50th anniversary of D Day, 1994 - 03 June 1994

As this weekend came on, and all the pride and sadness of commemorating D-Day, I couldn't help wondering if there had been a similar to-do three weeks ago on 12 May. If there were ceremonies in Poland, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa, 12 May 1944 is likely to be in those nations as memorable a day as the following 6 June, it was the beginning of the Italian offensive that pitched General Alexander against Field Marshall Kesselring, but in mentioning it here, I was noticing the part played by those Poles, Canadians, French, Moroccans, Indians, South Africans and New Zealanders in the two armies under Alexander's command.

By the way it strikes me once again, how little notice is ever taken in European and American histories of the wars of this century of New Zealand, which has been there usually the firstest with its mostest in the First World War, the Second, in Korea, Malaysia, in Vietnam. This idea about 12 May occurred to me in watching the parade of television programmes celebrating the famous 6 June. I did so this time with a certain anxiety, which was not pacified after recalling the television celebrations 10 years ago of the 40th anniversary of D-Day. I happen then to see two or three American programmes one French and to be in England for the British commemoration. In all three countries, the impression left wasn't hammered home but it was quietly perhaps even unconsciously pressed into our senses that the invasion of Normandy was touch and go in the beginning, but its success was guaranteed by the incomparable bravery of the French army on French television, of the British on British television of the Americans on American television.

I hasten to dampen a rising chorus of protest by saying it was not quite as gross, as downright as that and I hope I'm not showing my blood strain when I say that nothing I saw anywhere then or now approached for fairness and dramatic interest, the late Huw Weldon's account of the planning of D-Day in which more than any programme I heard or saw he took into account the coordination of the five armies, British, American, Canadian, French and Polish that landed to meet the defending sixth, the Germans.

What I've seen this time has been exclusively American programs, I have the feeling there have been dozens but the four networks, the three commercial and the public television service have I'd say acquitted themselves pretty well, except for leaving the impression that everything happened on Omaha Beach. Elsewhere, due credit was given to the British some to the Canadians; less if any to the free French, nowhere did I see or hear a mention of the Poles. Maybe the local public television stations in Pittsburgh, in parts of New Jersey tried to raise backing for their own shows, I doubt it. This gap struck me most forcibly at our end of Long Island the North Fork where way back at the turn of the century Polish immigrants saw a stretch of sandy potato country that reminded them of home and settled in there and more or less bought out the farms and lands of the old original Yankees.

The parish priest who represented the United States at the installation of the present Pope was the priest in our village from the church of a Polish saint, Our Lady of Ostrabrama. It spoils my story rather when I tell you that his name was the Reverend Patrick O'Reilly, but he spoke Polish.

Well, I wished somebody had asked me to do a D-Day program, it would have been mainly about the Polish contribution to the Normandy invasion. Just think in the first week of September 1939, the Polish army had been destroyed and the human remnants of it scattered and mostly interned in four or five central European countries. As late as 1942, the Polish prisoners that the Russians held, their a pretty feeble ill-fed lot were released and went into Persia, Iran. Somehow, they found their way into the desert war and fought at El Alamein and then in Italy, but there had been in the winter of 1939 a huge stream of over 100,000 Polish refugees padding through the Balkans and on into France.

There were enough soldiers among them of several specialties that unbeknownst to most of us onlookers and warriors alike added to the reserves of the French air force, they formed also a mountain brigade and boosted the French army with three divisions of infantry, but they became like the rest of us victims of the Nazi Blitzkrieg and advance through the Low Countries and on into France. Less than 20,000 of them got across the channel to take refuge in Britain, some grizzled old listeners will undoubtedly remember the Poles in their dashing uniforms, their panache on social occasions, their hair-raising indifference to blood and danger in warlike situations.

Well, it was heartening to have them around in the early 1940s, helped British morale and all that provided a high-spirited buffer to the incoming hoards of sassy Americans, but not much was to expected from them, they'd salvaged pitifully little equipment, the contrast between their fighting demeanour and their obvious lack of arms was of course an embarrassment to the British Army. And the Poles were given the few weapons Britain could spare and posted off to protecting the coast in farthest Scotland.

The American and British command in London certainly admired the spirit of the Poles, but assumed that once more weapons were available they could become a factor as a sort of supplementary infantry – not what they had in mind. To cut the story dramatically but truly short, their commander General Sikorski announced to anybody who'd listen that he was going to form a Polish armoured division. The German radio heard about this absurdity and wondered every night how General Sikorski's tourists were coming along, but Sikorski did it and that armoured division performed superbly.

What I've been saying is that I suppose there's an irrepressible natural urge to praise one's own country at the expense of others; people who think of themselves as remarkably fair minded may bemoan this habit, which is as dependable among nations as town pride is epidemic among soccer and baseball fans. This is not a trivial matter, though the analogies from football and baseball may have led some people to think so. What I'm saying I'm afraid is that chauvinism instinctive patriotism is firmly planted in human nature and all efforts to create a primary continental or regional loyalty let alone world government, sooner or later has to take account of it and not pretend as we've been doing for about 600 years that a new league, a new big alliance, a new United Nations is an advanced in civilisation that will make nationalism, pride of race or country wither away in the dawn of world citizenry.

This tough human fact seems to be to be at the root of our reluctance to undertake joint military missions; I mean the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan into the alarming number of countries that are now racked by civil war. Bosnia – everybody agrees that that has been a disaster as an allied effort. The moment intervention is proposed first the presidents and prime ministers and then the people ask what national interest do we have in this, they don't fear for sending United Nations boys, its American boys, British boys, French boys.

We are now facing in the moment of commemorating the first giant allied step taken to begin the defeat of Hitler, a threat of intransigence or bluff at best, war at worst from North Korea. It is primarily, perhaps I mean theoretically, a threat, a massive insult to the United Nations whose nuclear inspectors have performed every possible minuet of courtesy and protocol to try and preserve some dignity while facing what we used to call a Prussian brutality of refusal.

North Korea, people say, is after all a very small country, true, it has the fourth largest army on earth but of course the dreadful sticking point is its possession and American intelligence is now quite sure of this it's possession of four or five nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them. Everybody from Washington to a mountain village in the Rockies is scared stiff at the thought of an American invasion or a first strike, which could risk a nuclear response, so sanctions always the boon and blessing for people who want to punish an aggressor but don't want to do it by fighting.

The trouble with sanctions – look at Iraq, look at the Serbs – is exactly what it was when the late General Marshall looked at sanctions against the communist government of China, transshipment. The ship's manifest doesn't say these fruits or medicines or weapons are going to Iraq or going to Serbia, they are posted to any country that has trade relations with the people you want to punish.

The weekend, an appeal has gone out to China, Japan, Russia and South Korea join us Westerners to protect our cities and yours from nuclear missiles. I don't know whether North Korea has been put up to this perilous stance by China to see how much paper is built into the American tiger eagle, but China has stalemated us before the game begins by announcing it will veto any resolution in the United Nations to impose sanctions. Any bold and good suggestions you may have for facing the North Korean problem should be sent express to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, the address of the President of the United States.

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