Heroes of the Past - D-Day
Survivor Interview
When encountered by an emotional, 89-yearold veteran, I found it both a poignant and
challenging experience. George Dangerfield
seemed apologetic and slightly embarrassed;
his wife Pat explained that sharing his story
was always upsetting, despite telling it so
many times. This really resonated with me,
highlighting the profound effects of arguably
the most catastrophic event in world history.
George joined the Royal Navy in 1943 and this
is his story.
Joining Britain’s fighting forces at just age 17
is a very courageous thing. Picture three
quarters of the sixth form boys marching off
to war. You probably have some funny image
in your head of them messing around,
pretending to be war planes shooting down
their friends. This wasn’t the case for George
who described making the immediate
transition into an adult in order to stomach
the horrors that were to come. He held the
rank of Sick Berth Attendant and this job was
crucial in keeping soldiers alive and nursing
them back to good health. This was especially
fundamental during D-Day (6th June 1944),
Dangerfield’s most significant role.
What George was about to tell me differed
greatly from the glossed over and quite
frankly glorified accounts found in school
textbooks. Too often we romanticise war, our
ignorance stripping it of its most basic horrors
and realism. George’s landing ship, LST65,
held tanks, equipment and around 200
Canadian men. This number quickly dropped
to less than 100 when they had barely
reached Juno Beach, one of 5 code-named
destinations along 80km of the Normandy
coast. It was at this point that George began
to cry, physically haunted by the memory of
18-year-old boys dying in front of him. Boys
my age were being gunned down before they
even had the chance to cross the shore.
Despite its pivotal success, 4,414 men lost
their lives through Operation Overlord. With
every victory comes difficulties and we should
thank people like George for these very
sacrifices.
Once the soldiers had been deported, George
transformed the landing ship into a temporary
hospital. Here men were brought back, often
horrendously injured and sometimes even
dead. Every 6/7 days, George would return to
collect another shipment of the wounded. He
left out the gory details of these injuries as
they were too gruesome to describe. One of
his proudest achievements was never letting a
casualty die during this process, no matter
how severe the injury. How admirable an
achievement this is and how many lives it
saved. George was also involved in the
construction of the Mulberry Harbour which
facilitated the rapid offload of cargo, carrying
troops, resources and tanks. Once this was
built, he served in the RN Hospital in Sydney.
As part of a naval aircrew on The Dakota,
George transferred casualties from the
Admiralty Islands to military hospitals in
Australia. This duty ended in December 1946.
For his efforts, George won many awards
including the Defence Medal, the War medal
and the French and Germany star. Below is a
copy of the letter George received last year,
informing him that the French president had
appointed him the highest rank available in
France.
In regards to the significance of D-day and
George’s role, many see this success as the
turning point in British Victory – the liberation
of Europe had begun. George also shares this
view, so grateful for the Allies’ assistance, in
particular America who provided the majority
of resources needed on that day. He also
mentioned that the support of the Home
Front was invaluable and kept Britain fighting.
Most inspiringly, he praised the women for
their continuous commitment to the war
effort, filling in vacant jobs left behind by
soldiers, partaking in physical and demanding
labour and for keeping the country
functioning. During the 1930s, women had a
traditional role as a mother and housewife in
the domestic sphere. They used the war to
prove they were just as capable as the men in
the workplace and this is when the country
started to take notice. George too saw the
changing attitudes towards women when he
returned and saw this manifest into women
gaining the rights we are entitled to now.
Something that I found very humble about
George was his recognition that gender
inequality still exists today. Women are paid
less for the same jobs and gender stereotypes
are still very much engrained in society’s
mind. This idea led us to the discussion of the
contemporary relevance of the war - to learn
from our mistakes. Much like my recent visit
to Auschwitz, this interview reinforced the
need for World War Two to remain in the
school curriculum. This is something that
George is equally passionate about. It was at a
primary school level I was familiarised with
WW2, dressing up as an evacuee one day. I
was then reintroduced to this at GCSE which
formed the basis of my Higher Project: Why
did Britain win World War Two? If we do not
continue to learn about how shockingly fast
humanity’s prejudice can lead to fascism and
destruction, what is stopping history from
repeating itself today? As Georg Hegel once
said “we learn from history that we do not
learn from history”. We should instead
endeavour to cherish and educate others
about the heroic acts of men like George
Dangerfield for it is them who liberated
Europe, working towards the democracy we
live in now, with freedom of thought,
toleration and guaranteed Human Rights. Let
us never forget the sacrifices Britain made in
order to achieve this or indeed take it for
granted. Sheer British determination led us to
Victory and saved the lives of future
generations to come.
Words: Melissa