大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War by Nikki Aaron of the Derby Action Desk Team on behalf of Jim Beardsley and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Dunkerque

Joining up through to the Dunquerke Evacuation.

It was a Sunday on September the 3rd 1939 that Neville Chamberlain came on the radio at 11 o'clock to announce that war had been declared. Mother was clearly upset. As a young woan in the First World War she expected that this would be the same, and that they would take her three boys.

Monday September 4th, I went to work as usual, in the joinery at Stapleford. I passed the Labour Exchange at Kimberley on my way home from Basford, so I called in there on a Saturday, and put my name down for the Navy and the Army. Needless to say, when my papers arrived, it was to be the Army and the Royal Engineers.

Snow was falling before Christmas, and it was very cold working in a big, open shed making roof trusses.
February the 5th, 1940 was my call date, so I finished work to get rid of a bad cold, before reporting to Butlin's Holiday Camp st Clacton-on-Sea. I had to catch the train at 6 o'clock in the morning from Ilkeston North Station. Mother woke me up at about 5 o'clock, and I came down to a roaring fire and a large breakfast. After sadly saying my goodbye's, I turned out into the deep snow. It was freezing hard, and the frost was glinting in the light of the few gas lamps about at that time. I made my way down Norman Street, and through the allotment gardens to Heanor Road. There were no lights there, but the white snow cast a glow and lit up the way to the station.

The train from Derby to my first destination, Grantham, was on time. As the train picked up speed, I looked out across Granby Park, where I had spent so much time in my youth. Our house backed onto the Park and I saw Mother standing in the front room, waving. I changed trains at Grantham, and had to make my way to Liverpool Street Station in London, for my connection to Clacton. There were a lot of new recruits on the train, and on arrival at Clacton we were quickly herded into Army trucks and taken to the camp. I queued for four hours to be given four blankets, a knife, fork and spoon, and a very rusty basin for drinking out of. After all of our particulars had been taken, we were marched round the camp and allocated a chalet. It was four to a chalet, with two bunks and one double bed. We deposited our gear, and then we were taken to the dining hall. The meal consisted of cold black potatoes and bully beef. On returning to the chalet, we found the walls running with cindensation, so we decided to put half the blankets under, and the other half over, and we all squeezed into the one bed. Later that night a mine hit the pier, which was close by, and some of us were dumped out of bed. We were not impressed with our first taste of Army life.

We went on parade the next morning and just stood about in the cold all day. A lot of the snow had been cleared and dumped in the swimming pool. The camp had been used for undesirables who had sympathy for the Germans, so we were enclosed in barbed wire. These people had been shipped of to the Isle of Man to be interned for the duration of hostilities.

After a couple of days it was up and away. We were taken to the station and put on a special train. Eventually we arrived at Chatham Station. It was dark and with a Corporal leading the way with a storm lamp, we marched two miles or so to the Saint Mary's barracks. They were horrible accomodation, and I understand that they were condemned in the First World War. We had our first taste of square bashing there, and our fist sight of Army punishment. A soldier in full marching order with rifle, was being made to run around the suare and over a huge pile of loose gravel. That surely was a lesson learned - to do, as we were told. We had two or three injections and kept up the training for a couple fo weeks. We were allowed out into Chatham some evenings and after going to the cinema, we sampled bangers and mash at the "Sailor's Rest", it cost only a few coppers.

The next move came one morning when about a dozen of us were singled out and taken to the Record & Pay huts. This was a place where a company of "Volunteers" were being formed, and we were sent to make up the numbers to 240. Of these, most were tradesmen who were to be sent to France to construct airfields. More drill followed, and we were kitted out with battle dress and a rifle. More injections followed, which were most unpleasant. I think they were using a large nail, and a lot of the lads were laid up for a few days. We were paraded at Brampton Barracks one day, to our surprise the King came to inspect us. He stopped and had a word with some of the men who had medals from the First World War. We were informed that we were going to France and were sent off on three days leave. They were all pleased to see me at home, but were not so happy when I told them that I was on embarkation leave.

I returned to Chatham one afternoon, and at midnight we went down to the station and then by rail to Southampton. After spending the night in a large shed, there we boarded a ship. It was still very cold, but our berth was on the deck at the stern of the ship, where we huddled together to keep warm. For the first time, of many to come, I rested with my head in my tin helmet for a pillow. The ship had moved out into the Solent and in the maiddle of the night the anchor chain started rattling up, causing tin helmets to chatter on the deck, and we were soon up and away to France.

It was a noisy engine, and the ship vibrated in tune. It was a good job the sea was calm. The journey was unpleasant, with neither or drink, except our water bottle. Our destination was La Havre, and as we started to swing round to enter the harbour, visible to the west, was Normandy, where, in just over four years time, the main assault on the continent would take place. We saw a destroyer out there dropping depth charges so there must have been a "U" Boat out there comewhere. It was March 17th 1940, (St Patricks Day) when we landed in Le Havre. We wnet into a huge shed, where some soya boilers were operating and we were given a hot tin of Machonachies for a meal. They said that it had been left over from the First World War - and it tasted like it too.

Our company, 686 Construstion Company R.E., consisting of 240 men, was marched around the whole of the town, probably to impress the French population; of course nobody told them that we had never fired the rifles we held, we were to find that out later when we had to use them. Later that day, we boarded the train to take us up to the Pas de Calais area. The train consisted of a line of cattle trucks signed 10 Chevaux, 40 Hommes. Along with our rifles and bits bags we could hardly move and it was a most uncomfortable night we spent, leaning on each other. We rattled on not even stopping for a pee - that had to be done in the door opening, if anyone wanted to do the other it was no problem - we only made walking pace on the gradients.
Eventually we arrived at Bethune, our trucks picked us up there and took us to a village called Monchy Breton where we were to construct an airfield. We were split up and sent to various farms, to sleep in barns, until we had built Nissen huts on the airfield. It was comfortable in the straw, but the place was alive with rats. You could feel them moving underneath you as you lay to sleep. We quickly erected the Nissen huts and got out of there. Life wasn't too bad then, we had good food and every few days we went up to the coal area built for the miners and it suited us fine. We had various trips out to Arras, Leus and Lille. We also made a visit to the Canadian Monument to the dead at Vimy Ridge. It was a very moving place.

