The Red Admirals

My wife and I visited Canadian war graves in Normandy, France, in 1987 following the storm which devastated the South coast of England as well as Northern France, yet the strange fact was that when we visited the war graves at Dieppe, and those at the Normandy beaches, not one cross, not one shrub or tree, was uprooted.
After signing the book of Remembrance in the Chapel at Dieppe, I asked my wife if she noticed anything unusual at the Canadian war graves.
“Yes,” she said, “dozens of butterflies.”
I pointed out that they were all Red Admirals, and that they were all fluttering around the graves of young pilots. The fact that it was November 17th made it all the more strange, I have never seen Red Admirals anywhere in November, at least not in the UK or France, and I told my wife that there must be a story there. I later wrote this short story called ‘The Red Admirals’, which was broadcast on BBC Radio Solent.