大象传媒

In 1932 I left school and began my working life as an office boy with C. C. Wakefield & Co., the oil people. After evening classes I became a shorthand-typist, an occupation not yet taken over by the ladies. In that capacity I joined the Army on Ist January 1940 and was thereafter destined to work at the War Office and at Army Headquarters in France and Egypt until I was demobbed 7 years and 7 days later.

My first job in France was Personal Clerk to the Colonel in charge of Administration in the British Expeditionary Force. We were stationed in an ex-Nunnery in the small village of Berneville near Arras. It was a peaceful life there for the first few weeks and the war seemed far away. Berneville was not much more than a small group of one-storey houses, the road through it was a rough, dusty track much as it had been for centuries and lavatorial smells hit your nostrils from time to time. I have three abiding memories: large platefuls of delicious fried eggs bought in the village for a few francs, the grinning faces of peasant women as we told them in a language they didn't understand that they were ugly and repulsive, and my visit to the local prostitute. She was called Madam Black, lived at the end of the village, had served during WW1 and was said to be starting up business again. A group of us went to visit her. I put my head gingerly round the door of her room and peered at her propped up in bed:the intervening years had obviously taken their toll, she was heavily made up and, perhaps fortunately, was doused in cheap scent. We didn't stay.

One of my jobs in the HQ was to stick pins on a large map in the Colonel's office showing the course of the war. As time wore on this gentle exercise began to create unease as it showed the inexorable march of the Germans towards the English Channel and our Headquarters. So one day we had to stop work and packed our typewriters, teleprinters, office furniture and files on to lorries and transferred them at the railhead into rough, old WWI. S.N.C.F. covered wagons bearing the legend '8 chevaux 40 hommes'. Wimereux and, a few days later, Boulogne were our destinations. There, once again, we humped the equipment, furniture and papers off the trucks on to lorries and to the hotel which was our new Headquarters.

My stay there ended abruptly. I was taking dictation from the Colonel on an upper floor when violent explosions shook the building. We quickly dived under a large circular table and waited for the noise and dust to settle. Dust, plaster and broken glass were everywhere. As we walked down the staircase to the ground floor we saw bodies being laid out in the hall. I was strangely calm because, like others, I was preoccupied by what I could do to help the injured. But when I reached our billet on a rise overlooking the town I broke out into an attack of the shakes.

The next day we destroyed our files and put out of action as far as we were able the typewriters, teleprinters, etc. which we had so laboriously humped about in the preceding days. We were put on a train to Dunkirk and told that the Germans might intercept us and that if the train stopped we were to be ready for action. Many of us, including myself had no weapons. The train stopped a dozen times or more but fortunately there were no Germans! Long before we reached Dunkirk we could see the large dark plumes of dense smoke coming from burning oil tanks. Soon after we arrived in the marshalling yards there they were bombed and I dived under a truck and in doing so stumbled and dashed my glasses to pieces on the ground.

My next memory is of helping to dig graves, alternating with rushing for shelter when threatened by further attacks. Our lodging place in the town was in the cellar of a haberdasher's shop in which we could hear the distinctive whine of the bombs being rained down continuously on the town by the Stukas and we wondered whether one would bury us in the many thousands of buttons stacked in the cellar around us. After one or two days we were told that a despatch rider would lead us to the docks where a ship would take us home. On our way there we saw massive destruction and whole sides of streets ablaze. Unfortunately, the D.R. lost his way and by the time we reached the dock our ship had set off and, although only a few feet away from us and despite our frantic cries, it would not turn back. So we disconsolately picked our way back through the ruined town to our haberdashers!

A day or so later we were ordered to move and walked back through the town and along the road to La Panne, across the Belgian border some miles to the east. By the roadside were thousands of abandoned vehicles, guns, and equipment, some still burning. Another air attack caused our party to disperse and in the ensuing confusion I became separated from them, and from then on was on my own until I joined one of the many fleeing groups of men making their way to the beaches.

Not having eaten properly for a couple of days I went into a house on the beach hoping to find some food, which I didn't. Unwashed crockery on the dining table and general disarray were pathetic signs of recent habitation and hasty retreat. I then joined a group on the beach. It was very exposed there and I kept moving about to find some protective shelter and I remember someone shouting "Keep still, you stupid bastard." It was safer in the water than on the sand and after what seemed an eternity I joined a queue waiting to clamber on to an ancient craft off-shore. Getting on board was a pretty frantic business and some of the men who still had packs and rifles strapped to them were drowned. In mid-channel we transferred to a destroyer where we were given hot drinks

I landed in Dover, much relieved, dressed in a topcoat and a pair of pants. As the train took us to our various destinations (I was going to hospital for six weeks) we were handed drinks and snacks through the carriage windows at some of the stations on our way. After our recent experiences the greenness and peacefulness of the English countryside made a terrific impact.

647 ships took part in the evacuation of which 137, including nine destroyers, were sunk. 225,000 troops arrived home safely.

As an epilogue I quote part of a diary:

Wednesday. 30th May 1990. In the morning walked along the La Panne foreshore towards Dunkirk and the dunes from which I embarked 50 years ago. Another bright morning with the sands lit up in glorious colours. Sat down at the end of the two mile walk and pondered on the fact that I had enjoyed 50 years of life. The day before I had attended a ceremony in a Dunkirk cemetery and had been stirred by the sight of sad groups of widows there - a reminder of the thousands of fighting men who had been drowned, killed, wounded or imprisoned - some of them keeping back the Germans and enabling myself and others to escape.

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