大象传媒

My father's battalion was ordered to defend Calais against the advancing Germans. This was a rearguard action to make Dunkirk possible.They held out for three days.They were non-combatant troops. My father, aged 44, was wounded in the shoulder, but he remained with his men until the last moment. He was the last surviving officer. He was awarded a post-humous M.C.for gallantry.He had been a territorial and had served throughout the First World War.
We received a telegram saying he was missing, believe killed. Then came the woderful news he was alive and had been taken prisoner.He was transfered to a hospital, from which he escaped when recovered with another offficer, Captain Jimmy Johmson of the Welsh regiment. They made their way by foot and bicycle through France and into Spain where they were interred. Eventually they were released. They made their way to Gibraltar, from where mother and I received a telegram saying he was alive and well, and returning by the next convoy. We then had a telegram saying he had been killed by a bombing raid on Gibraltar. It was French retaliation for the bombardment of the French fleet at Oran.
My brother and I received daddy's medal in 1945 from King George VI. Mother refused to attend, said she would only break down.
My son and I are going to Gibraltar on March 19th.to visit daddy's memorial.
I am very interested iun contacting a man called INSTONE, or his family. I don't know his Christian name. He served under my father at Calais.
He wrote very kindly about my father in a book called FREEDOM THE SPUR.

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