Lidice poem - Cecil Day Lewis

                                                     Lidice  Massacre 

                                           

                                       
                                           Memorial to the children of Lidice in the park in front of the museum
                                           Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
                                     
                                           'Lidice'
                                          

                                        Not a grave of the murdered for freedom 
                                       but grows seed for freedom- Walt Whitman         


                                    " Cry to us ,murdered village while you grieve
                                     Ashes raw on history makes us understand
                                    What freedom asks of us . Strengthen our hands
                                    Against the arrogant dogmas that deprave
                                    And have no proof but death as their command

                                   Must the innocent blood for ever to remedy
                                   These fantastic fits that tear mankind apart?
                                   The pangs we felt from you atrocious hurt
                                   Promise a time when even the killer shall see
                                   His sword is aimed at his own naked heart."
                               
                                  Cecil Day Lewis-  From his  collection, 'Word All Over'  1943.

C. (Cecil)  Day Lewis ( 1904-1972) was one of the leading poets of the 'Auden' generation of the 1930's. Born in Ireland, Lewis studied at Oxford University. Served in the Home Guard, and worked in the Ministry of Information during World War 2. Later to become a professor of poetry at Oxford from 1951-1956, and a writer of detective stories. C. Day-Lewis was also Poet Laureate from 1968-1972.

   A small collection of his work was published in 1941 under the title 'Where are the War Poets'? This was expanded for a revised volume of his poetry as 'Word All Over' and published in 1943.

His work has not really remained in favour compared with some of his associates such as W H Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Sir Stephen Spender.  I can't find any collection of his work that was published after 1982. Few of Day-Lewis' poems have made it into World War 2 poetry anthologies. His most famous poem is probably 'Stand To', about his experiences in the Home Guard.

In December 1941, two Czech agents Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabiek, who were serving with Polish forces in Britain, were parachuted into Czechoslovakia. Their mission was to assassinate Heydrich, the SS commander of  Bohemia and Moravia. The Allies including the Czech government in exile- were aware of the risk of reprisals but decided that Heydrich was simply too dangerous to be allowed to live. He was deemed to be particularly brutal even by Nazi standards, and one theory is that he was due to be dispatched to France, where he could have caused major damage to the Resistance there.  On 27th May 1942,  , the agents,who had managed to remain in hiding , attacked as Heydrich was being driven down a quiet street in Prague, following his usual routine from his villa to Prague castle, in an open top car.

The agents struck with a sten gun- that jammed-  and  hurled an anti tank grenade at the car, Heydrich was wounded  and initially survived, but  died in hospital on 4th June 1942 . Particles from the vehicle and various other fragments had contaminated his wounds.

Round up of alleged Czech resistance fighter began. Dozens died under SS interrogation, hundreds of people already in prison , both Jewish and Czech were executed. A particular example was made of Lidice , a village some twenty kilometres from Prague.

On 10th June 1942, the village was surrounded. Some accounts state that the SS took control, other that Czech police conducted the operation . All the women and children were taken to Kladno, where they were separated. 184 women were taken to Ravensbruk concentration camp, the  80 children to Lodz. Some of the children were taken to live with German families and to become 'Germanified', the rest were gassed at Chelmno Upon Nerr in Poland.  173 men -including youths as young as 16 were executed at the village.. The settlement was burnt, and its ruins bulldozed.  The Germans brazenly announced the massacre to the world via a radio broadcast on 10th June 1942- even filmed the atrocity - and this was to become document 379 at the Nuremberg trial in 1945.

The Czech government in exile in London denounced the atrocity, along with Winston Churchill. A 'Lidice Shall Live' movement was launched in September 1942 in Stoke Upon Trent led by local MP Barnett Stross, with a great deal of support from Staffordshire miners.

The British authorities staged a film titled 'The Silent Village' (1943)  , seeking the help of the South Wales Miners Federation, and the'  people of the Swansea and Dulais valleys' . Parallels were drawn due to the fact that Lidice was partly a mining community.  The village of Cwmgiedd was chosen for a filmed re-enactment.

The Frtiz Lang/Bertold Brecht movie, 'Hangmen Also Died from 1943, has been the first in a whole series of films about the assassination of Heydrich. Heydrich was the most senior Nazi to have been assassinated. The question of whether killing one mass murderer , knowing that the short term consequence would be savage reprisal, but saving more lives in the longer term, is one of the toughest moral dilemmas going.

