Showing posts with label POW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label POW. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2013

POW......

My Dad was a prisoner of war in Japan during WW2. He was taken when Singapore fell and spent the duration of the war in camps in Japan.
My mother did not know for two years if he was alive or dead. They married just before the war, knowing it was coming. He was at that time in the Territorial Army in England. A volunteer. Once they were able to send things out to the prisoners, probably via Red Cross she would send him little poems that he enjoyed by Patience Strong.
I was cleaning the other day and opened a drawer and found them. I thought I would share some of them now and then. Patience Strong wrote simple poems, and during war time they were to cheer people. Like Vera Lynn did with her songs.
There was a "Quiet Corner" in the local paper and mum collected some of the poems from there
eng

The Island of the Free
On windless days the gentle wavelets lap the shores of home.
Breaking softly on the beach in little frills of foam.
Can this be the same great ocean broad and deep and wide,
That bears the mighty ships of war upon its rolling tide.
So full of peace it is today - the waves upon the sand,
Linger here as if they loved the feel of this dear land.
Kind the sea has been to us - has shaped our destiny.
Has sheltered us and made us now the island of the free
By...............Patience Strong. (wartime)