BYRON BYTES IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER EBEN GRIFFITH JONES

Family & Literary Heritage

I must thank my father and his family for my genetic literary genes.

Dad was a sergeant in the Glider Pilot Regiment and fought at the Battle of Arnhem in 1944 during the Second World War.

Sergeant – Glider Pilot Regiment

A Fleet Street, London journalist and special correspondent – EGJ, along with two colleagues, introduced talking newspapers to the blind. Seen today as a precursor for audible books and meta-AI!

I always wish that I had spoken with my father about his wartime experiences – but it struck me that this was not perhaps a subject upon which he wished to dwell.

Now I have a unique opportunity to identify with my father as a member of that Glider Pilot Regiment and spend a few moments with him in calm contemplation.

Every year my father joined the pilgrimage to Arnhem to celebrate Operation Market Garden. The British operation was famous for the heroic but doomed stand of the 1^st Airborne Division – a ‘Bridge Too Far’.

Now I can share with you the poem that my father wrote –

THE DAWN OF “D” DAY —

June 6th, 1944.

(Dedicated to the Glider Pilots and

We watched them climb from

England’s soil

Into gaunt aircraft laden high;

Here was the climax to their toil,

To guide massed Gliders thro’ a

heavy sky.

A trifle grim of mien they looked,

Maybe,

But for the most their hearts were

Proud and gay;

For was not this the dawn of

Destiny,

The birth, at last, of their “D”

Day?

They counted not the hazards yet

To come;

High honour theirs — the first of a

Crusade

To wipe out four year scores with

Hated Hun,

Then free the world from an

accurs’d bondage!

Their faces darkened…hiding lines

we know

Withheld from view all fleeting,

silent fears;

“God speed” we prayed, “to the

first gallant few

Who yet may have to face their

vale of tears.”

The other precious lives we men-

tioned too—

The leaders brave, so dignified and

Trim;

Those human cargoes who would

battle through—

Softly we whispered all the Roll,

To Him.

And lo, as if in answer to our

Prayers

The Moon, so long obscured from

View,

Shone brightly thro’ the cloud to

Mingle with the flares

As if to guide each gallant chose

( plane ? )

They took their leave, and headed

For the coast

To come to earth in not far distant

Normandy.

Smiling sublimely as they went,

Yet without boast

Their confidence proclaiming

“FINAL VICTORY.”

E.G.J.

 

  In memory of a Glider Pilot – and a proud son.





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