Cecil Day Lewis poem is short, not particular complex or obscure. And virtually forgotten. The Lidice massacre is now  largely remembered by films, starting as mentioned in 1943, ranging through to the Czech language film 'Atentat' ( 'Assassionation') from 1964, 'Operation Daybreak' (1975), 'Operation Anthropoid ' ( 2016), 'HHhH' (2017). However in the 1940's , poetry were written about the Lidice atrocity ......and the next blog post will look at other poetry.

Links

Radio Prague page on the 'Literary legacy of Lidice'     Very useful page

Lidice memorial    website maintained by the Cultural Ministry of the Czech Republic

Youtube

Lidice -A Light Across the Sea    ( Excellent documentary about the 'Licide Shall Live' campaign from                                                       Staffordshire)

The Silent Village                         ( 1943 film from Britain )


I wish to thank all fellow members of the World War II Forums who posted on the recent 'Lidice' discussion thread.
                                   

Holocaust Diary of Renia Spiegel

                  'Think Tomorrow We Might Not Be' -Renia Spiegel

                           

                                                Soviet soldiers during the 1939 invasion of Poland
                                                courtesy, Wikimedia Commons

                             

                              Think tomorrow we might not be 

                              A cold,steel knife 

                              Will slide between us, you see 

                              But today there is still time for life 

                              Tomorrow the sun might be eclipsed 

                              Bullets might crack and rip 

                              And howl, pavements awash

                              With blood, with dirty, stinky slag,pigwash

                              Today you are alive 

                              There is still time to survive

                              Let's blend our blood

                              When the song still moves ahead

                              The song of the wild and furious flood

                              Brought by the living dead 

                              my every muscle trembles 

                             My body for your closeness fumbles    

                             It's supposed to be a throttling game, this is 

                            Not enough eternity for all the kisses

Translated from Polish by Anna Hide and Marta Dzuirosz, taken from Renia Spiegel's diary: Originally published in   'Smithsonian' magazine feature The Long-Lost Holocaust Diary of Renia Spiegel

                              

              

The above lines are from a diary that began on 31st January 1939, and written by a seventeen year old Jewish Polish girl by the name of Renia Spiegel on 7th June 1942 .

When the Germans invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, Renia was living with her grandparents at Przemzyl , 150 miles east from Krakow. Her mother was living in Warsaw, the whereabouts of the father was not know. Her younger sister Ariana was visiting Przemzyl. As the Germans attacked , the Russians moved into occupy the eastern part of Poland, including Premzyl. In June 1941, the rest of Poland fell to the Germans. In June 1942, Renia became romantically involved with a Jewish boy called Zygmunt Schwarzer, who had connections with the resistance. In July 1942, the ghetto at Premzyl was established, and deportations to the death camps were soon to follow. Zygmunt managed to get Renia and Ariana out of the ghetto. Ariana was placed with a sympathetic Christian friend, and Renia went into hiding with Zygmunt's parents.

Renia and Zygmunt's mother and father were discovered and shot by the Germans on 30th July 1942. Zygmunt appeared at the house shortly afterwards, to find that both his parents and his girlfriend were dead. He found Renia's diary and wrote the words " Three shots ! Three lives lost! All I can hear are shots! shots," as a last entry.

Meanwhile Renia's mother had taken a new identity in Warsaw and converted to the Roman Catholic faitth. After the war she left Poland with Ariana to live in New York. Zygmunt survived incarceration in both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, to later study medicine. He later travelled to New York and passed on Renia's diary ( of around 700 pages) to Renia's mother in the 1950's. Eventually in 2012, Ariana's daughter arranged for a Polish publication.

Some extracts from the diary have already appeared from the 'Smithsonian' magazine. Fascinating reading. Renia wrote about the deportations of Jews from Russian occupied Poland to Siberia before the German invasion.Also the Soviet demand to abolish single sex education in January 1940, for being 'bourgeois' led to boys being admitted to Renia's school. Once the German occupation began,Renia wrote about the de-humanising experience of being Jewish and forced to wear a Star of David armband. But other aspects of a teenage girl's life appear such as romance, teenage cattiness towards schoolmates, torment when Renia thinks that Zygmunt has taken another girl to a party instead of her. Sexual desire also emerges as a theme in the diary.

At times, in researching World War 2 poetry, just find a poem too difficult to remove from the context of its creation. Knowing that these lines were written by a Jewish girl, who was to be murdered just after her eighteenth birthday, it somehow seems irrelevant if a middle aged slob like myself from the 21st century- who has seen a lot of the good things in life- 'likes' or 'dislikes' what Renia wrote. Or starts to think I am being clever by over-analysing the poem, hoping to discover some hidden subtext that nobody else can spot. So I am letting the lines stand as they are.

