Operation Manna - food from heaven in WW2

 by Deborah Swift

In the last few weeks we have heard a lot on the news about WW2's 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden and Arnhem - the attempt by the Allies to free occupied Holland. It was only partially successful, leaving much of Holland still occupied and cut off from the rest of the Netherlands.

By the winter of 1944-1945, the Netherlands was in the grip of a severe famine, known as the "Hongerwinter" (Hunger Winter). The German occupation forces had cut off food and fuel supplies to the western part of the country, a region that included major cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, which remained under German control. Above - Dutch children being fed soup during the famine.

The destruction of transport infrastructure by bombs and sabotage made it nearly impossible to distribute whatever food was available. By April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were facing starvation. An estimated 20,000 people had already died. The situation was dire, and the Dutch government in exile, along with the Dutch resistance, appealed to the Allies for help.

Operation Manna was the response to this desperate plea for assistance. Named after the biblical manna that fed the Israelites in the desert, the operation was conceived by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Negotiations were hastily arranged between the Allies and the German forces in the Netherlands. While the Germans were still an occupying force, they were also aware that they were losing and were perhaps motivated by a desire to avoid post-war retribution. Eventually, truce was agreed to allow unarmed bombers to fly low over Dutch territory and drop food supplies without being fired upon.

The first mission of Operation Manna took place on April 29, 1945. Lancaster Bombers were loaded with food parcels instead of bombs. The aircraft flew at low altitudes, around 400 feet, over designated drop zones in the western Netherlands, including areas around Rotterdam and The Hague. The food parcels contained basic but essential supplies: flour, dried eggs, margarine, sugar, and tinned food. These items were packed in sacks and boxes that were designed to minimize the risk of damage when dropped from the planes.

Over the course of ten days, more than 3,000 sorties were flown by the RAF, dropping nearly 7,000 tons of food. The operation was a logistical triumph and a morale booster for both the Allied forces and the starving Dutch population. For many, these food drops were the difference between life and death.

For months, the Dutch people had been surviving on whatever they could find: tulip bulbs, sugar beets, and anything that could be scavenged. See the photo above of Dutch women transporting food. The sudden influx of supplies amazed the population, delivered from the skies by the sort of bombers that had once represented death and destruction.

The food drops did more than just prevent starvation, they also lifted the spirits of the population. Stories from those who lived through the Hunger Winter often recall the sense of relief and joy that accompanied the arrival of the food parcels. In many cases, the Dutch civilians gathered in the drop zones would wave at the Allied planes as they passed overhead.

Operation Manna continued until May 8th 1945, the day the Germans in the Netherlands officially surrendered to the Allies. This marked the end of the occupation and the beginning of the recovery for the Dutch people. The food drops, however, continued to be a crucial lifeline until normal supply routes could be restored.

The legacy of these operations endures to this day. Monuments and memorials in the Netherlands commemorate the food drops, and the operations are taught in Dutch schools as an example of international cooperation and humanitarianism.

For the airmen who participated, the missions were often among the most rewarding of their military careers. In my latest novel Operation Tulip, these food drops form part of the plot towards the end of the book. When researching I was taken by how moving the British airmen found these missions, to be sending aid not bombs, and how they recalled the Dutch waving from the ground. After five years of war, this must have been a heart-warming sight.

Operation Tulip is out now.

Secret Voices by Sarah Gristwood

We at the History Girls are grateful to Sarah Gristwood for this guest post about her latest, fascinating, book.  

It was way back, in my early twenties, that I first developed an interest in the diaries of other women. A lot has changed since then - for me, but also, more significantly, for the field of women’s studies.

At the risk of painting the 1980s as the Dark Ages, the challenge then was to persuade a reader that women had voices distinct from those of men. That they might possibly be worth hearing…Today, we can all assume a ‘yes’ to that.

Today, the questions are more nuanced. Things have moved on. Academia has seen a lot of work on women’s writing, tv has seen the unmissable diaries of Nella Last (Housewife, 49) and the coded records of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack). And yet, if you look at the anthologies still out there on the shelves, it’s shocking how few women’s voices feature. That’s why, when Batsford offered me the chance to edit Secret Voices: A Year in Women’s Diaries, I frankly jumped at it.

