We walked up the grass walkways onto to ramparts, silently absorbing the rather eery scene. Couples or small groups hardly saying a word or just whispering, some taking a few photos, others deep in their own thoughts in total respect for those fallen servicemen and women. The sun started to break through about lunchtime bringing out the shadows for each Giant, and adding to the poignancy of the occasion, as these men and the few women are but a shadow of those who started out on the ‘Longest Day’ 80 years ago.The Giants glinted in the sunshine as they swayed changing colour between a rich black to a whitish ghostly grey, all adding to the surrealism of the occasion.
Having been fortunate to attend the main RBL D-Day celebration at Vers sur Mer overlooking Gold Beach on the actual 80th anniversary last year, the contrast between that and last week was substantial. That event with all the dignitaries, set overlooking the actual battleground and seashore set in lovely sunshine was a mixture of celebration of the actual 80th anniversary and a national tribute to those who fought. To honour the ones who didn’t return with all the publicity and media commensurate with a national event as the few remaining D-Day veterans were honoured. In contrast, at Fort Nelson on that bleak and blustery day last week, members of the general public visited the Giants without any ceremony encapsulated in their own thoughts to pay their own personal respects to those who fell on that important day. But at both events, the focus was on the men and women who didn’t return home, to those who fought and survived and for the country they liberated and for the freedoms we now treasure today. Each individual who was killed that day was a special person to someone back home. A father, a mother, brother or sister, a wife, husband or fiancé or a good friend. Someone who was greatly loved and sorely missed. They made that ultimate sacrifice. As the moving Kohima Epitaph says
When you go home, tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow, we gave our today
Eighty years on, the Giants at Fort Nelson (and wherever they appear next) pay huge tribute to those who did not come home and their comrades who did, often with the guilt of having survived.
We headed home to Devon with the temperature dropping, the Giants glinting in the lowering sun, still standing upright and proud. A most thought provoking and emotional day.
Andy Cockeram
Chairman, British Modern Military History Society
Andy is also a Poppy Appeal Organiser for Colyton, Devon