Cut Down
After lunch at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, a bus arrived to drive the Rhodesians selected to attend investiture by the King at Buckingham Palace.
At the Palace Edgar Whitehead persuaded Group Captain Charles Green to tell the King how he was finally captured during the advance across France after the breakout of Normandy.
His fighter aircraft got a direct hit behind the German lines. He made a forced landing in an empty field. Having set fire to the aircraft he looked round for concealment and found a small plane tree in full leaf which he managed to climb. Not far behind the German lines he knew that British tanks were rapidly advancing and had high hopes of escaping capture.
His story continued, "I could hear heavy firing to the West and then a battery of German 88mm anti-tank guns arrived in the field and prepared for action. They were looking for material to camouflage the guns and cut down my little plane tree with me in it."
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:
- Sir Edgar Whitehead's Unpublished Memoirs, Rhodes House, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, by permission.
- Photo Credit: Real History on Line https://www.realhistoryonline.com/ground/artillery/flak88/