 

Because one thing remains constant, whether you’re reading them in the 1980s or the 2020s - the astonishing variety, excitement , frankness and relevance of these women’s voices. 

There are some simply extraordinary stories, like that of the Inuit woman who found herself sole survivor of an Arctic expedition. Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh -wife to the famous aviator Charles and herself a pioneering flyer - writing about the kidnap and murder of her infant son (the story behind Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express). Of the Victorian wife cast by her husband into the streets…

There’s Lady Bird Johnson describing Kennedy’s assassination and life in the White House, or Barbara Castle and Oona King casting a cool eye on the House of Commons. Voices, you might say, from the powder rooms of power … Queen Victoria recounting the moment she was told of her accession to the throne (to say nothing of her first night with Prince Albert). But I was almost more struck by finding, so often, the unexpected hiding within the ordinary. 

 

Dilemmas that we view as modern can actually be seen echoing down the centuries. Quaker reformer Elizabeth Fry admits how, after a difficult labour, she couldn’t welcome her new baby as she felt she should; socialist Naomi Mitchison discovers the challenge of combining work and family. Nella Last describes how World War II had unexpectedly liberated her from the limiting expectations of her marriage: Edwardian socialite Lady Cynthia Asquith  the difficulties of having what she saw as a disabled child. 

 

In the privacy of the diary format, women in the past wrote more freely about sex and the life of the body than we might expect. Near the turn of the nineteenth century, we have Anne Lister on her lesbianism and Hester Thrale on her menopause. In the first half of the twentieth, Anne Frank on menarche and Joan Wyndham on masturbation. There are the well-known writers who nonetheless, in their diaries, sound an unexpected note. Would we expect to find Virginia Woolf gleefully describing the delights of a car, and the excitement of being shingled; or Beatrix Potter proclaiming the age of knickerbockers? Or Barbara Pym on the pleasures of peach-coloured underwear - ‘disgraceful I know’, but chosen, she confessed, ‘with a view to it being seen!’?

 

Sometimes it’s our knowledge of what lies ahead that renders the words of the unconscious diarist even more extraordinary. Anne Frank in the summer of 1944 rejoices that the war is almost over and she may be back at school by the autumn - when we know the fate that actually awaited her, in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  Louisa May Alcott describes the decline of her real-life sister Beth, and how the needle with which she used to sew finally grew ‘too heavy’ … What lover of Little Women can read that without remembering the death of Alcott’s fictional Beth?

That question of our knowledge, of well-known women and professional writers does open up a can of worms for the anthologist. One has to accept that, historically, the diaries most likely to have been written - and, crucially, preserved - come largely (though not entirely) from the professional and upper classes. And that, by the same token, this often (though not always) means the diarists will be white. Happily, today a good deal of work  - especially in the States - is being done to remedy that situation, so that we can hear Charlotte Forten, the African American activist, in 1855 wondering ‘that every colored person is not a misanthrope…fearing, with too good reason, to love and trust hardly anyone whose skin is white’.   

It’s just one reason why we need to hear our grandmothers’ voices to understand the big issues - race and rebellion, love and death, pain and identity. And why, where women’s voices are concerned, there has never been a better time to edit an anthology. 

 

Rebecca Alexander will be back next March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Latin - Lost in translation? By Caroline K. Mackenzie

You may recall from an earlier blog I wrote for the History Girls that Autumn is my favourite time of year. This September is no exception. A further source of joy and optimism this year is the recommencement of my Classics Club after our summer break.

As I prepare for the first class of term, in which we shall continue to read Ovid’s masterpiece, Metamorphoses, I find myself wondering once again whether we can ever do justice to the original Latin when we read the text in translation. As a group, we generally follow the same translation as this makes it easier when we take it turns to read aloud (just as Latin poetry was intended to be read) and I have usually researched and recommended a particular translation that I think the group will enjoy. But to add to the fun and interest, some of the group religiously follow a different translation (perhaps a copy they had at school, or indeed in the case of one member of our group, a German translation passed down to her from her grandfather, complete with scribbled notes in the margin). Others prefer to read the text onscreen (the class is on Zoom so we are all online in any event) and this combination of sources has thrown up some varied and fascinating translations, allowing us all to compare notes on the different versions.