The extracts from the diary published already on line show that Renia wrote other poems. An English translation will appear in the Summer of 2019. A film about Renia Spiegel -'Broken Dreams'- should be completed in May 2019.



NOTES AND SOURCES

As well as The Long Lost Diary of Renia Spiegel article cited above from 'Smithsonian' magazine, the same publication has a biographical article about Renia's life.

'Why Renia Spiegel is called the Polish Anne Frank' from 'Forward' magazine

UPDATE 19th October 2024

There was a Renia Spiegel Foundation website but link no longer working.

Best to try the related Facebook group which still seems to be active.

Renia Spiegal Facebook

Wish to acknowledge the help of film director Tomasz Magierski with this article.

OTHER BLOGS

There is a companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship which is about war poetry and prose with a connection to the Stuart era.

There is also Bleak Chesney Wold 19th century history & literature blog

UPDATE 2025 

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

World War 2 Poetry blog welcomes the new War Poetry Review website run by the War Poets Association

J F Hendry

           
        J. F. Hendry   London Before Invasion: 1940

                     

                                           Picture Graham Sutherland 'Wrecked Public House ' 
                                           Thank you to Tate Images for its use-reference N5735

                                 
                                       London Before Invasion


                                       " Walls and buildings stand here still, like shells.
                                       Hold them to the ear. There are no echoes even
                                       Of the seas that once were. That tide is out
                                       Beyond the valleys and hills.

                                      Days dawn and die while the city assumes a distance of stars.
                                      It is the absence of the heart
                                      In the ebbing seas of heaven,
                                     An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears.

                                     Now, imagination floats, a weed, on water's vacancy.
                                     Fates of women, lit with conscience of stone features.
                                     Flowers have a girl's irrelevance, and mind is no
                                     prescience.

                                    Flood-tides returning may bring with them blood and fire,
                                    Blenching with wet panic spirit that must be rock
                                    May being a future tossed and torn, as slippery as wrack,
                                    All time adrift in torrents of blind war. "


Glasgow born  J.F. (James Findlay) Hendry ( 1912- 1986),  served in the Royal Artillery and Amy Intelligence. Most known in World War 2 poetry circles for his involvement in the 'New Apocalypse' movement' , following the anthology of the same name that Hendry edited with Henry Treece, that was published in 1939. Two more such  anthologies 'The White Horseman' ( 1941) and ' Crown and Sickle'( 1944) were published. G.S Fraser, Norman McCaig, Vernon Watkins, were briefly associated them.

 Opposed to the 1930's  'Auden Generation' , the ' New Apocalyptics' were short lived as a movement and its harder to find another  group of poets who have attracted such unkind comments since the Georgians of the early 20th century. Andrew Sinclair sniped at Hendry and Treece for being 'leaders without a movement' , and denounced the poetry included in 'The White Horseman'  for  being " obscure, self conscious and adolescent'. Vernon Scannell accused them of promoting a " kind of zany automatic writing, most of which read like a drunken parody of Dylan Thomas" . George Orwell scoffed at them.


The New Apocalyptics  were uninterested  in  the use of social realism within poetry.  Mythological images prevailed in their work,  with inspirations taken from nature, pre-industrial ages, the theories of Freud, 1930's surrealism,  and Anarchism of the individualist variety. The movement itself  was short lived, though their influence lasted for another decade with the growth of the Romanticism in the 1940's.  By the 1950's, with the rise of The Movement poets and the Angry Young Men ( in both the theatre and in novels) , the work of the New Apocalypse seemed escapist and archaic. Henry Treece became better known in post war years for writing historical novels, particularly for young readers, and some quite delightful poetry such as 'The Magic Wood'.

J.F. Hendry had two poetry collections  published during World War 2, 'The Bombed Happiness'  (1942)  'The Orchestral Mountain' , neither attracted much attention.  But Keidrich Rhys included several of J.F.Hendry's poems in his seminal anthologies.  'Poems from the Forces' (1941)   and 'More Poems from the Forces' (1943)   But J.F. Hendry carried on writing. J.F. Hendry's post war work included 'Fernie Brae' ( 1947),  and  'Life of Rilke' (1982).



            Recently found a collection of poetry titled ' Poems of Today -Fourth Series' published in 1957, and looking at the 'best'  poetry from 1938-1957. This volume included just one J.F.Hendry poem 'The Churchillian Ode'.  Reminds one initially  of 17th century odes to Cromwell written by Andrew Marvell and John Dryden until they both embraced the Restoration . Or John Milton's sonnets dedicated to  Sir Henry Vane the Younger and General Fairfax . Quoting from the first few lines.

