(d. )
My father, Andrew Jeffrey Evinou, died on in October 2006 at age 86. He carried with him to his grave, all of his sad, unspoken memories of the six years he was involved in the horrors of World War 2.
The little that we do know, we found out in the last ten years of my father's life, when we were able to get him to open up a little. I am convinced that my father suffered, during all of his post war years, from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. After that war, soldiers were expected to go home and get back to work. There was no help for the psychological problems of the returning soldiers.
Andrew joined the army in 1938 at age eighteen. He went to war in 1939 when he was sent to France. He was one of the British troops who was rescued off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. While he went below deck on the rescue ship, Messerschmitz planes riddled the deck where he had been sitting. Many men returning home, were killed on the deck. When the ship arrived in Dover, England, my dad had to lift his rucksack, from under the bloody head of a dead, young soldier.
After a brief leave of absence, three days I believe, Andrew's regiment was sent to North Africa, as part of the Expeditionary Army. My dad was captured in the Battle of Tobruk, June 1942, when the tank he was driving took a hit. The shrapnel from that hit almost blew dad's finger off. He eventually had it removed after the war.
Dad, like most of his regiment who survived, was taken prisoner by the Italians. He was handed over to the Germans when Italy capitulated and was a POW at Stalag V111B. He worked for fourteen hours a day, in the German Mines. He took part in the Death March at the end of the war.
When he got home, Andrew weighed less than a hundred pounds. The rest of his life and his family's, was affected by his experiences in the war. He was a good husband and father, never violent, never drunk, never swore. But he displayed most of the nervous symptoms of PTSD in non-violent ways.
Dad like all of the WW2 Veterans, sacrificed his youth, from eighteen to twenty six, in the service of his country. He lost so much more than that. We never should be allowed to forget what our soldiers have suffered in the name of peace, so that we didn't have to.
I salute my Dad and all like him. I am his proud daughter.
Lest We Forget.