For this blog, therefore, I thought I would show you some examples of how differently a particular passage can be translated depending on the date, style and personal preferences of the translator. I am continually curious as to what extent are they true to Ovid’s original poem, and how much (if any) is lost in translation…

The translation that I chose was by David Raeburn, a wonderful and inspiring Classicist who lived into his 90s and was translating and directing Greek plays even as a nonagenarian. I first met him when I was a shy 16 year old and he encouraged me to take part in one of his Greek plays – no-one else could have persuaded me to get on stage but his enthusiasm, kindness and passion for Greek somehow did the trick! So I probably had a slightly biased view towards using his translation over others as, whenever I read it, I can almost hear his voice on the pages. However, that may partly also be because, as he explains in his introduction to his translation (published by Penguin Classics), he finds it helpful to think of each of the 15 books of the Metamorphoses as a ‘unit of performance’. He even calculated that it would take around 70 minutes to recite each book (‘a reasonable length of time for a reciter to hold an audience’s attention’) and I have no doubt that he will have practised reciting the lines many times to check he was happy with the metre, the language and the general Ovidian flavour of his translation (a bit like a chef constantly tasting as he stirs the pot). 

Further, I was also aware that for the previous texts we had read in Classics Club (including the epic poems by Homer and Virgil) the translations I had recommended happened to be prose and some of the group were keen to read a verse translation which they felt would be truer to the original. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is also an epic poem, written in the same metre as The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid, so I felt justified in going with Raeburn’s verse translation on more than just a personal level.

Before we dive into some extracts from the three main translations we have been discussing in Classics Club, it might be of interest to note the dates of the translations and the ages of the translators at the date of publication. This is because we often recognise in their choice of words either a colloquial phrase or a contemporary expression that ‘gives away’ the language of that translator’s time and generation.

Raeburn’s Penguin Classic translation was first published in 2004 when he was about 77 years’ old. (Retirement did nothing to damper his love of Classics.)

The other edition I always have on my desk when discussing the text is my Loeb. The Loeb Library is an iconic collection of Classical texts, with Greek or Latin on one side of the page and its English translation on the other. Most Classicists love to have a selection of these on their bookcases; the Latin ones are in red dust jackets, the Greek in green, and together they look fabulous! The Loeb edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses was first published in 1916 and the translator was Frank Justus Miller, Professor in the University of Chicago. As with many Loebs, the date of publication probably explains the frequency throughout of words and phrases such as, “ ‘tis”, “naught”, and “thou mayst”.

An excellent translation that was brought to my attention by a member of the group accessing it online is that of A.S. Kline, a poet, author and translator. Coincidentally his translation was published the same year as Raeburn’s, 2004. Kline was born in 1947. His translation (along with many other of his works) is freely available online but I have enjoyed listening to it so much in class that I ordered a hard copy of the book. I still can’t resist the feel, the smell, and the sight of the printed word. The hardback has a dashing black, white and red dust jacket so it will look lovely next to my Loebs…

Without further ado, here are some examples from these three translations. I am also including the Latin in case you would like to have a go at your own translation. Even if you don’t speak Latin, I am sure you will recognise some of the words thanks to the many English derivatives we have from Latin.

Metamorphoses 5.132-3
First, a quote from a fight scene in the story of Perseus:

Ovid:
huius in obliquo missum stetit inguine ferrum:
letifer ille locus.

Raeburn:
Rich as he was, he was struck by a javelin thrown from the side
in the groin, that sensitive place…

Loeb:
Into his groin a spear hurled from the side struck;
that place is fatal.
(Note – no comment on the victim’s wealth here. Raeburn has added that into his translation above as if making a proverbial comment).

Metamorphoses 2.151-4
Next is an extract from the story of Phaëthon, the teenage boy who recklessly begs his father to lend him his chariot for a day. His father is the Sun god and the disastrous consequences which follow after he reluctantly agrees to his son’s request are full of pathos and drama.

