大象传媒

On the outbreak of war in September 1939 the B. E. F. was formed (British Expeditionary Force) to go to France and be ready to defend the border between Northern France and Belgium.

I, being in the army at that time, was assigned to that force, as well as thousands of others, and was placed in the R. A. S. C. (Royal Army Service Corps), and was known as "2 Corps Troops Supply Column". It consisted of two "Echelons", which is French for rung of a ladder, and these were two columns of vehicles which had to carry food and supplies from "Railhead" to the outlying troops. There was also a Headquarters, a stores section and a workshop section. I was assigned to the workshop section.

We landed in France in late September 1939 and travelled up (in echelon) from Cherbourg to a little village in Northern France, known as "Neuville St Vaast" between the towns of Arras and Lens and very near Vimy Ridge, which was the scene of bitter fighting between Canadians and Germans in the First World War. A large memorial had been built there, and also a museum of army equipment. It was looked after by an Englishman who had settled there. As far as I know the memorial and museum were not damaged in the second war and are still there.

We settled in - the French people were very kind and welcoming to us - and there we remained from September 1939 until May 1940. On the whole it was enjoyable - I had two leaves to come home and we even formed a concert party - I was the pianist.

In May 1940 the idyllic existence ended. The Germans attacked Holland, Belgium and Northern France one night. There were air raids all round our sector. In order to honour our pledge to the Belgians we left all our carefully prepared positions along the border and moved into Belgium to help defend them.

This was of course a German trap which we fell into. France had relied on the Maginot Line to defend most of Southern France, which it did, but the Germans broke through somewhat North of the Maginot Line and came up behind us in a pincer movement.

We as a supply unit shuttled backwards and forwards between Belgium and France, each movement becoming shorter as the Germans advanced. This took about three weeks and was helped by beautiful May weather (which was a good thing as we mostly had to sleep under lorries). Most of us had no idea what was happening - the ordinary troops did not have wirelesses.

As the end drew near, Belgium collapsed and the Germans got nearer and nearer. All the time we could hear the sound of artillery in the distance. Finally we were in a town called Lomme in Northern France when the Sergeant-Major rushed in and told us to smash everything up, except one lorry, and make for the coast. We smashed things a bit, but it is not easy to smash a lorry at short notice, so apart from damaging plugs and ignition we did not really do much damage.

So we got into a breakdown lorry (this was just the workshop section I was with) and made for the coast. We did not know Dunkirk was the destination, but joined queues of hundreds of others all going in the same direction so we followed them.

Finally we had to abandon the lorry and walk. We got into Dunkirk about mid day on the Monday. The whole evacuation took about a week. By this time we had begun to realise that something was seriously wrong! However we met a Major who was covered in plaster who had been in a house in Dunkirk which had collapsed on him. His nerves were shattered, but he told us we would be taken off the beaches at Dunkirk by ships and lighters etc.

We entered Dunkirk and were very badly bombed but fortunately without any apparent casualties. We made our way to the beaches. Dunkirk was like a ghost town with lorries and army equipment everywhere, including the beaches which were crowded with men, although if one left the beaches which were beautiful sands, it was relatively clear.

Various queues formed of soldiers waiting to be picked up, but as this seemed slow (the flotilla which consisted of hundreds of small boats may have been on the way, but we did not know that). After waiting a couple of days we were advised to go back to the dock area and get on a larger ferry boat, which we did. Fortunately there was not a lot of bombing at this time, and after queueing all night we got onto a ferry steamer and came across to Margate. This surprised us as we still did not know how serious the situation was. We thought we would be put back into France further down the coast, however when we found we had come back to England we were overjoyed! We thought we would let the future look after itself. Which it did!

We were sent by train all over England and I myself landed in Lambourne in Berkshire. The evacuation itself took about a week from Sunday to Sunday.

There is a whole lot more I could write about, but do not want to make this too long.

If you wondered how we managed about food etc, there were various supply lorries and NAAFI vehicles, probably diverted to Dunkirk, from which rations could be obtained. The soldiers dug slit trenches in the sand dunes and many slept in those.

Gerald Bruce Hammond

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