大象传媒

My Dad, Harry Furlonger, was in the 4th Division Royal Artillery. He was a gunner and for a time was in the 22nd field regiment. Forgive me if some of the information is not spot on but I do not have any family left to varify the facts. I found Dad's diaries after he died and some of the information is very sparse. I realise that trying to write a diary while dodging bullets and bombs couldn't have been easy!
Dad told me that along the route to Dunkirk he had to destroy all the trucks and guns and when he finally got to the beaches, he said that he just couldn't take in what he saw. He was at Brae dunes and he said that it was chaos.Very often as Dad was relating the story to me his eyes would fill with tears.Soldiers all around him were being shot to pieces as there was nowhere for them to hide.He told me that soldiers were being killed either side of him but somehow he survived. He never thought for one minute that he would be rescued but he managed to get aboard a paddle steamer, the name of which I cannot remember.Many years after the war he used to, with Mum, go back to La Panne with the Dunkirk Veterans Association.He would leave Mum at the little cafe and walk with his comrades to Brae dunes. He told me that as he stood on the beach he felt he was going back in time and it was as though it was yesterday. He could hear all the mayhem and men screaming around him. He couldn't believe that he had actually survived. Why him? he would ask himself time and time again.I went with Mum and Dad to La Panne one year and was moved to tears to see the special bond that had been created between the men.To me and my children, my Dad was a hero as was all the men who were on those beaches.Dad went on to fight at Montecassino and was involved in Operation Torch.He just kept popping up everywhere!Although he had been shot in the leg, had shrapnel lodged in his throat and lost his little finger when his eighteen pounder recoiled back on it he finally managed to come home reasonably intact!!

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