Ovid:
statque super manibusque datas contingere habenas
gaudet et invito grates agit inde parenti.
Interea volucres Pyrois et Eous et Aethon,
Solis equi, quartusque Phlegon hinnitibus auras
flammiferis inplent

Raeburn:
Standing aloft, he excitedly seized the featherweight reins,
and shouted his thanks from the car to his worried and anxious father.
Meanwhile the sun god’s team of winged horses – Fiery, Dawnsteed,
Scorcher and Blaze – were impatiently filling the air with their whinnies

Loeb:
standing proudly, he [‘the lad’] takes the reins with joy into his hands, and thanks his unwilling father for the gift. Meanwhile the sun’s swift horses, Pyroïs, Eoüs, Aethon, and the fourth, Phlegon, fill all the air with their fiery whinnying

I love Raeburn’s anachronistic use of ‘car’ as it immediately brings to mind the modern teenager rushing off with the keys to their parents’ sports car. I still remember the look of concern on Dad’s face when he first loaned me the keys to his car not long after I had passed my driving test. I was 17. Mind you, it was a Morris Minor and I don’t recall it went much faster than 30mph even if I had wanted it to – I had to ‘double de-clutch’ which felt like an antiquarian move even back then. I don’t recall any of my peers having to learn that manoeuvre.

Notice also that Raeburn has translated the Greek names of the Sun god’s horses. A brilliant touch. The Greek names have been retained in the Loeb. By comparing the two, you can probably spot some Greek derivatives here!

Metamorphoses 5.281-2
Third, a quote from the story of Minerva and the Muses:

Ovid:
‘nec dubitate, precor, tecto grave sidus et imbrem’
(imber erat)

Raeburn:
“You mustn’t refuse to shelter under my roof in this shocking
downpour” (the weather was dreadful);

Loeb:
'do not hesitate to take shelter beneath my roof against the lowering sky and rain’ – for rain was falling - …

Kline:
'don’t be afraid, I beg you, to seek shelter from the rain and the lowering skies' (it was raining);

Kline has been truest to the simple statement in Latin, ‘it was raining’. Raeburn has got a little carried away here but perhaps that is just his love of drama showing through.

Metamorphoses 5.451-2
Fourth, from Calliope’s Song:

Ovid:
duri puer oris et audax
constitit ante deam risitque avidamque vocavit

If you read the Latin aloud, the second line will resonate with hard ‘c’ and ‘qu’ sounds – rather like a cackle or coarse laugh. The ‘dental’ sounds of the repeated ‘t’ in that line add to the effect.

Raeburn:
an insolent, coarse-looking boy strolled up in front of the goddess,
burst into laughter and jeered, “What a greedy female you are!”

Note Raeburn’s invention of direct speech when there is none in the Latin. Again, his love of theatre and vivid delivery of lines may have played a part here.

Loeb:
a coarse, saucy boy stood watching her, and mocked her and called her greedy.

I love the choice of ‘saucy’!!

Kline:
a rash, foul-mouthed boy stood watching, and taunted her, and called her greedy.

Proverbs
Latin and Greek epic poets sometimes include phrases which sound like proverbs (and indeed on some of the original manuscripts we occasionally have notes made by the ancient commentators confirming the common use of such proverbs).

Here are some proverbial style snippets from the Metamorphoses:

Ovid: 2.447
heu! quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu!

Raeburn:
How difficult not to betray our guilt in our facial expression!

Loeb:
Alas, how hard it is not to betray a guilty conscience in the face!

Kline:
Alas! How hard it is not to show one’s guilt in one’s face!

Note Raeburn has omitted the ‘heu’ = ‘alas’. Does it sound too old-fashioned perhaps? How else could we translate ‘heu’?

Ovid: 2.416
sed nulla potentia longa est

Raeburn:
no one’s favour is lasting

Loeb:
no favour is of long duration

Kline:
no favor lasts for long

This could apply to so many contemporary situations, political and otherwise.

So I wonder what you think? How do the translations compare? Do you prefer one particular style over the other, or is each example different? As you can imagine, we have lively discussions in Classics Club over which is the best. Do any of them live up to the Latin? Translations are, of course, for many readers the only way to access the text and Ovid himself, I feel, would approve of this. Perhaps each translation of his epic poem could appropriately be regarded as simply yet another metamorphosis. After all, his closing lines in the poem are (as translated by Raeburn):

‘the people shall read and recite my words. Throughout all ages,
if poets have vision to prophesy truth, I shall live in my fame.’

