Posted on 05/18/2007 3:01:30 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter
It was Arthur Stubbs' birthday yesterday and he turned 103. "That's all," he said, with a little smile.
Mr Stubbs walked off a small plane at Wellington International Airport into a media posse.
One minder took off his cap, another straightened his tie, a former comrade pinned medals to his chest, people waiting in the airport lounge clapped and Mr Stubbs blinked, smiled and even appeared to blush at all the attention.
All he did was lie about his age to get into the armed forces, serve in the Battle of Crete, endure prisoner of war camps and jails, escape from the enemy so many times he can't remember, come home and raise a family, and live beyond a hundred. He looked at the palaver unfolding in the arrivals lounge as if to say: What's so special about that?
Ben Standen, 89, a fellow veteran of Petrol Company, had waited 55 years to catch up with his old mate. Mr Standen was one of seven Wellington brothers who served in World War II; two died in the war and all the others have died since. Mr Standen carried photocopied portraits of his brothers in uniform.
Strikingly small at just 1.57m, Mr Stubbs strode through the airport, commenting on the acres of carpet, keeping an eye out for that "young chap" Mr Standen, medals he wasn't too interested in dangling from his chest.
He didn't know what year he went to war or what year he came home. "I'm hanged if I know. I've forgotten." When war was declared in 1939, he was just over the upper age limit of 35. By the time the Battle of Crete began on May 20, 1941, he was 37.
Mr Stubbs was a mechanic in Karori for many years and started the sixpenny delivery service in Wellington with a motorbike and sidecar. He said he married at about the halfway point, in his fifties, and has two children and a sprinkling of grandkids.
Forty years ago he moved to the Bay of Plenty, where he still lives with live-in carer Jacqui Meyer.
He missed last year's 65th reunion in Crete because Mrs Meyer was waiting for a foot operation and could not leave New Zealand. This weekend a dozen veterans, their families and the Greek community will commemorate the bond between the people of Crete and the Kiwis who fought bravely, but in vain, for their freedom.
The island was invaded by thousands of German paratroopers who rained down on the New Zealand soldiers. Countless Germans were killed, plucked from the sky by Kiwi riflemen.
The scene was famously likened to duck shooting. Mr Stubbs was a duck shooter till last year when he decided he was getting too slow to hunt. But he still drives. "Of course, why not? I've got a licence."
He did not think about the war very often, certainly not every day. He signed up because he wanted to "shoot Germans".
This weekend, 66 years later, he will relive wartime memories, honour those who served alongside him, and have a proper catch-up with that "young chap".
No wonder they call them "The Greatest Generation": they don't make 'em like they used to. I'll miss them when they are gone.
(That said, this current generation fighting in Iraq are building their own Legends of derring-do and defining their own place in the History Books.)
For the record, the warrior Mr Stubbs is just under 5'2" -- roughly Hobbit-sized.
Heart warming.
Good for him. He did right and served his country.
My dad's a WWII vet, but he was only 18 when he went in. 82 now and still kicking.
The Battle of Crete was a big-time screw-up. Evelyn Waugh describes it in his “Sword of Honour” trilogy.
It takes a special kind of guy to go through that, plus a bunch of German P.O.W. camps, and come out cheerful on the other side.
Aww. My grandfather was a short, fat, middle-aged math professor when he signed up. He didn’t go into combat; he broke codes in London. Of course, there were bombs falling about.
Mrs VS
HEY MATE!
YOU DID NOT PING YOUR 5’-4” MARINE BRO.
GET W/ THE PROGRAM.
5 SOLAS !
Thanks for your service, Mr. Stubbs. May you have many more happy years!
> My dad’s a WWII vet, but he was only 18 when he went in. 82 now and still kicking.
God Bless your Dad, and may he be with us many, many more years yet. We still need The Greatest Generation, now more than ever before, as examples for all, to help us re-discover how life *should* be done.
Your grandfather would have been an amazing man. I wonder if he ever encountered “Enigma” or “Magic” — those were major breakthrus for the Allies, without which WW-II would have taken an entirely different path.
> The Battle of Crete was a big-time screw-up. Evelyn Waugh describes it in his “Sword of Honour” trilogy.
Have you read “The Mark of the Lion”, biography of Charles Upham VC with Bar, by Kenneth L Sanford? Highly recommended. Covers the Crete fiasco brilliantly (Upham was awarded his first VC for Valor there, his second in North Africa).
Soon to be a movie. Rumored to star Russell Crowe (hope not!) as Upham. Filming starts in NZ soon.
*DieHard*
Oh, for the good old days of war movies, and the old-time stars.
No, I haven't read "The Mark of the Lion." But Waugh does a brilliant job portraying what it would have been like to have arrived in Crete with the last British troops sent in--just in time for the retreat and abandonment.
In his trilogy, Waugh pretty much shows all the warts involved in the conduct of the war by the British bureaucrats, not as an anti-war writer, but as a writer who thought some very basic mistakes were made--most of all, the mistake of admiring and allying with Stalin and letting him take over Yugoslavia and the rest of Eastern Europe. From his point of view, the problem with the war was that it wasn't heroic enough.
> Oh, for the good old days of war movies, and the old-time stars.
Richard Button would have been *perfect* for Upham. Or Richard Harris, in a pinch. Of the modern actors? Crikey — anyone but Russell Crowe!!! The only thing he has in common with Upham is New Zealand citizenship.
On principle I will not watch the movie if he is the “star” for he is a vulgar and unworthy example of what Upham was all about.
If you can, do read “The Mark of the Lion” — it is a fascinating glimpse into a very complex life. Charles Upham was the Commonwealth’s bravest soldier as evidenced by his two Victoria Cross awards For Valor. Yet his personal conduct was self-effacing, almost as if he himself did not believe he had earned these awards.
Yet his personal conduct demonstrates that yes, indeed he did.
I have few regrets in life. One of them is that I did not meet Charles Upham VC with Bar, and quietly thank him for his Service. It would have been at his RSA. By all reports he would have been gruff and would have changed the subject. The Mark of the Lion.
*DieHard*
Thats good enough for me! Open season, don't need a license, no bag limit and you don't have to clean them....... LOL!
My grandfather didn’t really talk about the codes. He was transferred to work on the Japanese codes and said he worked on the Purple Dragon code, which I can’t find any reference to. Maybe he made that one up, which he was prone to doing! But he never talked about the German codes, not even twenty years after the war. He died when I was three, so I have only a faint memory of sitting on a chaise longue with him. My mother has the letters that he sent almost daily.
Mrs VS
The FReeper Foxhole did a special on his story back in 2004. My then 11 year old daughter interviewed him for a history class.
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