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News Features
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Tuesday, 25 April 2006
The Howick resident was a 21-year old working for the post office when he signed up as a radio operator. His five years away would see him serve from Syria, across the breadth of North Africa, and up into Italy. For the Kiwis taking on the victorious German war machine, there were no illusions of embarking on a grand adventure. “We knew from our fathers’ generation it wasn’t going to be a hell of a lot of fun,” he says. And faced with an experienced, much better-equipped and ruthless enemy, Mr McEwan says he and his comrades joined the fight with little hope for victory. “Initially I couldn’t see how we were going to win the war, and because of that, I couldn’t see how we were going to survive. Like thousands of others I accepted I would die. That makes it easy, once you accept that,” he recalls frankly. During the tide-turning battle of El Alamein, Mr McEwan was definitely in the thick of things. He served in the tank bearing New Zealand Commander Bernard Freyberg, who true to his legend led from the front at Alamein. Of Freyberg the hero and legend he says: “He was a brilliant tactician, a professional. If he hadn’t been there I do not believe we would have won the battle of Alamein.” Of Freyberg the man: “Like so many big men, he was also soft-hearted once you got through the first layer, and really a very thoughtful officer.” He stayed with the general through much of the North African and Italian campaigns, suffering leg wounds that would trouble him for years. Mr McEwan still treasures a contemporary portrait of Freyberg, signed with a personal note of thanks to him. There isn’t a good war, says Mr McEwan, but at least the Second World War wasn’t “a politician’s war, like this contrived thing in Iraq”. He says they knew about German concentration camps, even in the earliest days of the war. But he says: “I don’t think anyone anticipated their destruction of people would be so organised.” Mr McEwan isn’t moved by this year’s designation as year of the veteran. But he hopes it may lead to better treatment of some who followed in his footsteps, the Vietnam servicemen and women. “One thing they could do is give justice to the Vietnam vets who suffer from Agent Orange. A normal injury to a soldier is acceptable; your descendants don’t inherit the problem. “They never can really reimburse the vets who suffer from that, but they should accept responsibility and reimburse them financially and medically to the best of their ability,” says Mr McEwan. | |||||||||
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