                              A Churchillian Ode

                              "The years grew tares for we did not tend them
                              Time was eaten by moths in an age of gold
                              And the sun eclipsed in a cloud of ignorance.
                              The hours sprang holes as we stared, until now, the
                              last,
                              We clasp in our hands a sheaf of bluebells in place
                              Of the rifle, and all our moment of laughter are
                                 frozen
                              Amid flaming towns, their echoes chill as the shade of
                              soul's vengeance.............."

There is a sort of awkward dreaminess with a bit of surrealism thrown in. 'London Before Invasion 1940' was written in 1940, published in his collection 'The Bombed Happiness' . This title was challenged by Andrew Sinclair as having implied "that there might be a liberation and joy in destruction."  This issue appears within 'London Before Invasion 1940 " - that somehow the course of history was entering a phase where human emotion simply didn't matter:   "An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears"- whilst there is a terrible wait for the next tide to come rushing in again, bringing new horrors.

In wider contact, I doubt  that a New Apocalyptic such as J F Hendry was justifying destruction or finding something aesthetically pleasing about an air raid. He was a poet caught up in war,  trying to find a space for the individual, in a world where impersonal historical forces were ranging.



                                                                                                                            

Quotes by Andrew Sinclair were taken from ' War Like A Wasp -The Lost Decade of the Forties'
  ( 1989)

Quote by Vernon Scannell taken from 'Not Without Glory Poets of the Second World War' (1976)


Please take a look at the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship , dealing with poetry & prose relating to 17th century warfare.
 
There is also the  Bleak Chesney Wold  blog about 19th century 'dark' history. 

Wladyslaw Szlengel - Poet of the Warsaw Ghetto

                      Poem: A Small  Station called Treblinka 

                                                 

                                               

Warsaw Ghetto: Zelaznej Bramy (Iron Gate) Square , ghetto wall and Lubomirski palace

Walyslaw Szlengel was born in Warsaw, between 1911-1914, the exact date is disputed. He is most known for using poetry to chronicle the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Writing poetry at an early age, Szlengel was already published in literary journals in 1930. It was not long before he was also writing songs and directing cabaret performances, solely in Polish. Some sources maintain that his father, who died in 1934, was a theatre director. Szlengel spent a few months towards the end of 1939 until the early part of 1940 in the town of Bialystock, which was in the Soviet occupied part of Poland but returned to Walicow Street, Warsaw, which  in November 1940 was incorporated into the notorious Warsaw Ghetto.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the area where all Jews of the City were confined behind barbed wire fences and high walls as from November 1940. Jews from other parts of Poland and from Germany, along with Roma people were moved there with as many as 400,000 people being held there . Overcrowded accommodation, wretched conditions, with only an entitlement to starvation rations, as many as ten per cent of the population perished. Random killings by the Germans, public executions of those who fell foul of regulations, the sight of  inhabitants expiring from illness or starvation,  increased the terror and sense of despair.  On 22nd July 1942,  deportations by train began-supposedly on the grounds of 'resettlement; in the east - but the actual destination was the death camp at Treblinka, around fifty miles north-east of Warsaw. As many as 6,000 people could be moved out in a day.

 Szlengel carried on writing, and performing, managing to secure  regular employment at the  coffeehouse Cafe Sztuka in Lesno Street 2 .  Vladyzslaw Szpilman accompanied various artists on piano including the popular singer Wiera Gran.  Cafe Sztuka is portrayed in Ronan Polanski's 2002 film about Szpillman- 'The Pianist' . The weekly Cabaret night 'Life Journal' was organised by Szlengel and where possible satire was encouraged at the expense of the authorities. It seems that Szlengel was using both Polish and Yiddish by this point. However in Polanski's film, the subversive nature of the cabaret at Cafe Sztuka is missed, and one gets an impression of Jews who had money enjoying themselves in the Cafe, being supposedly  oblivious to the suffering of the wider community. Cafe Sztuka was closed, most likely between 19th-22nd of July 1942.

 Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were forced to work in a brush factory, but carried on organising literary evenings, and presenting further poetry   The Ghetto population was gradually reducing due to deportation though the Nazis were prepared to leave 'productive' Jews working. In October 1942 Jewish Resistance groups merged together to form the organisation ZOB. Word reached them that the trains were in fact going to Treblinka , a death camp.

