This is a picture of my Dad, Leading Aircraftsman Jack Kemp who was on one of the first boats to head out into the Channel on D Day. I will remember him as I pay tribute to those from Liverpool who fell defending our precious freedoms.
I have spent part of today getting ready for two D Day events on 6th itself at St Johns Gardens for a service and wreath laying and for a march past and service through the city centre on Sunday.
This will be the biggest D Day commemoration event in the North West and enables us to recall our heroes and the vital role that Liverpool played in supplying the Southern front without which we could not have fought D Day and liberated Europe, and the Eastern front which enabled the Russians to defeat the Nazis in Eastern Europe.
On Sunday I will be making a speech from a letter which a D Day participant sent to his future wife. That hero was my Dad. The whole tone of his letter showed that, like all participants in D Day, he was an ordinary bloke doing extraordinary things.
The three members of my family who were in the World War II services talked very little about the war. Mum and Dad met on a searchlight site in Lincolnshire. My uncle Ran was in the Army which fought its way up through Italy. I learned more about their active service lives after they had died from all the boxes of stuff than I did while they were alive. It always seems to me that this is usually the way with heroes. Those who continually talk about war and the forces and the need for National Service are those that never went through war but have ‘learned’ everything they know from heroic films in the cinema.
I treasure these letters and other ‘stuff’ from their war years. I will be proud to represent the City at both these events. It was 80 years ago but the lessons are still important for us to remember today. War is always dreamed up offensively by men but is fought by ordinary men and women with civilians bearing the brunt as well.
In saluting all the ordinary men of D Day I’ll salute my Dad as well.
Excerpts from a letter written by my Dad, LAC Jack Kemp to his fiancée, LACW Laura Steere who is my Mum between 3rd June and 13th June 1944
Saturday 3rd June 23.00 hours
“We lay now in Weymouth Bay with a 101 assorted craft and at 2.30 tomorrow morning we sail to meet the main body. I think from observation that the first landings will take place on Monday morning”
Sunday 4th June 22.30 hours
“We duly set off early this morning but returned to Weymouth this afternoon – obviously a feint to deceive the enemy. The sea looks very turbulent this evening and I doubt very much that we shall go in till it is calmer. A spirit of calm is evident on board, but it speaks high of the British spirit when the main topic of conversation is how many days leave we will get when we get back”.
Monday 5th June 15.00 hours
“Well, we know rather more now – D day is tomorrow, and H hour is dawn. Some idea of the immensity of the operation has been revealed to us. In the Channel there will be 6 battleships, 22 cruisers, 93 destroyers, 400 escort vessels of all kinds whilst the number of landing craft is astronomical. I was on deck a few minutes ago and all you could see was row after row of vessels. Wait a minute – we are sailing now to rendezvous off the Isle of Wight we shall be just one eighth of the force and there is another similar force just down the coast.
The first landings will be made by 120,000 assault troops immediately preceded by 20,000 parachute troops whilst at the end of 3 days it is intended to have 3,000,000 troops landed”.
Monday 5th June 23.30 hours
“Well, the crucial hour is almost at hand, and we are about 20 miles off the coast of Cherbourg. As the day has worn on, the tension has increased but nevertheless there is a very cheerful atmosphere amongst the chaps”.
Tuesday 7th June – 02.30 hours
“It has been most interesting to hear the news from home and to hear the King’s Speech. There’s never a dull moment and I have managed to get about four and a half hours sleep. We’re helped by some sort of dope in little white tablets which always make us alert and lively. This state of course is very unnatural and after about 4 to 5 hours you begin to feel very depressed.
We’re rather crowded on board at the moment. A glider full of troops crash landed in the drink about 100 yards away and we picked them up. A landing craft was torpedoed not very far away by a U Boat and the survivors, some badly injured, were picked up. A Hun fighter pilot, badly injured, was picked up also”.
Tuesday 8th June – 02.00 hours
“The Luftwaffe is conspicuous by its absence, so far, but I’ve too healthy a regard for the Hun as a fighter to think that he won’t try his damnedest to bomb this concentration of shipping. He made a somewhat aborted attempt last evening but with only a few aircraft and the terrific flak turned him round. I didn’t stay on deck; it was like a Brocks benefit plus outside because the shrapnel was falling like hail”.
Tuesday 8th June – 16.30 hours
“The Nelson and the Warspite along with a couple of cruisers were shelling the Cherbourg Peninsula for a couple of hours this afternoon and the din was tremendous. We have moved our position to overcome technical difficulties and we are now some 10 miles off Bayeux which was captured this morning
There are signs that the Luftwaffe are beginning to get a little more interested – I hope they do as I would like to help knock up a tidy score before the facilities get established ashore and our work is finished”.
But what does Richard Kemp think? 