The good times did not last long. We had got on well at the airfield, accomodation was about finished and leveling out in the field was well under way, when news came that the Germans had broken through at Sedan. Soon they were fighting in Arras, which was only a few miles down the road. German planes were swarming over and at night we could see flames rising and hear bombs dropping at Hazebrouck railway junction and at Cassel and Dunkerque in the distance. I was on guard one night at the Officer's Mess, which was situated at a farmhouse. There was a cow-shed attached to the building and I stood in a secluded corner. We had been warned that German paratroopers were being dropped, on hearing what seemed to be the patter of running feet, I sank into a corner rifle and bayonet at the ready. The noise was repeated a few timew before I realised that it was a cow relieving itself !!! What a relief for me.

German planes were coming over at zero and made the airfield untenable. We had a coulpe of Lewis guns which they took not the slightest notice of, so we had to move back into the barns - and the rats. After a couple of nights, we were given orders to move out, German tanks and armoured vehicles had passed through St Pol, 5 km away and were heading for Boulogne and the coast. We looked like being cut off in the Pas de Calais. We didn't see any of our tabks, only Bren gun carriers which weren't much good at fighting tanks. We headed up to Hazebrouck, harrassed by Stukas all the way and we soon got blasted out of there. More and more refugees were on the move and they didn't seem to know which way to go. German planes came in low machine-gunning them and cutting them to pieces. It was a terrible sight - how could they be so barbaric and do such a thing? Of course it did create havoc for troop deployment. There was nothing we could do for the refugees - we just had to move on.

We had no food, so four of us were sent witha truck, to find a ration depot, at a place called Choques. We came to a draw-bridge and the unit holding it said that they had orders to blow it in fifteen minutes. The depot was not too far away and the place was deserted, except for a couple of lorries loading at will. We quickly reversed in and threw everything which came to hand into our lorry, including 2 large boxes of cigarettes. After a few minutes we were on our way - my mate Jock and myself hanging onto the tailboard. As we moved along, we came across more refugees and we could not resist tossing out cans of condensed milk to the people with kids. The two boxes of milk we had taken, were gone by the time we reached the draw bridge, which we were glad to see was still there. As soon as we crossed it, it was blown up. As we pulled away German armoured vehicles appeared across the fields. Motor-cycle combinations were coming in, with machine guns blazing from an attachment on the side platform. We left the infantry there to deal with it and set off to find our unit. The Major was pleased with the supplies we brought, but not too happy about the milk we had given away. All were happy with the cigs, he rationed those to five a day, to make them last, but it was to be all in vain.
The following day, an aeroplane attack forced us to take cover away from the road and the lorries were all burned out - cigs and all. From now on it was all on foot. We snatched a little sleep in buildings by the roadside and soon we left the roads and were cutting across the fields. We were told that our destination was Dunkerque the carnage and destruction increased, the smell of burning vehicles and the stench of death filled the air. We were assigned to defend a section of canal. Two regular soldiers, a sergeant, and a sergeant major, headed the groups and we were with the sergeant. He demonstrated how to fire the rifle and how vital it was to keep the butt tight to the shoulder to avoid injury when it was fired. We lay on the canal bank all night and fired at anything we saw in the gloom, as dawn broke the draw-bridge was blown. They were supposed to wait until a German vehicle was on it, but I didn't see any. We made a further withdrawal to a farmhouse. The cook had killed a pig, so we had some stew that day.

The next night, we scrambled up onto the top of straw bales, high in an asbestos sheeted building and had a good sleep. In the morning we got a wash by a pump and suddenly, the noise of machine gun fire made us all jump for cover. It was a Meserschmit with a Spitfire on his tail flying at zero. When the Spitfire fired again, it tore the roof off the building we had slept the night in. We watched a lttle further as the Spitfire caught him, and he dived into the ground with a terrific explosion. This was the first British plane we had seen.

All the time the Stukas were coming over and diving into the docks at Dunkerque and then machine-gunning everything they could see on their return to base. The refugees were blocking all the road. We were getting used to the screaming siren, which they turned on when going into a dive.

Orders must have come through for us to go down to the beach and in the evening we made our way to Bray Dunes. It was dark when we arrived, the outline of a ship was visible and it seemed to be standing off. Our Major waded out into the calm water and hailed the ship "Ahoy there 686 Company here". He did this several times, as though it had become particularly to pick us up, in spite of the other troops around., however, he got no response. We dug into the dunes for the night, knowing that the Stukas would be around the next day. When daylight came, the Major and i think the rest of us, were sorry to see that ship was just a wreck, a victim of a mine, or a Stuka and it wasn;t going anywhere. There didn't seem to be a lot of activity at sea, so we dug deeper into the dunes, knowing what to expect and it wasn't long before we heard the screaming from the diving planes. followed by the chattering of machine-guns, as they came down the beach. We hung on there for that day, and in the evening, a fine body of men - about a thousand strong, marched down the beach in full battle order and turned inland, through the dunes, passing where we were. A felt sure that they were Grenadier Guards, having just landed at the docks, they were going to fight near the rear guard. I often think of them to this day and wonder...How many of them came back? Continued....

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