Sinking The Tirpitz

[poliphilo]

Our friend John was persuaded to talk about his naval service yesterday. (Actually we didn't know he'd been in the war- we didn't think he was that old) and he mumbled something about "D" day and the Tirpitz, then hurried on to the training he did after being demobbed.  Isn't that marvellous? I don't really buy into all that "greatest generation" guff but I love it when a man who was involved in two of the legendary campaigns of the Second World War would rather talk about almost anything else. 



The Tirpitz was the biggest German battleship of World War II. She spent the war holed up in Norwegian ports and- in spite of never actually firing a shot in anger- hobbled the Royal Navy by compelling it to maintain a strong defensive presence in  the North Sea. The British sank her- after many attempts- in November 1944. Nearly a thousand men went down with her.

Comments

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

My grandfather was Airborne in the US Army. I tried more than once to get him to talk about his time in France during the war, and about the only thing he would discuss in detail was that the war ended before he could be deployed to the Far East.

Is it just an inherent difference between that generation and later ones who seem addicted to confessional culture, or something particular to World War II that makes so many who participated in it so reluctant to discuss it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe there was a culture of reticence- a sense of it being "bad form" to talk about experiences that might cast you in a heroic light.