Wright Chat

In commemorating the WW II event known as D-Day, tomorrow, and looking (improbably ?) for an architectural connection, I am taken back to WW I and historian Vincent Scully's experience in visiting a war memorial site elsewhere in France.

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If one is in a teary state while observing the reports on this week's events---and wants to remain in that tender state for a bit longer---Scully's words could accomplish the feat. "It is not to be borne . . ."

I apologize to those for whom death in the service of country is not "wasted"; that's Scully's take on the issue and, I admit, mine as well. Either way, the view of the Thiepval structure as a mute beast---or, rather, a screaming one---may be a revelation worthy of note for some, as it was for me.

S

For anyone interested, an excellent DVD showing what took place prior to and during D-Day (Operation Overlord) is D-Day: The Lost Evidence.

And, for one that shows more of the personal side of what the soldiers had to go through, I can highly recommend Day of Days: June 6 1944 - American Soldiers.


David

John Geiger's brother was in the thick of it on D-Day. At 20, Dudley Geiger was drafted and sent to parachute training. But D-Day interrupted before he could jump. He was sent to the front lines without a single jump to his credit. Come time, in the dark of a moonless night, Dudley jumped blind and landed in a treetop behind enemy lines with his chute entangled in branches. He hung there, helpless, throughout the night until daybreak when he was taken down by German soldiers and sent to spend the remainder of the war in a POW camp. He was rescued by Russian soldiers. The experience was so traumatizing that, though he was not injured at all, he lost every hair on his body. He has never spoken of the ordeal.