Walterp
Member
- Location
- Pembrokeshire
A view oft-expressed by British farmers of a certain age - notably those too young to have actually fought in the last one, which cast enduring attitudes across the most war-torn continent on the planet.
It's easy to forget that old guys spouting such rubbish are invariably too young to have actually flown sorties in 1940 (a handful of embittered Polish RAF pilots claiming 20% of all 'kills' during those epoch-altering aerial dogfights) or slogged across France to get themselves killed under Montgomery.
In my youth, the farmers who fought in the war never suggested such a stupid idea, but kept quiet about it - one old guy I knew never revealed that he had won a medal in Normandy, it coming out 50 years later, in his obituary. This might have had something to do with what he had had to do to earn it - he shinned up a tree and, while under continuous fire, shot dead a whole German machine-gun crew that was pinning down his patrol.
Instead, I hear farmers who refused to join the Home Guard ('I haven't got time for that nonsense') and used conscription exemptions to pressure their equally-unheroic sons into doing as they were told or else 'I'll report you as sacked to the War Department - that'll sort you out.'
After that war was over, National Service carried on for another 20 years - plenty of time for the spouters to have joined up and did their bit in better-timed wars in Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Aden, Palestine, etc, as they are keen to recommend for youngsters these days. But there was another draft exemption for farming - and a surprising number of farmers' sons never volunteered.
So next time you hear some old guy claiming that a stint in the Army - or an actual war - would do everyone a power of good, just ask them what they did in the last one.
It's easy to forget that old guys spouting such rubbish are invariably too young to have actually flown sorties in 1940 (a handful of embittered Polish RAF pilots claiming 20% of all 'kills' during those epoch-altering aerial dogfights) or slogged across France to get themselves killed under Montgomery.
In my youth, the farmers who fought in the war never suggested such a stupid idea, but kept quiet about it - one old guy I knew never revealed that he had won a medal in Normandy, it coming out 50 years later, in his obituary. This might have had something to do with what he had had to do to earn it - he shinned up a tree and, while under continuous fire, shot dead a whole German machine-gun crew that was pinning down his patrol.
Instead, I hear farmers who refused to join the Home Guard ('I haven't got time for that nonsense') and used conscription exemptions to pressure their equally-unheroic sons into doing as they were told or else 'I'll report you as sacked to the War Department - that'll sort you out.'
After that war was over, National Service carried on for another 20 years - plenty of time for the spouters to have joined up and did their bit in better-timed wars in Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Aden, Palestine, etc, as they are keen to recommend for youngsters these days. But there was another draft exemption for farming - and a surprising number of farmers' sons never volunteered.
So next time you hear some old guy claiming that a stint in the Army - or an actual war - would do everyone a power of good, just ask them what they did in the last one.