大象传媒

DUNKIRK

I was born in the Manor house, Passenham on July 3rd 1920, the eldest son of a farmer.

This was unfortunate for me as the eldest sons were expected to follow in their father鈥檚 profession and farming did not appeal to me.

At sixteen my schooling led me to the Technical College, Wolverton, which paved the way for a technical career for the rest of my life.

After an unsuccessful attempt to join the RAF at the age of nineteen I was recruited by a friend into the Territorial Army 1st Bucks Battalion of the 4th Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He promised me two weeks paid holiday on the South Downs, instead of this war was declared in September 1939 and I was mobilized to fight for King and Country. The following four months were spent on training exercises billeted in the stables of Newbury racecourse, transit to Northern France followed in January 1940.

A very cold winter and sleeping in wet blankets in an old chateau brought on a bout of influenza and a spell in hospital which proved to be lucky; the Battalion had moved closer to the Belgian frontier and having a driving licence I was posted to join the second division, 145 Infantry Brigade H.Q., driving staff cars and supply trucks.

After a further four months of a false war suddenly all hell broke out with the Germans unleashing a blitzkrieg using hundreds of fighter and bomber planes against Northern France.

We moved immediately and spent all day traveling in convoy across the Franco Belgian border up to a new position near Waterloo, not far from Brussels where our infantry battalions engaged the enemy.

Bearing in mind that we were armed with 1914-18 rifles and bayonets, tin helmets, gas masks and a few Bren guns the situation was impossible from the start when confronting the well equipped German army. As well as overwhelming air power the Germans had large Panzer (tank) divisions which could clearly be heard attacking our forward troops.

The inevitable retreat ensued, night after night, with the continual questions of what had happened to RAF cover? The artillery regiments did their best to assist our troops but to our horror the retreat continued.

Fortunately I was driving in relative comfort for the rear echelon of Brigade H.Q. rather than having direct involvement with the fighting as were foot soldiers who slept and fired rifles from the cover of ditches against the heavy artillery and might of the German army.

I well remember, however, during the first night of action, we had established a base camp with patrols of two soldiers circling the perimeter. Two patrols met and immediately after a challenge shots were fired and two of my fellow comrades were dead.

In addition to the constant threat of a breakthrough of German tanks the German aircraft were using bombs that screamed as they approached their target, a psychological effect on one鈥檚 nerves. Occasionally during the retreats we found that our battalions and forward H.Q. had bypassed us leaving us dangerously close to the advancing Germans.

Eventually after approximately ten days we were parked in a field close to a road that was congested with refugees fleeing from the war zone. A senior officer dramatically yelled instructions that it was a case of every man for himself and for us to head for the coast some 20 Km away at Dunkirk from which plumes of smoke rising from the docks gave us guidance.

A fellow driver, 鈥淟ofty鈥� Davies and I, abandoned our vehicles and started the long walk early that afternoon. Fortune stayed with us when we reached a very wide canal in that we chose to turn right eventually finding a bridge to continue our walk to Dunkirk.

We were aware of troops taking up position in ditches in preparation to fight the rearguard action and realized that despite continual strafing from aircraft we were fortunate to be on the move towards the sea.

Walking through Dunkirk we found it to be very badly damaged from bombing and chose to walk several miles along the beaches west of the harbour.

We slept fitfully in a sand dune overnight and spent most of the following day tagging behind long queues of men patiently waiting to be taken off the beach by the little boats. We found, however, that when the queue dwindled to a small number of men the boats would go for the nest largest group so in desperation we decided to ditch our rifles and swim out. Fortunately the sea was calm but we were rudely beaten off the first boat by an army captain wielding a rifle. Swimming further out we were eventually dragged aboard a small naval boat by some naval ratings. They immediately gave us flasks of neat navy rum which, because we had not eaten for two or three days, made both of us fell very ill!!

The boat ferried us with dozens of other men to an old Thames ferry boat, the Royal Eagle, which safely transported humdreds of us across a very smooth sea to Harwich.

By the time of our arrival at Harwich our uniforms had dried out and we were surprised by the fantastic reception at the docks given us by the ladies of the WRVS with cups of tea, sandwiches and cakes. We were quickly ordered onto a waiting train and spent the next day being slowly transported across the very welcome Home Counties to Hereford to be remastered.

I still do not know what happened to the men of my old battalion and would especially like to know what happened to the Brigade H.Q. staff but have always presumed that they were taken prisoner with no further involvement in the war.

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