Valiantly he fought
Against Zeppelins
And the Red Baron alike
A young man,
In the prime of life
Died an ironic death
When helping a new arrival
Achieve his first kill
He broke his own golden rule
And followed the stricken foe
To see it crash
And was shot down
By ground fire
Major Edward Corringham
"Mick" Mannock VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar (May 24, 1887
– July 26, 1918)
In South Africa during the Boer War
Granddad
got the key of the door
In
France during World War 1
He
lay wounded when the day was done
He
could have met a very bloody end
But
for the bravery of his friend
So,
he lived to fight another day instead
And
died an old man in his own bed
Like many Englishmen
When
our history is revealed
My
forebears shed their blood
Men
who never thought to yield
On
the battlefields of England
And
on many a foreign field
Never let a senior officer
Stand next to you
Because even snipers
Can make mistakes too
The Westland Lysander
Was
a British army
Co-operation
and liaison aircraft
Which
came into service
Prior
to the Second World War
But
when it became obsolete
In
the army co-operation role,
Its
exceptional characteristics
Came
into their own
The
Lysander’s short-field capability
Made
it a natural
For
clandestine missions
Being
able to land on small
Unprepared
airstrips
Deep
behind enemy lines
To
place or recover agents,
Particularly
in occupied France
I like Germany
I
like the Germans
I
have friends there
I
worked for a time near Frankfurt
And
I visit Berlin often
It’s
my favourite city
They
are nice people
Friendly
and welcoming
They
share our hopes
And
our aspirations
We
are so alike
We
have always been alike
Well
almost always
There
were dark days
When
they were seduced by evil
And
let themselves down
So,
what happened?
What
infected this nation?
This
nation so like ourselves
How
did the madness take them?
Why
did they become inhuman?
Why
did they set a new benchmark?
In
their inhumanity
Why
did the good people not rise up?
And
oppose the evil
Why
did they fail to stop it
Were
the Jews so bad
So
unworthy of pity
Too
worthless to be considered
For
whatever reason it happened
They
let it happen
The
worst of them profited by it
The
best of them turned a blind eye to it
But
they were all guilty
And
after the war
I
think they felt the guilt
But
they feel no guilt now
Now
they try to hide behind a lie
Pretending
it wasn’t really that bad
There
were just a few bad men
And
they are gone now
The
Americans exaggerated everything
There
were isolated incidents
No
more than that
Let’s
speak of it no more
Lest
we offend Islam
Well
Islam should be offended
As
it was the Turks of the Ottoman empire
Who
taught their German allies
The
meaning of Holocaust
When
they annihilated the Armenians
I
say let’s speak of it
Let’s
never stop speaking of it
And
if offence is caused, then so be it
If
it prevents it’s like
From
ever happening again
Valiantly he fought
Against Zeppelins
And the Red Baron alike
A young man,
In the prime of life
Died an ironic death
Not taken by the bullet
Or by the bomb
But by the Spanish flu