 Having the Warsaw Ghetto largely full of younger and physically stronger people, who had no illusions of the dangers they were in, stimulated a number of skirmishes with Germans and those collaborating with them as from January 1943. When the Germans arrived to organise a final mass deportation resistance culminated in the magnificent  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that begun on 19th April 1943 and lasted until 10th May 1943. Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were shot by Germans when the house they were hiding in was stormed on 8th May 1943.

Though the Uprising was facing impossible odds, it is generally regarded as both an act of great  heroism and defiance but also for inspiring the 1944 Warsaw Rising, showing that the Germans were by no means invincible and could be confronted.

I am pleased to be able to reproduce the  Waldysaw Szlengel  poem 'A Small Station Called Treblinka', reproduced here by kind permission of Halina Birenbaum     from the website http://www.zchor.org which features a selection of his work in different languages on the site  Szlengel webpage 

What makes the poem quite haunting is that it is written in the present tense, and though the station itself seems unremarkable, one can never purchase a return ticket. It is not known how widely circulated the poem was, but certainly resistance workers with in the Ghetto were issuing proclamations desperately trying to warn the remaining populace of the dangers they were in.

                                                 Władysław Szlengel

                                                'A Small Station Called Treblinka'

                                               On the line between Tluszcz and Warsaw
                                               From the railway station Warsaw - East
                                               You get out of the station
                                               and travel straight…

                                              The journey lasts
                                              sometimes 5 hours and 45 minutes more
                                              and sometimes the same journey lasts
                                              a whole life until your death …

                                              And the station is very small
                                              three fir trees grow there
                                              and a regular signboard saying
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                              And not even a cashier
                                              gone is the cargo man
                                             and for a million zloty
                                             you will not get a return ticket

                                             And nobody waits for you in the station
                                             and nobody waves a handkerchief towards you
                                             only silence hung there in the air
                                             to welcome you in the blind wilderness.

                                            And silent are the three fir trees
                                            and silent is the black board
                                            because here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                            here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                            And only a commercial board
                                            stands still:
                                           "Cook only by gas"

* Translated from Polish to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and from Hebrew to English by AdaHoltzman. Yehuda Poliker, son of an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor from Thessalonika, wrote music to the poem and it is featured  on his album: "Ashes and Dust"

On 2nd August 1943, a rebellion broke out at Treblinka itself, when a number of prisoners raided the armoury and organised a mass breakout. The Germans began to start dismantling Treblinka in the Autumn of 1943, and it had virtually fallen into disuse by the time the Red Army took the district in July 1944. Another reason to read the poem to ensure that the horror of  Treblinka is remembered, along with Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the mass breakout at Treblinka itself.



Sources

 Wladyslaw Slegel- The Ghetto Poet

Culture.PL -Polish Cultural website

The Manhatten Review

Background information on the Warsaw Ghetto by one of the Uprising's leading participants, Marek Edelman can be found here

General News 

Companion blogs

Great War at Sea Poetry Blog

Bleak Chesney Wold   new blog launched 2nd February 2023 Charles Dickens/ 19th century history

A Burnt Ship    Stuart era War and Literature

UPDATE 2025 

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

World War 2 Poetry blog welcomes the new War Poetry Review website run by the War Poets Association

Sean Jennett Missing Poet from Faber &Faber

                             
                                          Missing Poet from Faber &Faber    
                                       
                                               

                                                 
                                           

                                        'Shelter Experiments' John Piper 1943 
                                        IWM ART LD 3859  in public domain courtesy of the IWM/
                                       Wikipedia Commons 



     I was recently reminded of the  'Earth Voices Whispering- An anthology of Irish War Poetry 1914-1945' edited by Gerald Dawes, published in 2008 It was intriguing to find poems by Sean Jennett included, who doesn't seem to have been included in any anthologies since 'Poetry of the Forties-introduced and edited by Robin Skelton' (1968) .

Also managed to locate Jennett's collection  'Always Adam' from 1943, from the National Poetry Library, at the Southbank Centre, which contains 51 poems, written from 1935 onward.

 Sean Jennett, who worked for Faber & Faber' as a typographer during World war 2, who has been added to the ranks of 1940's 'neglected' poets. His Wikipedia entry consists of three sentences , maintaining  that he was born in 1912- and died in 1981, wrote 'The 'Making of Books ' in 1951 and went on to write travel books. The British Library online catalogue confirms this, with 'The Making of Boooks' seeing several editions.


                                        XXXVII

                            We talked of war with light and easy lips,
                            jesting upon our action, this or that,
                            if it came to the last, and while we chattered
                            we drank our coffee in delicious sips
                            and watched the soft, contented cafe cat.

