大象传媒

In his mid 70's I gave my father three blank books and a pile of pencils and asked him to write his story. He was born in 1905, uneducated, left school at 11, so it was quite a story. Marriage to my mother lastest one paragraph, 7/8ths of the book was devoted to Burma and India, but this is the section on Dunkirk.

Well, I can't swim or the other fellow, I jumped in and told the othe fellow to hang onto my rifle and I had to pull him over. I don't know if it was the bullets flying around or what, I had on hand to move anyway I found myself swimming until we got to the middl eof the river, and we heard that same old yar, 'stop or I shoot', and we did quick and shocked and tired as I was, I told them who we were. Then I had to find Battalion HQ and report to the 2nd in command and tell him I had lost my section, which didn't go down very well, and I had to find our Platoon HQ and tell the Sergeant in charge. WE had to strip off and ring our clothes out and put them back on as there was no way to dry them. When we were at the first position we got pushed out by a who battalion, and that Platoon commander and the Section went straight back to Ba. HQ and he expected 8 men to take our old position back. After that he got promoted to Major for doing nothing, he had the wind up, yellow I should think. After nearly a week there it got too hot as the Germans advancing and shooting off al they had. After a while we were attacked from both sides, troops were running everywhere I kept on running and I managed to get thorugh I don't know how as there were hundreds of troops both ours and Germans running in all directions. Well after that I did not see any of our Battaliuon, whether they were captured or not I do not know.

Remember we were just off the Belgium border when that happended, and we had the whole of France ot get through, and nobody could speak French. After a hwile I suppose it must have been about 5 miles when I came to abig house, I went and found it being used for the Red cRoss doctors and wounded were in there as there was nobody else to do it I went outside and kept watch for Germans and what a sight. There were hundreds of them spread out about 400 yards away tehy must have sen me as they opened fire on me and one shot landed about an inch from my foot. I went inside and told the doctor and he told me to get all the fellows out that could walk and get away with them. I did just that there was only about nine of them so we went around some houses and we had not gone far when some of the other fellows started to fall out and we had not gone a couple of miles when the last of them fell out, so I was on my own again and to make matters worse German aeroplanes cam eover and started to bomb the road................
I kep on all night aand most of the next day and came to a large river, there were hudnreds of troops line up and that night blew the bridge up. After a few hours I started to walk down the road I asked one bloke where I was and he said Dunkirk. I though I would get down to the town and see if I could find something to eat as I had not had anything for days but other people had been before me and cleared it out so I went on down to the shore and sat down by some rocks. While I was getting down there the planes kep on coming over and not only bombing but sending bullets down as well. The beach was crowded and I was lucky again as one chap there had a few cans of suoup and he gave me a couple and that was the best meal I have had. This chap must have raided thw town before anybody got there. I wandered round to look for a decent rock to have a sleep. ....Well after a while I got up and had a look round to see if I could jump a ship. There times I swam out tos ee if I could get on one of those small boats that kept on coming in, but I could not get near enough as there were hudnreds more trying to do the sam.e I was stuck there for 3 days and nights and then a big navy boat came in. It couldnot get close, he must have been 300 yards out so off I went again don't forget I could not swim before but I amanged to get there, its suurprising what you cand do if a few bombs and bullets are behind you. Well I managed to scramble up the side of the ship, we were packed like sardines but the bombs were still following us.
We reached Dover and had a cup of tea and cake then they marched us off to a train.

Early on when we first went ot fRance our HQ got blown up and all our records and papers got lost- so for Dunkirk we did not get any pay.

On the train passing through REading I threw a piece of paper off the train address to my wife Edie and someone picked it up and sent it to here in Thatcham Berkshre, to let her know I was alive."

My father was a regular soldier already proficient in the INdian territories which is where he went back to after Dunkirk. He loved the Indians and also the Gurkhas which whome he fought.

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