{"id":32212,"date":"2022-11-17T19:06:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T00:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32212"},"modified":"2022-11-24T22:42:19","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T03:42:19","slug":"all-those-boys-who-never-came-back-i-wonder-if-it-was-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/all-those-boys-who-never-came-back-i-wonder-if-it-was-worth-it\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAll those boys who never came back. I wonder if it was worth it.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Few people today have living memory of what went through the minds of soldiers as they prepared to storm the beaches of Normandy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were they pumped to set foot on the shore and take on the enemy, or were their minds elsewhere \u2013 perhaps thinking of their sweetheart, a parent, or brothers and sisters back home, wondering whether they would ever see them again? Maybe a little bit of both?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even fewer survivors, thanks to the sands of time, can give us insight on the silent individual battles that were felt as the ships gave way to water \u2013 but Joe Durkin is one of the few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now 98 and living in The Meadows of Aurora with his wife of 73 years, former \u201cLand Girl\u201d Alma Durkin, \u201c95-and-a-half\u201d, Durkin smooths his snow-white hair proudly make way for his beret as daughter Jennifer pins on his medals with equal pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEarlier he said, \u2018All those boys who never came back. I wonder if it was worth it,\u2019\u201d Jennifer said of chatting with her parents before sitting down with The Auroran last week. \u201cI said, \u2018Yes, Dad, it was worth it because you and all the other people basically saved Europe and the rest of the globe from Hitler running the world. Don\u2019t doubt that the sacrifice was worth it \u2013 and luckily you made it through, but those who didn\u2019t, their sacrifice was worth it because we reap the benefits every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a conversation that would have been unfathomable to the men like Joe who were just waiting to land on Gold Beach on June 6, 1944. They were simply doing their duty \u2013 yet another mission, with no possible inkling of how pivotal and historic the next minutes, hours, and days would be for themselves and the rest of humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a matter of \u2018wanting\u2019 to be,\u201d says Joe of becoming involved in the war effort. \u201cI was in the Welsh Guards and once you became 18 they got you and that\u2019s where I came in. I asked to get into the Navy \u2013 I just fancied the sea, really, and I went to a naval training camp and then onto the ships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alma adds his father thought he was \u201cdaft\u201d to join the Navy \u201cbecause there\u2019s no back door on a ship\u201d but Joe persisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst it was training in Britain and then I was shipped to many different places, including the Far East,\u201d says Joe. \u201cI was scared to death. You\u2019re always meeting the enemy somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of his duties in his role as Stoker was to keep the ships firing as he and his crew sailed minesweepers into different European ports in the dark of night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time of what became known as D-Day, he was in a landing craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and his fellow servicemen were not privy to what was planned until the morning of, he recalls, and as the hours ticked down, so too did the anticipation of learning what would be required of them \u2013 and Joe\u2019s tasks included operating an anti-aircraft gun to protect the landing troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, he wasn\u2019t among the first to make the landing, but he kept those who came before him as safe as possible until his turn came \u2013 and, just days after landing, he found himself next to Winston Churchill who made the journey across the Channel himself to see the success of the mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have been grateful since I was a little tiny girl in my Brownie uniform, attending the Remembrance Day services, just thinking about what the effort that all the allies made from all different countries to basically give us the opportunity to be free from Nazi tyranny,\u201d says Jennifer with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds a beaming Alma, \u201cWithout all these guys we wouldn\u2019t have beaten them \u2013 without being there and fighting on those beaches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alma has shared this pride for nearly three-quarters of a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Joe was serving in the Royal Navy, Alma was an active member of the Women\u2019s Land Army, which kept farms and food supplies rolling throughout the war. It was there she met a girl about her age and they became fast friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Women\u2019s Land Army disbanded after the war, they stayed in touch and Alma\u2019s friend asked her to serve as her bridesmaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the reception I was alone because I didn\u2019t know anybody, I was just sitting there like a dummy all evening and my friend came and asked if I was all right. I said, \u2018No, I\u2019m not \u2013 where are all the nice guys?\u2019 She said, \u2018Hold on a minute. I\u2019m going to get my Uncle Joe.\u2019 I thought, don\u2019t bother bringing over your old uncle, but she came back hauling him and I thought, \u2018This looks better.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was very nice and I thought we were getting along wonderfully, we were having a great time, and suddenly he looks at his watch and says, \u2018Sorry, I\u2019ve got to go,\u2019 and he left. I was dumbstruck. I was really fed up. Then, in the next hour he came back and that was it.  I was highly insulted. \u2018Where do you think you were?\u2019 He said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I needed to take my mother home.\u2019 As soon as he said that, everything fell into place and I could see he was a really nice guy. I was right \u2013 he\u2019s perfect!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Remembrance Day 2022 becomes part of history for another year, the Durkins say it is important for people to Remember not just on November 11 but all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are in danger themselves,\u201d says Alma. \u201cThey might be oblivious to it because they are in danger as we never know the second some man like Hitler, a man like that with crazy ideas waiting to come and ruin everything for everybody. You don\u2019t notice it until maybe it\u2019s too late. You\u2019ve got to be more aware from the beginning and not let it happen because you think it can\u2019t happen; everybody\u2019s so sane and we know better today. No, nobody knows better. The people have forgotten what it’s like. They have forgotten what war is like. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durkin\u2019s family have no doubt his service mattered<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/2022-11-17-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8ny","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 03:12:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}