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The forgotten army
Broadcast Date: Dec. 13, 1944
Now that the Allies have liberated Paris, Brussels and Belgrade, and bombed Tokyo, Italy is looking like a forgotten front. Though it no longer makes the headlines, the Canadians still there are still paying an enormous cost in human lives for every yard gained. As Maj. R. Beamish reports for CBC Radio, the most demoralizing thought facing soldiers in Italy is the "soul-wringing fear that they will become a forgotten army."The forgotten army
• On June 6, 1944, the Allied forces invaded the Normandy coast of Nazi-occupied France in the enormous Operation Overlord. D-Day changed the course of the war and it became increasingly obvious that the liberation of Europe would not flow through Italy.• Shortly after D-Day, British Conservative MP Lady Astor made an ill-informed speech denouncing members of the Eighth Army for taking it easy in Italy when they should have been fighting in France. The soldiers responded by writing an ironic song called the D-Day Dodgers:
"We are the D-Day Dodgers, way out in Italy,
Always on the vino, always on the spree.
Eighth Army scroungers and their tanks,
We live in Rome among the Yanks,
We are the D-Day Dodgers, from sunny Italy."
• The D-Day Dodgers song was sung to the tune of Lilli Marlene, which originated in Germany but was adopted and adapted by soldiers of many nations during the Second World War.
• Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (1879-1964) was the first woman to ever hold a seat in the British House of Commons. A champion of women's and children's rights, Astor was a fierce debater. According to one story, after an ongoing argument with Winston Churchill, she said, "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee." Churchill is reputed to have replied, "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."
The forgotten army
Medium: Radio
Program: CBC Radio News
Broadcast Date: Dec. 13, 1944
Guest(s):
Reporter: Royd Beamish
Duration: 4:09
Photo: G. Barry Gilroy / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-141754
Last updated:
Nov. 15, 2004
Radio
4:55
During the Second World War, members of the Royal 22nd Regiment pause in an Italian village to decorate their living, and remember their dead.
Television
25:49
David Halton, son of Matthew Halton, and a group of Canadian veterans write the final epilogue to the Battle of Ortona.
The forgotten army.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: Nov. 15, 2004.
[Page consulted on Feb. 14, 2012.]