Thanks From England

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As an island we were hard pressed, very little food was getting in by convoys and the nightly bombings were fraying us round the edges. Then the Yanks arrived.

I was 18, and my head was full of the glamorous lifestyle of America as portrayed by the films of that time. Lo and behold, after the soldiers arrived, I discovered that the American soldiers and airmen were vulnerable young men only too happy to sit around an English fireplace with the natives. My widowed mother was wonderful to anyone I brought home, and the rule of the house was that I could date anyone I pleased, providing Mum had vetted them first. With that in mind, the guest was made welcome and our pathetic rations shared. Along came your chaps, and their generosity knew no bounds–tins of butter, bacon, Spam, fruit, chocolate and cigarettes. The initials PX became a lifesaver.

I was a civil servant in those days, working on a telephone switchboard linked with military units, and I remember one Christmas Day when I was on duty talking to a soldier who sounded desperately lonely. He was stationed at Yoxhill, in Lincolnshire, and had come over the River Humber by ferry to enjoy the festivities in the city of Hull. Alas, there was nothing going on, so I invited him to share our Christmas dinner. There was a pause, and then this cultured voice like deep velvet said, “Ma-am, I would love to, but you must be told that I am black.” Color didn’t matter to us; he came and we had a wonderful time. The elderly friends who also shared our Christmas were enchanted by this 6-foot-2-inch gentle giant. He even enjoyed an English cup of tea, or at least said he did! Where are they all now, I wonder? Bob Lobeager from Chicago, Jimmy Binkmeyer from New York and Vincent Coyle from one of the Middle States, all would be in their late 70s. Thanks to you all for bringing light, gaiety, food and fun into our narrow, restricted lives.

My only brother was abroad in the army for five years during the war, and he served alongside Americans in Sicily and Italy. Like me, he has only happy memories of the comradeship he shared with our most welcome allies.

Billie Lee
East Yorkshire, England

New Windows for Remy

I am writing to update you on the latest developments involving the raid on Remy, France, on August 2, 1944, as reported in my story “Mustang Attack,” which appeared in the September 1998 issue of World War II Magazine (”Perspectives”).

The target of the attack, a camouflaged German train in the Remy siding, was strafed by P-51s of the 383rd Fighter Squadron when it unexpectedly exploded, killing pilot Lieutenant Houston Braly of Texas, some 400 Germans and one Remy civilian and damaging or destroying most of the town’s buildings. Two citizens, François and Maria Schouppe, who were then teenagers, took Braly’s body from his wrecked plane and hid it from the Germans. His sacrifice so moved the town’s residents that they had a funeral for him, buried him in the town cemetery and heaped mounds of flowers on his grave, even though the German commandant had promised to arrest and deport them.

The explosion also claimed the lovely stained-glass windows in the town’s 700-year-old Church of St. Denis. Clear glass panes replaced them because Remy could not afford new ones of stained glass.

On July 28-30 of last year, members of the 383rd Fighter Squadron returned to Remy for a weekend of joyous and solemn celebrations as new stained-glass windows, paid for by the squadron’s “Windows for Remy” foundation, were dedicated.

“We founded the organization at our fiftieth reunion to repay the citizens for the care and respect they showed Braly at great risk to themselves, and as our appreciation for the bravery of the various underground resistance groups throughout Europe who put themselves in such danger to hide and smuggle our downed pilots back to freedom,” said Gordon McCoy, a pilot on the Remy mission and a Windows for Remy board member.

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