GI Limey is a rags to riches
tale of triumph over adversary, a real-life Boy’s Own adventure, laced with
friendships forged in the heat of battle that only a soldier can truly
understand. It in no way glorifies war with its shockingly honest description of
combat, at times brutal to read, you are left in no doubt how death and
destruction can haunt a soldier for the rest of their life.
Born in 1923 Clifford Guard’s
childhood, in the south Wales town of Swansea, was filled with struggle,
hardship and heartbreak as the Great Depression began to bite. He sees death
from the beginning, as his infant sister dies in the workhouse having
contracted diphtheria, before his younger disabled brother is taken into care
and his parents divorce. On leaving school at 14, barely able to read or write,
he seeks a way out of the squalor through running away to sea.
His eyes are opened to the
world as he visits far off places in Canada, Africa, South America and
Australia. When war breaks out he participates in the perilous Atlantic convoys
before leaving his ship in New York, on hearing of the blitzing of his home
town, to take the shortest route closer to the action through joining the
American Army. In basic training Limey, as Clifford becomes known to one and
all, meets Henry ‘The Greek’ Kallas and Ralph ‘Trixie’ Trinkley; together they
become a band of brothers watching each other’s back and sharing lighter
moments through the course of the war together.
After landing on Omaha beach,
following D Day, they spend the next eleven months at the forefront of some of
most fearsome fighting of the war as the German Army is beaten back across
northern Europe and into its Homeland. Gripping first hand accounts of
disabling tanks, house to house fighting, civilian suicide, facing fire from
fanatical Hitler Youths, every aspect of the death, destruction and slaughter
of war is recalled, not least the shock of liberating a death camp and
uncovering appalling crimes against humanity.
Following the joy of the German
surrender, celebrated alongside Russian women tank drivers on the banks of the
Elbe River, Limey shows his humanity by helping feed the starving villages
while serving in the Army of Occupation.
Following his release he
settles in the United States and chases the American Dream but is to be forever
haunted by all the killing he had both witnessed and carried out. Determined to
turn things around he goes back to school and becomes a psychologist in order
to better understand what we now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Having raised a family and
enjoyed a successful career he retires back to his Swansea home. Last summer
that one-time snotty-nosed kid, with a sock hanging out a hole in his shoe, was
summoned to meet the Queen in Buckingham Palace to talk about his exploits.
Despite being
90-years-old Limey, who still has nightmares about the war, has one final
mission… to share his story with the world in order to help ensure today’s
servicemen and women are better supported following combat.
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