                            But then the woman in the wicker chair
                            cried Havoc! and suddenly I was afire
                            because I saw, under the skirts of light,
                            the corpses of our laughter and delight
                            smashed and dismembered, bloodily bespattered
                            across the red carpet....

                                                           And still the solemn stare
                           of all the sleepy cats in Oxfordshire
                                           1937

One of the most interesting pre-war  poems about World War 2 - if such a genre is possible. The strange reflection of an unreal sedate world detached from the reality of war that is about to strike them. The motif-'Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war'  from Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', was repeated in Beverley Nichols book 'Cry Havoc' from 1934, advocating Pacifism, a stance Nichols was later to reject.

                                          XLII. AUTUMN 1940

                           The days were glorious- we remember that
                           because the clear September of that year
                           was good for bombers. We remember it
                           because the sky screamed and we were mere
                           items of wreckage in the ruined day,
                           the half- face or the limbless or the dead.
                           the convenient basis for the hero's fame,
                           the rescued in the hospital bed.

                           I was the man in the collapsing tower.
                           I was the body in the flooded shelter.
                           I was the mad objector shifting stone,
                          the conscious saint arising in his hour.
                          I was the bomber, the breaker and the welder
                          I was the shattered and the exulting son.
                                                                                 1942

Strange understatement -September 7th 1940 is of course accepted as the first day of the London Blitz.

                                 News                                                                                                                                                        
Best wishes for 2019 to all Blog visitors from round the world .  Have written an article on British World War 2 poetry for 'Everyone's War' , the magazine published by the Second World War Experience Centre.


I am working on a further post for the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship -devoted to 17th century war & literature.

UPDATE 2025 

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

World War 2 Poetry blog welcomes the new War Poetry Review website run by the War Poets Association

Timothy Corsellis

                                                Timothy John Manley  Corsellis 

                                 ( 1921-1941)
                                     

                                  Timothy Corsellis in 1938, in the Public Domain via Wikipedia 

                

                          Was reminded of  the work of Timothy Corsellis after finding  two Youtube clips ( linked below) of the actor Timothy Bentinck reading two Corsellis poems ' Dawn after the Raid' and 'Engine Failure'.  Also learnt that Timothy - most known as  David Archer from BBC Radio 4's drama 'The Archers'- was named after Timothy Corsellis, and his father,Henry Bentinck  was friends with Corsellis.

Born on  21st January 1921, Corsellis' father was a barrister-Douglas Corsellis - who lost an arm fighting in the Gallipoli campaign, and died in a flying accident in 1930. Attending Walmer School in Kent, Timothy Corsellis  went on to study at Winchester College.

It is extremely difficult to offer much of an opinion concerning the work of someone who died at the age of twenty. All one can say is that his work that remains shows a great range of topics. The aforementioned  'Engine Failure' concerns RAF training, 'After the Raid'  tackles the impact of an air raid on London. And Tim Bentinck's delivery is superb.  'There Is A Meeting Place in Heaven' is Christian themed. Corsellis also wrote a poem titled 'Stephen Spender' some two weeks before he died, in which he offers his impression of meeting Spender, most probably at the offices of 'Horizon' magazine in 1941.

                                 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Timothy Corsellis declined to go to university when leaving Winchester College in 1938. He started work at Wandsworth Town Hall , and registered as a Conscientious Objector in April 1939.  After the fall of Dunkirk, Corsellis asked to be removed from the list of Conscientious Objectors, and took up training with the RAF . However, Corsellis cited a conscientious objection to bombing civilian and felt unable to take up a post within Bomber Command. He received an honourable discharge from the RAF in early 1941 and worked was an Air Raid warden in London, seeing some of the most horrific sights of the Blitz.

In August 1941, Corellis joined the  as 2nd officer Air Transport Auxiliary, which effectively meant flying planes from factories to various RAF bases. On 10th October 1941 , flying from Luton to Carlisle, Coresllis plane accidentally crashed  near Dumfries, and he died instantly.

Have shamelessly drawn on an  article 'From Winchester to War: Timothy Corsellis ( 1921-1941) ,  which originally appeared on the War Poets Association website : Informed that this article was written by Helen Goethals. 

The Winchester College at War website has a different timeline- linked below. 

The Young Poets Network presents the Timothy Corsellis prize for poetry written  by those aged between 18-25 who are appraising World War 2 poets.  Of course any initiative to introduce World War 2 poetry is much welcomed,and the latest new (2018) can be found here

The poem 'What I Never Saw'  looks at the tedium of war in a most  anti-heroic fashion, showing has a large part of war can be 'waiting for something to happen'.

