On 3 September, the war was declared. The former life ended for ever.
On 3 September 1939, inhabitants of Great Thurlow were at church as usual on Sunday and listened to a radio speech of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who declared that Great Britain was at war with Germany. Sue Ryder remembers a feeling of deep shame that accompanied her environment because politicians did not declare any support for Poland, an ally invaded by Hitler two days earlier. The absence of declaration resulting from political passivity.
And passivity was unknown to Sue. She came forward to help at a local hospital and in 1940, when common mobilisation was declared, she joined the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). She was 16 years old. Having completed a three-week course, Sue and her two girlfriends, she met at the FANY, came to the headquarters of the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Having signed an agreement on state secrecy, three young girls crossed a border separating their former known world from the new reality without even realising that. The former world was never to come back.
Cichociemni (Dark and Silent)
The SOE was to coordinate resistance against Hitler together with volunteers and members of the resistance movement in invaded countries. These were the Dark and Silent and FANY girls arranged for their missions. Bods, as the girls tenderly called them, were not daring for show. They were reasonable, but they also had a sense of humour and were full of love to their home countries. Sue remembers Poles as cheerful and musical. They often sang and danced.
Each mission of the Dark and Silent was dead dangerous. Many of them never returned to their base, like seven Czech parachutists who executed Reinhard Heydrich, Protector of the Czech Republic and Moravia. There were legends told about the courage of the Dark and Silent and crews they fled with. They were heroes, although for safety and underground activity reasons, they were often anonymous. Being aware that their common moments may be the last ones, girls from the FANY and Bods established true friendships. For the whole period of Sue Ryder’s service, there were around 300 Dark and Silent that moved through the base. As Sue Ryder remembers, those were 300 goodbyes when a feeling of true values: faith, loyalty, courage and truth arose.
Sue Ryder also developed a different feeling: a feeling that one day a living monument would have to be established for all those heroes by helping victims of the war and all persons in need.
English
