The following poem has been a part of my psyche since that day in 1944, it would be July 6, 7, or 8. I am not sure of the exact date at this juncture, we went in on the attack on July 4 to secure the airfield and surrounding area.
In all of human conflict, in wars, great and small, in battles honored by history or never mentioned in any of the annals of war, there are, I am sure, to each and every combatant, their own private war, their own supreme test of courage and endurance.
To me, Carpiquet represented my war, although when measured against the grand scale of battles in North Africa, Russia, the Pacific, etc. it scarcely deserves a mention. To me however it was really my World War 2.
However this poem is not really about this battle, fierce as it may have been. This poem is about a strange awakening to the fact that after almost four years of preparing for the inevitability of war and all that it entailed, there is the sudden shock of knowing that we can dare hope again for peace, and home, and love, and family, and all the things that war denies.
After days of constant artillery bombardment which saw the stately trees in our hedgerow totally denuded of leaves until their gaunt limbs pointed an accusing finger Heavenward and as if to say God, how can you allow your creatures to treat each other in this manner. After watching a number of green replacements arrive, so close to an enemy attack that they would have little or no chance to dig in and therefore survive the terrible night, it seemed so incongruous that when the battle had finally ended and the bloated and rotting corpses of the enemy littered the field in front of our lines that the sun would rise to vaporize a morning dew and that on a small bush I would see a robin sing his song of hope, of renewal, in the face of all this carnage. Suddenly hope is born anew. This war is only a crazy farce, real people will re-build a new and better world, my homesickness would be only a memory, an illusion of something which had never really happened.
‘Comrades gather around me’
In this morning’s sweet still air
You from Baie du Vin or Miramichi
Listen to this song so sweet and clear.
This robin has survived, a nest to build
Forget the smell of cordite, death and all
Remember that we too can dare to hope
Midst sound of war, Peace gives her siren call.
Perhaps like me, a son of Restigouche
This strife has merely postponed love’s sweet hour
And like our red-breasted friend in yonder bush
Hope like seeds will one day burst in flower.
Standing here, so humbled by this song
I dare not say, and you will agree
How many from this brave New Brunswick throng
Will live to taste the fruits of victory.
However, for this moment, frozen in time
Listening to his song with hope so gay
Let me thank my Maker for this hour
The day a robin sang at Carpiquet.
— G22244 Sgt. R.F. Foran
Carpiquet, France, July 8, 1944