                       What I Never Saw (extract) 

                         What I never saw
                         Were the weary hours of waiting while the
                                                              sun rose and set,
                         The everlasting eye turned upwards to the sky,
                         Watching the weather which said,
                          Thou shalt not fly'.

                         We sat together as we sat at peace
                         Bound by no ideal of service
                         But by a common interest in pornography and
                                             a desire to outdrink one another


                            War was remote;
                          There was a little trouble in Abyssinia;
                          Some of us came from Kenya and said
                         'Why I was on the spot all the while
                          And the Italians sprayed the roadsides with
                                                                   mustard gas'

                           Theirs were the stories of war.


                           Then came the queuing, the recurrent line of
                                                                    pungent men
                           Dressed in dirt with mud eating their trouser legs,
                           The collar that is cleaner than the shirt
                           And the inevitable adjectives.

                           The papers ran out early today,
                           There was no butter for the bread at breakfast,
                           Nobody calls us at dawn
                            We never strain or sweat,
                           Nor do they notice when we come in late.


                            When I was civilian I hoped high,
                            Dreamt my future cartwheels in the sky'
                            Almost forgot to arm myself
                             Against the boredom and the inefficiency
                            The petty injustice and the everlasting grudges.
                             The sacrifice is greater than I expected

Of course there is the irony of the last line 'The sacrifice is greater than I expected' when considering Corsellis' death in a military accident.


                             "I" Always "I"

                            I passively acquiesce in the avalanche of death
                            Under my breath I lose the sincere feeling
                            That while hands are dealing in sin the soul is free.
                            No harm to me, justifying the material deed
                           With the new born seed of a higher emotion,
                           A sudden devotion to a greater thing than imperial expansion

                         "I" always "I" in this turmoil of souls;
                         God above holds millions of lives in his arms
                          Yet the word harm means only one thing to this mind
                         Help me to find an idea successive to soliptic I!
                         Let them all die; one day a bullet inscribed with
                               name
                         Shall find the same written upon my heart with shame.

                        Why in the middle of complete conflagration
                         Involving a nation, must the solipsist idea
                        Rise? To conquer fear ? To hide from a wrangling soul
                       The extinction of the whole? Give me part of God's
                       unselfishness;
                       From the centre of unrest make me realise
                       That no man dies; not the souls that once spoke from
                             behind gristle eyes.
                     
                      From 'More Poems From The Forces' edited by Kheidrych Rhys, 1941

Have added this poem simply because it's so curious. It as if Corsellis is writing a philosophy essay, trying to make sense of a being young and caught up in war. Trying to find some greater meaning wrestling with solipsism- 'the self is all that can be known to exist' and as Christian Corellis is trying to reconcile his faith with whilst caught up in a 'complete conflagration'.  I don't think that the poem has great literary merit- but as a section of war memoir it is fascinating.

Thank you to Patrick Villa of the War Poets Association for pointing out a couple of errors in the original post- hopefully now corrected. 

Links 

Winchester College Tribute                  

Timothy Bentinck  reads  Dawn After The Raid    on Youtube

Timothy Bentinck reads   Engine Failure              on Youtube

Timothy Corsellis Prize   page maintained by the National Poetry Society /Young Poets Network

Commonwealth Wargraves Commission  entry for Timothy Corsellis

War Poets Association  page on Timothy Corsellis

Further poems found by Corsellis  Interesting blog post about further poems and notebooks by Timothy Corsellis that were featured on BBC Antiques Roadshow in 2012.

A Burnt Ship blog    Companion blog to this one. Poetry & prose related to the Stuart era

Bleak Chesney Wold new blog launched 3rd February 2023 Charles Dickens/ 'dark' 19th century history 

Books 

A biography titled 'The Unassuming Sky, The Life and Poetry of Timothy Corsellis' by Helen Goethals was published in 2012.

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

John Pudney 'For Johnny' and other 'Songs'

                       John Sleigh Pudney 1909- 1977


                       

                    Bristol Beaufighter Mark IF of No. 252 Squadron RAF at Chivenor, Devon.
                              CH17305 , Imperial War Museum, photo taken by Mr. B J H Daventry

                                   John Pudney's poem 'For Johnny' was one of the most famous 'War in the Air' World War 2 poems. The writer was a former journalist,  who served as a squadron leader in RAF intelligence during the War. The poem was written in 1941 on the back of an envelope during an air raid alert in London, then later submitted to News Chronicle , who published the poem. 'For Johnny' also appeared in Pudney's collection of war poems titled 'Dispersal Point' ( from 1942, reprinted the same year, and again in 1943).