We shall be reading and reciting Ovid’s Metamorphoses this coming Monday at 10.30am, and again at 3pm and every Monday thereafter during term time, until Spring 2025. All translations welcome!

Classics Club runs on Zoom every Monday during term-time (morning group 10.30-midday, afternoon group 3pm-4.30pm). For more details, contact Caroline through her website.

Being Curious about the Past, by Gillian Polack

 

I’m not at my desk. This is rare for me. I’ve been unwell for a number of years and one of the results is that I almost live at my desk. Except now. I am travelling. I’m meeting with other History Girls when we’re close enough to each other, and I’m so looking forward to this. It’s not the main reason for my voyages. I have research to do. I may or may not be well enough to do it with any sort of comfort, so this is a vast test. It will basically let me know what kind of life is ahead for me. I want to do extraordinarily well, and I want to be able to dance again when I get home. I’ve not been able to folkdance for over a decade, but I still have many friends who do, and … I miss it and them. This is also not why I’m travelling!

I’m researching a bunch of different things, but they all fit together and create one project. Some of it is fiction and some non-fiction. I’m also giving some workshops and seminars in worldbuilding using Medieval history, in Australian Gothic (the fiction, not the architecture) and even how to write fight scenes using the model of Old French epic legends. This later is an oldie but a goodie. I once was an expert on these battle scenes and soon I teach German translators how to write them. It’s mainly so that we can talk about translation. I will be working with MA students at Heinrich Heine University, and I’m very excited. I am addressing my own past in teaching students about Australian fiction and about Old French epics. My convict ancestry is not actually English. Lemon, my ancestor who was convicted in the Old Bailey (unjustly, I suspect, given what happened later) was born in Leipzig, not London. He married a Londoner, and having German ancestry is something I’ve been wanting to address for years, but never had the courage. Since I’m not a tourist, but a research fellow, I will not be alone, and that matters. It especially matters now, when I can’t take a break from exploring impossible pasts and take refuge in the present. In fact, now is the perfect time to confront Jewish history in Germany, and that’s one of the core things I’m doing while away.

The research side of my travels is all about things past, in fact. I’m trying to learn more about how we see our past and what layers our history with meaning. I will explore Reading (and have afternoon tea with Leslie Wilson while I’m there) to discover how a single town presents the Middle Ages for tourists. I will create a photo-essay for this, and could be persuaded to give it as a slide show (with added bad jokes) for anyone who is curious. I’m also exploring Cambridgeshire, and spending time with Rosemary Hayes. Every moment with a History Girl is a good moment and those few days would be worth travelling to the other side of the world for in and of themselves.

The rest of my research concerns German Jews. Not my ancestors, to be honest. Jews from a quite different part of Germany. I will be comparing the cultures of the German Middle Ages to those of the Early Modern. Jews in the various German states had interesting differences in culture and traditions and… I want to know what has been lost, but also, just as Reading presents its Middle Ages to visitors, some towns in Germany present their Jewish history to visitors. I will explore both sides of the coin: the memories of once-neighbours and how those once-neighbours lived.

Next year is the earliest I can finish my projects. I have other things that need to be done first. At the end of it, there will be a novel: set in our far future, in the same universe as Poison and Light (where, on a distant planet, a society takes refuge in the 18^th century, which for some is salons, for others is politics, and for yet others it’s revolution) though not at all on the same planet. There will also be a non-fiction book, discussing all of these curious pasts.

This is why I’ve been largely quiet. I’ve been trying to finish my current big project so that I can move to the next. Everything went awry and now I’m taking a pause in the current big project so that I can go to Europe and do some of the groundwork for the next. When I’m back and the doctor and I have worked out the effects of this trip, then I shall return to looking at writing techniques used to present culture in novels, especially in fairy tale retellings.

This post got away from me! I just wanted to tell you that I’m an historian again and working on a novel that uses much history. I don’t have time to tell you the fun stuff. I’m posting this twelve hours before I catch my first plane.

If you want my next post to be about some of the history I discovered, let me know! I may even have pictures...