Resting now in pasture here,

Meadows of memory, quiet this year.

Cleared the farms to take men to war,

Stones and plaques to remember them all.

 

Dakotas soared, now skylarks sing,

Wounded soldiers, died for country and king.

September forty four, the husky’s howl,

Airbourne on silent wings, then gliders, now owl.

 

Flying nightingales, in fear of the flak,

With no red cross, soaring under attack.

Broken men, mutilated by weapons they wield,

Return to rest safe in a Wiltshire field.

 

Huts they lined the roads at the Leigh,          

Men slept in fields over which buzzards now cry.

A brief village built for vital reason,  

To support war machine and killing season.

 

Ghosts of men remain in the sky,

The moon shines down from where they flew to die,

Fathers and sons, killed for a bridge or a beach,

Gone to their god, sacrificed for a future we’ve reached.

 

Now deer they hide and cattle they stare,

Omnia Passim* on the wind, “anything anywhere”

Last post declared, young and old hear the call,

Tears and poppies they fall, to heroes them all.

 

 

​

*Omnia Passim (Anything Anywhere) is the motto of 

437 Husky Squadron which was formed at RAF Blakehill Farm in 1944