre-science course which is the first year combined arts and applied science course. I was accepted – reported at Lachine with a letter stating that I had been accepted at Queen’s, but all I found out there was that my documents had not arrived from Toronto. They told me to go back and start at Queen’s and they would wire me when they were ready for me.

So tomorrow October 1st I register and October 3rd I start taking lectures. Though I’ll miss 3 or 4 day lectures when I report, I can’t kick really after all – my fees are being paid, I get $60 a month while attending Queen’s and until I report I’m still drawing $8.50 a day. That’s not bad pay for going to a university. I could stand that all my life – right now I don’t mind if they do lose my documents and don’t find them till Christmas.

This first year arts is the course I should have taken the first time instead of first year Science. I applied for entry at O.A.C. (Ontario Agricultural College) but I never had a reply. Maybe they were filled up. At the end of a successful year I’ll have made up my mind whether I want to continue at Queen’s or go to O.A.C. If I don’t pass this year, which is equivalent to Dennis’s senior matric, I reckon that I just don’t deserve an education. It should be easy enough. Much easier than first year science. The math is more elementary, Chemistry and Physics is the same I think and so is English but I don’t have Surveying or Drafting, nor do I have to waste my time at C.O.T.C. and last but not least – I’m nearly 5 years older – what am I talking about, I am 5 years older. Gosh I feel ancient again. 5 years, I don’t believe it. I’ll go and ask Mother if I’m counting right. Yes, 5 years it is.

I was just trying to encourage Wilfred to learn Danish. He only understands a couple of sentences that’s all. I believe he’ll try.

Well Eric’s cheque came yesterday so he is still alive. I guess he lives from one drunk to the next. Can’t say that I blame him; but even in my worst periods of depression in Kriegy camp I never let a month go by without writing. Eric just couldn’t be more brassed off than I was so I don’t quite understand what’s wrong with him.

Today, October 1st, I registered at Queen’s’ spent most of the day at it. It was typical Kingston weather too, pouring with rain. I’m glad that I don’t have to go out looking for a room for there is such a shortage of rooms now that they are using RMC, the local aluminium plant, and the air force station as temporary arrangements for students. A number of women students have had to return home because they could find no rooms.

I bought all my books second hand from an ex-serviceman who was washed out from 1st year arts summer course. I paid $8.25 for them. Buying them new I might have paid $25 to $30 for them.

Your letters telling about Mrs. Stenstrup arrived today, October 2.

Lectures begin October 4 and I still have had no recall to Lachine.

Today is October 6th. Have spent a great deal of time at my desk brushing up on elementary math, etc. When I began studying I said as a joke that the kids would have to help me along, but tonight I found out that the joke was not so funny after all; for I took a very elementary math problem to one of the 1st year science students downstairs, but he couldn’t do it either so I remembered the joke, went downstairs to IE. She said “Why that’s easy enough” and it was, after I had it explained to me. I must have done it sometime years ago, but I can’t remember even having seen a problem like it before. Yes it’s going to be tough, but I’m fairly tough myself now. Studying is nothing to me anymore; I can sit at my desk all day long studying. If I don’t make it this time, it won’t be for lack of work.

Wif is making a perpetual motion affair, and he spends all day next door bedroom, trying to make it go. The principle of his discovery is Haar rørs virkning*. I have forgotten the English term. Well, through very thin glass tubes which he draws out himself, water is sucked up to such a level that a bent glass pipe siphons the elevated water back where it came from. He has thought it out well and thoroughly, he has even taken into consideration that the water will evaporate by placing it in an airtight container. However it is still in the experimental stage but I’ll keep you posted on any further developments that “may” take place.

For exercise I do some swimming and I have started throwing the discus about again. The University record for discus is 109.7 feet and in Kriegy camp I used to throw around 100 feet so I see no reason why I should not try to improve the record, if not this year then later. Makes life more interesting. I wonder what I can do with a javelin. I’m a little light for shot put. The gym, has not opened yet so I have not been up there yet.

I’ll let this go now. Hope Lilian can get pensioned off at 55. I’ll just have taken my degree by then.

Love to you both, Frank

*hair tube effect is direct translation – he is meaning capillary action

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