大象传媒

My father, Arthur Lees, was a regular soldier in the Royal Engineers when the Second World War started. He joined in January 1938, and was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force in October 1939. When the German invasion commenced his unit fought a rear guard action by blowing bridges etc. as the British Army retreated through Belgium and France to the French coast.

Having escaped unscathed through many actions during retreat, my father received wounds at Nieuport in Belgium approx 35 km from Dunkirk. He was seriously injured when a mortise bomb landed nearby, inflicting shrapnel wounds to his head, back, both arms and left leg.

Somehow he made it to the beaches of Dunkirk where he received medical attention, but was considered too severely wounded to survive, so was placed in an area where the dead or dying were to be left to the care of the Germans. His identity papers were removed and sent back to England so that relatives could be informed of his demise. My father鈥檚 pal (I believe his name was W. Wright) would not accept that he was past help so, presumably with help, moved him on his stretcher to another part of the beach where wounded awaited their turn to be evacuated. In due course his stretcher was taken to pier to be loaded on to a Lowestoft fishing boat helping with the evacuation from the beach. It was whilst being moved that my father regained consciousness, and being aware that his arms were crossed on his chest, an indication that the person on the stretcher was dying, he flung his arms out in protest only to receive a further bullet wound through his wrist.

He was transferred from the fishing boat to a destroyer, which he always said was the last to leave the beaches carrying wounded, as most of the abled-body men by then had been evacuated. He lay on the deck of the destroyer, close to an anti-aircraft gun, whilst the vessel manoeuvred to escape an air attack. Spent shell cases from the anti-aircraft gun were falling about my father, so the naval gunner, seeing his plight, removed his own helmet and laid it over my father鈥檚 bandaged head, telling him he needed it more than him.

The destroyer made it safely back to Dover, and in due course my father was transferred to the R.A.M.C Hospital at Ashridge, Berkhamstead, Herts where he underwent open brain surgery to remove shrapnel. Having been separated from his pal, and with no identity papers, the hospital did not know initially who the badly wounded soldier was in their care, and it was only when his condition improved that they were able to find out.

In the mean time, my father was listed as killed in action, and a telegram was sent to his parents. A notification listing him as killed in action was issued by the War Office on 11th July1940, and my grandparents mourned the loss of their son. It understand that it was some short time later when a local police constable, having received a phone call from a Ashridge Hospital, called at their house to break the news that their son was still alive after all.

My father spent many months in the hospital; he said there was many a day he lay in bed watching the 鈥淏attle of Britain鈥� taking place in the sky above, being too ill to be moved to the safety of the bomb shelters. Against the odds, he recovered from his wounds but was not fit to return to active duty. He was discharged from Ashridge on 5th May 1941, and was admitted into Queen Mary鈥檚 Hospital in Roehampton for further medical treatment in July 1942. He spent the remainder of the war, and a few years after, working as a Coast Guard, before ill health finally required him become a disabled war pensioner.

It should be noted that in spite of sacrificing his health and fitness at the age of 21 in the service of his country, my father never complained or felt sorry for himself. He was always proud that he had served his country, and eventually died in March 1992.

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