Oldman - Thank you for your good wishes and for better weather in any forthcoming visit - my main point in returning - was not to visit the battlefields but to say a last good-bye to my old friends of those days of trauma - as it is with a deterioration in health as becomes an 86 year old I may still have the strength to complete my task and shall make a decision after Christmas on a May visit when the ground has dried up again and the sun will beat down on my back - but this time I shall start at Cesena and work backwards to Gradara then to Ancona for the return trip.....and I shall publish my diary of the trip for all to understand... Cheers
Oldman as a PS to my last posting - while I was wandering about Coriano Ridge - a tourist bus drew up and disgorged some tourists - one of whom, a young woman never spoke but looked up the grave details - went to one and stood a long time - then returned to the bus - two other vets and their wives - carried poppy wreaths which they placed on the cross of sacrifice and we all said a few prayers - one chap was a member of the Argyllls and #2 Commando- whose battalion had been active at Lago Commachio - the other was a member of the 56th Division which had taken such a beating at Gemmano and Croce on the Ridge - then we started telling jokes - of all things - in the middle of a 2000 grave cemetery - about some of the funny things which happen in battle - perfectly natural to Veterans and not a bit odd to us ! Cheers
Tom That is what being a veteran is about, the wonderful comradship of your fellow veterans and your "gallows humour" being able to see the funny side in the midst of death and chaos. May 2004 comming back from Sorrento at Naples airport joined up with the Manchester branch of the Monte Cassino Veterans who had been out for the sixty year celerbrations/rememberance they took the waiting chearfully enough and started telling stories that had my wife myself and several others in fits of laughter, the security people actually came accross to see what the fuss was about. Six years on I still feel privaliged to have been lucky enough to have spent an hour in their company it was great.
