By Celia Coates

Kenneth Trevelyan, (1922 – 1943)
Kenneth Trevelyan died fighting Fascism in Europe during the second World War. He was an Englishman, a pilot in the Royal Air Force, whose Kitty Hawk III was shot down over Italy in October soon after he turned 21. He had been in the RAF for three years.

These two memorials were left for him,
Thank you for ensuring our freedom through your courage, service and sacrifice.
And,
His life the truest,
His winged duty the highest,
His memorial, the world

The world – who thinks about our duty to the world these days?

When there is a great tragedy, a collective loss, we often hear loud promises that “We will never forget!” We mean it when we say it, but forgetting is what happens over the years. When we forget the lives lost and what they died fighting for, we have to learn old lessons again  – again and again.

Trevelyan and all those other thousands of war dead (and wounded) made sacrifices that kept the West comfortably free and well-enough governed for decades. Then, last week, I heard someone who is locked into today’s political moment claim that it would be great to have a dictator run America, that a return to Fascism would be fine with them. Even that Hitler was a good hero.

The African American author, Eddie Glaude Jr., noted in his new book (WE ARE THE LEADERS WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR**) that,
“Reaganism had enshrined greed and selfishness …as the most important values in the land.”
The nation voted in tax cuts and the repeal of laws from the 1960s that were designed to protect both our personal rights and our collective well-being. Now, our current emphasis is on protecting the wealth, status, and power of the individual and that is taking this (and other countries) away from old and cherished values. We are abandoning a belief in the common good and the central purpose for our democracy

Eddie Glaude Jr. goes on to tell this story about African American author Ralph Ellison who described,
“…what happened in the summer of 1953 when he was last on Harvard’s campus. He stumbled upon the wall of Memorial Hall engraved with the names of Harvard men killed in the civil war. It was a moment of revelation: that these men had given their lives, in part, for his freedom and that he had lived his life unaware of this indebtedness. ‘Standing there I was ashamed of my ignorance,’ Ellison told the students, ‘and of the circumstances that had assigned these young men to the shadows of our historical knowledge.’”
He added,
“The nation had turned its back on the sacrifices of these men and had ‘repressed the details of the shameful abandonment of those goals for which they had given their lives.’”
Our current historical knowledge is heavily shadowed – especially in these days of instant, entertaining, “news”.

But I have also been ignorant. Many, many years ago my uncle George, Kenneth Trevelyan’s younger brother, sent me two thick and heavy stamp albums with dark red covers. They had belonged to Kenneth who was a very enthusiastic stamp collector, often then a young person’s hobby, one that no longer exists. All this time the albums have been on my book shelves without my learning anything more about their owner beyond that he had died in World War II. This past year my cousin David, told me that Kenneth kept diaries, diaries that the family in England still had. I wanted to know more about the creator of those stamp collections so David mailed the diaries to me.

Kenneth Trevelyan turned out to be an ordinary young man, just one of us everyday people living what was expected of him. His diaries do not include much about his thoughts or feelings. That seems to have been his personality, his habit of mind along with his British reserve, but he wrote daily about what interested him and how he spent his time. The diaries begin as a school boy’s account of his life. Also tucked into the pages are souvenirs like the wrapper for a treasured roll of Butter Rum Lifesavers. (I remember how they tasted  – do you? Not sure whether you can still buy them now that candies have become so much fancier.) Kenneth Trevelyan really enjoyed many kinds of “sweets” (chocolates, ice cream, Rowntrees pastilles, and fresh fruit) and he looked for ways to find and buy them.

Here’s his entry for Monday, December 8, 1941,
“Heard the news at 10:45. Japs have declared war on us and U.S.A. !!!  Damn cheek! Had a talk from a Wing Commander on water economy and various things. Had an ‘alert’. Stood by at dinner time (got an extra bottle of mineral). Played cards in the evening. Got some buns.”
On the 9^th he wrote,
“Heard the news. The Japs seem to have things all their own way so far. Heard a concert in the evening on the deck. Was quite good on the whole.”
And then on the 10^th he noted,
“Got some licorice and biscuits.”

 His diaries are filled with details about playing cricket, the stamps he bought and sold, learning to fly, the orders he followed, his friends and, later, those who died or had been declared missing. He wrote about the ordinary events in his life, even about having a chance to wash his socks during the war or to see a movie. His descriptions of his days end abruptly just before his death on October 7^th.

On September 2, 1943 he had written,
“Had an ops in afternoon. I flew X which nearly spun in in (sic) circuit. Rolled to the left. Bombed M.T. on a rock. Definitely destroyed. Strafed but I made no claim.”
And on October 5^th he wrote,
“Did my show today. Got the most heavy Ack Ack I have yet seen. On the first – hole in wing. Second was a piece of cake. Had to have a homing as visibility awful.”
(“Show” seems to mean a flight or a bombing run or the targets.)
On October 6^th he wrote,
“Did one early show reading bombed tanks. Made log book up to date. Had a sleep in afternoon. Felt dapped. Played bridge in evening.”
The last entry in his diaries was for October 7, 1943, the day he died, when he wrote,
“Had a fortress also with us early morning again, fourth running went down but came back as no show at all. Weather lousy. Repaired wooden trunk, wrote some letters.”

Who in your family – men and women – died in the cause of freedom? Are they remembered? In the “old days” families used to go to cemeteries on Memorial Day to decorate the graves of those they had loved. With our “devices” constantly taking our attention, we are losing our ability to be together, to listen to each other, to tell the stories that really matter – to do more than share the latest political anecdote or to exchange quips about the newest headline-grabbing uproar.

Who do you know, or know about, who should not be forgotten? Especially someone who lived a life that we should remember, a life that has helped us to live our privileged lives? We need to remember what was fought for in the past on both sides of the Atlantic, what young men like Kenneth Trevelyan died for.

*     *     *     *      *
The image that leads this post is of Kenneth Trevelyan’s grave in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery in Ortona, Provincia di Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy.

** Eddie S. Glaude Jr. ‘s book was published by Harvard University Press in 2024.

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