John Pudney had already published poetry as from 1933.  He also edited the collection 'Air Force Poetry' (1944) with Henry Treece and had seven poems included in the anthology 'More Poems From The Forces' edited by Keidrych Rhys , (1944).  He also wrote short stories about his life in the RAF under the names of PERSPEX

Famous for its simplicity, and its message that the best tribute to be paid to a deceased pilot is to take care of his children.  And for being read at the end of the film ' The Way to the Stars'   by Michael Redgrave .



                                        For Johnny


                                         Do not despair
                                         For Johnny-head-in-air,
                                         He sleeps as sound
                                         As Johnny under ground.

                                        Fetch out no shroud
                                        For Johnny-in-the-cloud,
                                        And keep your tears
                                        for him in after years.

                                        Better by far
                                        For Johnny-in-the cloud;
                                       To keep your head,
                                       And see his children fed.



In 1976, a collection of 23 World War 2  poems written by John Pudney was published , all taken from his 1957 'Collected Works', and not surprisingly, was titled 'For Johnny'. In the introduction, Pudney explained that there was no particular 'Johnny' in mind, which added to the poem's appeal as readers could pick an RAF casualty they knew,  and personalise the poem.


John Pudney's work has been included in subsequent anthologies such as 'The Terrible Rain'  and 'I Burn for England' . Not meeting with universal approval . Fellow poet Vernon Scannell  ( who served in the army during the War ) was quite catty about Pudney  "John Pudney's facile verses were popular during the war but their shallow sentimentality would be unlikely to find admirers now " ( 'Not Without Glory -poets of the second world war'-1976).

It is easy to  agree with Scannell if we are looking for literary merit.  Pudney's work is comforting in the way a well chosen  'with sympathy ' card can be. Or occasionally his poetry  veers to being too  clever such as  the line "Timelessly in time with time"- from the poem 'Air Gunner' below,  which could be a Yes song lyric from the early 1970's.  But John Pudney did make a significant contribution to World War 2 poetry, and deserves a mention, and can't just be dismissed in one line.

And there's a massive discussion to be had. World War 2 poetry can be appraised as literature, but also a source of writing that feeds a cultural need. 'For Johnny' might be sentimental but it has worked as war poetry if so many people can find it relevant to the whole trauma of  loss during war. I had also wondered if Vernon Scannell, who had traumatic experiences due to fighting in the North African and Normandy campaigns, and been jailed as a deserter, resented John Pudney possible lack of direct combat experience ? Scannell's 'Not Without Glory' does not draw on the writer's own war experience or his own poetry.

Two further poems from the collection  'For Johnny' . As far as I can tell they were both from around 1941 or 1942 .  'Missing' doesn't need much further comment, but draws on a similar theme to 'For Johnny' - the poem. 'Air Gunner' was more literary, about a youth finding his way into this role.


                         
                                                 Missing

                                 Less said the better.
                                 The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
                                 No roses at the end,
                                 Of Smith my friend



                                  Last words don't matter
                                  And there are none to flatter
                                  Words will not fill the post
                                  Of  Smith, the ghost.


                                  For Smith, our brother,
                                  Only son of loving mother,
                                  The ocean lifted, stirred
                                  Leaving no word.




                                          Air Gunner

                                   The eye behind this gun made peace
                                   With a boy's eye with doubted, trembled.
                                   Guileless in the mocking light
                                   Of frontiers where death assembled.

                                   Peace was as single as the dawn,
                                   Flew straightly as the birds migrating,
                                   Timelessly in time with time,
                                   Purposeful, uncalculating

                                   So boyish doubt was put away:
                                   The man's eye and boy's were one.
                                   Mockery and death retreat
                                   Before the eye behind the gun.


In the publisher's blurb for 'Dispersal Point' third edition 1942, John Pudney was quoted as saying ;
"I hope these songs will be taken as a simple commentary on the Service and on war occasions generally. They are  only songs -not written in tranquillity, but in odd places and corners never far from the sound of aircraft. "
This is perhaps the final word to be said on his war poetry.


Links

John Pudney entry from Science Fiction Encyclopedia

Don't forget the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship   17th century related war poetry and prose.

 February 3rd 2023 New blog launched BleakChesneyWold Charles Dickens/ 'dark' 19th century history 

UPDATE 2025 

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

World War 2 Poetry blog welcomes the new War Poetry Review website run by the War Poets Association