Hi, after reading this testimony, I was moved to write this poem, below. Hope you all like it.
Quote:
Ted Briggs, HMS Hood.
I had heard it was nice to drown. I stopped trying to swim upwards. The water was a peaceful cradle – I was ready to meet my God. My blissful acceptance of death ended in a sudden surge beneath me, which shot me to the surface like a decanted cork in a champagne bottle. I turned, and 50 yards away I could see the bows of the Hood vertical in the sea. It was the most frightening aspect of my ordeal, and a vision which was to recur terrifyingly in nightmares for the next 40 years.
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They said it’s cold on the ocean floor, ther’d be no music anymore,
no one laughs, no one cries, there’s no one else that has to die.
Our uniforms, flags and ribbons, as we stood on bold display,
are the temperal, the moment, as the eternal ticks away.
My shipmates now are Frenchmen, German, Arab, Pole and Jew,
Italian, American, Japanese and every jack that’ll join the crew.
Oh the sea when she rages high, and fluttering hearts cannot deny,
there’s a singing in the tops’ls, “brave men will never die”.