大象传媒

Dunkirk Reminiscence

With regard to the evacuation at Dunkirk, I was not at Dunkirk but formed part of a rearguard action delaying the advance of the German army.

I was stationed with a Field Company of the Royal Engineers being part of the 48th Division. This division comprised three battalions, two of which were territorial 鈥� the 4th Royal Berks and the 4th Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. The third, a regular unit, was the 2nd Battalion of the Gloucester Regiment.

We were ill equipped and generally without food save what we could collect from shops, cafes and farms. Our function was to stem the enemy鈥檚 advance.

Having travelled from France into Belgium we made contact with the Germans on 16th May at Waterloo, just south of Brussels and from that day started a steady retreat blowing up bridges and railway lines on our way back into France.

We finally made our last stand on 24th May at Cassel, a small town standing on a hill some 20 km from Dunkirk. Our function here as an Engineering Field Company was to harass the enemy by continuing to blow up bridges, lay land mines and erect barbed wire entanglements etc.

Eventually on the night of 29th May we were ordered out of the town in an abortive attempt to reach Dunkirk which we could see burning in the distance. By dawn having marched, or more correctly staggered, having had little sleep in the past fortnight, we found ourselves surrounded by heavily armed German troops and had no option but to surrender. Told by our captors 鈥淔or you ze war is over鈥� as indeed it was and for the next five years, along with some 38,000 others, spent life as a P.O.W. Whist not wishing to detract from the heroics and skills used in the evacuation for us left behind at Dunkirk it was neither a victory nor a deliverance.

Sapper D. A. Lawrence

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