大象传媒

I was born in 1920 and joined the territorials in 1938. My first regiment was the East Surrey's and then I was in the Queen's Regiment.
I went to Belgium with the BEF and was caught up in the retreat to Dunkirk, starting at the La Basse canal,in Belgium. We blew up the barges in the canal and then held up the Germans for as long as possible before getting the order to withdraw. We left loads of material which could have come in useful, but at least managed to 'comandeer' a 15cwt truck, with the rest of my platoon. We drove off in the general direction of where we thought Dunkirk lay. We were constantly straddling the Belgium and French borders, passing between allied and German lines, in turn. After a close scrape with an SS unit, we were well and truly lost, when we came across another British Army truck in the middle of the road. There was a Brigadier, Lieut-colonel and a Captain poring over a map, placed across the bonnet of the vehicle.
I jumped out of our vehicle, came smartly to attention, and said 'excuse me sir, we're lost, can you help us, please sir?' The response was "f*** off, and find your own way!!!"
We left them to their maps and kept driving in a general easterly direction, until we came across more and more stragglers, moving towards Dunkirk. We were eating raw sugarbeet from the fields. The french people we came across were quite surly. The farmers stood around with shotguns, protecting their food.
We carried on until a military policeman stopped us. He told us to leave our vehicle and carry on, by foot. We all got out and started walking, only to look back and see some french civvies driving off in the opposite direction, in our truck!!!
It was chaos at Dunkirk.The sky was black with stukkas, dive-bombing us. I was so frightened that,when one particularly intense attack finished, I climbed out of a foxhole that I had dug with my bare hands, without knowing it!
I got a small schrapnel wound in my wrist.
I remember a Naval beachmaster shouting out "R.E.'s this way", "the Grenadiers that way" etc, etc, - I was in more regiments than I care to remember, in order to get off that beach...
I queued up for a boat and was ushered towards a small ship. "No thanks", says I, "I'll get on that one over there, it's got more guns on it!". my mates and I climbed on board and thought "this is it, we're on our way." About a mile out, we were received a direct hit - the bomb went straight down the funnel! I was o.k., and,as luck would have it, we were picked up by a nearby ship. I climbed up the scramble nets onto the ship. This was really difficult. It took ages. I was tired, my mouth was full of fuel oil and climbing scrambling nets is an acquired art. I was dragged over the railings to be confronted with a chaotic sight. we were told to make our way across the deck, but the only way to get to where they wanted us, was to pick our way through a sea of injured people lying on the deck. we kept stumbling and treading on really badly hurt comrades - it was terrible.There was so much moaning and screaming around me - I'll never forget it.
The ship arrived safely back to Dover. (one of the ship's I was on was the HMS Express. but I can't remember which one was sunk)
Once back in England, I spent a few days in Dover and then went back home to The Borough, in London where I lived with my nan and granddad. I re-joined my regiment and stayed in England, for training, around Yeovil and Sherborne, before we were sent to North Africa as part of the Eight Army group.

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