Army Call-up at Last
Exactly one year into WWII, Sept 1940, Morris Hirsch was called-up for basic training. During the initial six months of phoney war he sometimes wondered whether it would be over before he had a chance to be involved.
Exactly one year into WWII, Sept 1940, Morris Hirsch was called-up for basic training. During the initial six months of phoney war he sometimes wondered whether it would be over before he had a chance to be involved.
But Hitler's blitzkrieg rapidly overran the Low Countries and France. In a final desperate bid to forestall the French surrender after the critical withdrawal of British troops from Dunkirk, Churchill offered the French common Anglo-French citizenship.
The battle of Britain in the air was in full swing. Hitler prepared for the invasion of the precious Island that stood alone in the defense of freedom. The Americans, who could stem the tide of tyranny, held smugly aloof in their isolationism that stayed Roosevelt's helping hand.
Everyone understandably wondered whether Britain would succumb and speculated on the unthinkable consequences. The pervading mood was reflected in the historic low levels of share prices on the Stock Exchanges and was echoed in the famous Churchillian speech of fighting on the beaches....from the Commonwealth across the seas...."We will never surrender!" A moving, inspiring clarion call.
Morris doubted not for a second. The abiding strength of freedom and the British people with such a resolute leader could not but prevail. Even at the height of RAF losses his belief was dogma and Morris' confidence untainted. He was frustrated in backing the certainty with share purchases because of lack of funds! He vividly recalled his holding forth in the animated debates in the Officer's Mess at the Sonderwater Medical Corp training camp, when each evening they foregathered to listen to the BBC radio news and the day's tally of aircraft shot down. Stirring, historic, exciting, dangerous times. But they were far from the exposure and could thus afford the luxury of contention, tempered by the consensus of obligation and impatience to get involved.
Now Morris wondered how long the commitment. It was going to be a long haul.
The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.
These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.
Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. It's a roller coaster read.
References:
Excerpt from Dr. Morris Isaac Hirsch's Unpublished Memoirs. Hirsch Archives.
Reference: Front page of The Star newspaper: IBCC Digital Archive, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/19093.