大象传媒

Escape from Dunkirk

(This is a letter from Peter Bradshaw to his family, June 1940 . This reproduced from the book by his father Bradshaw, PV (1943) Drawn from memory, London: Chapman and Hall. pp 233-237. However the original letter is in the family archives.)

Dalgaty Camp,
Turriff,
Aberdeenshire.
6th June 1940

My dears,

I last wrote to you on May the 19th among the bangs at Vendeville, on the plain near Gondicourt. As I signed with a flourish all the windows blew in, and six bombs dropped on an airfield 30 yards up the road. A horse and two cows were killed, and we had our baptism of fire. Since then, until we came to Margate we have been baptised incessantly. We had been up to Brussels, passing, on the way, half Belgium coming out. Everywhere, all the time, there were these refugees in pathetic thousands, blocking all the roads, running in all directions, and finally, like all of us, caught in the trap 鈥� running round in nightmare circles of hopelessness 鈥� getting killed.

We functioned in a large farm near Brussels for exactly four hours, and then, when Jerry turned his howitzers on us, we rushed back to Le Nord as fast as blocked roads, burning towns and overloaded vehicles allowed. After being bombed and machine-gunned in idleness at Vendeville, we moved down to Avion to take wounded from the battle of Vimy. There, in a school, it really began.

The bombers came over in waves of from 25 to 200, for two days and nights. They bombed the railhead across the road, while their fighters were machine-gunning our infantry on the Ridge. From now on, food was a matter of taking what you found, anywhere, everywhere. Food, like our own Air Force, was wholly non-existent. I went over to the other side of Lens one day to search for rations. It was quite a pleasant town as we passed through. By the time we got back, it wasn鈥檛 there at all; as we reached the main square they decided to bomb it, for two and a half hours without pause. I spent this interlude in a nice cellar eating stolen chicken with some stranded officers.

That afternoon we sent an Advanced Dressing Station up to the Ridge. 鈥淎鈥� Company went out. Before they could unpack, four bombs scored direct hits. All their ambulances and lorries vanished in a blaze, two drivers and two orderlies vanished too. My own driver was killed, and Jim Merry 鈥� who had volunteered to go up there 鈥� returned without his left foot. At night, we left Avion, as their snipers took posts in the woods all round, and journeyed through the night to Lille. There in an empty, exquisite city, we rested for 24 hours, stole lots and lots of food, slept when we could, and then went back to Belgium.

We found a convent at Locre, near Ypres (that was) and functioned, minus one company and half our equipment, without pause for 48 hours. I think that there it was almost the worst; we were bombed at once, but, what was more terrible, we accumulated 600 wounded and could not get rid of them, for the simple reason that all except one road was being cut by the Germans. As we staggered about there on the second night with our precious charges, and with the Boche on the opposite ridge, we heard the lovely news about Leopold; and we all decided to wash and shave in readiness for Dachau.

I shall never know how we got away, but we did get our 600 men on to some sort of transport, and eventually ourselves on to one-third of our normal lorries. Then the retreat began. They were shelling us there, and there is still a debate as to whether we prefer bombs or shells. I plump for shells, as so very, very many have insisted on missing me and unharming me, literally by feet.

The retreat was unpleasant because, as we went, we saw half the B.E.F. mechanical equipment lying in ditches and bogs, for mile after mile; and also because the nearer we got to Dunkirk the slower was the speed, and the narrower the bottle-neck and the margin. At last we reached a sandy hill-country and, sans everything, rested 鈥� waiting for minutes, hours, two days. On the second day they found our range, and we sat in the sand being impotently shelled. Percy and I went for rations, and of course they began on the road. We got the rations, chose a different way home, and they then landed a salvo right on us. We got back, but the lorry didn鈥檛.

Still more waiting, waiting. Then at last we joined the endless single file of men marching to the sea. It was a perfect night, and the German aeroplanes circled in their proud and quite undisturbed hundreds, looking for us. They only found me once, but fortunately I was in the other ditch. And so, through lines of grimy, suicidal French, we came to what was Dunkirk (not a word against the French, please). We collected there, and marched down to the beach. We whistled as we touched the sand. But so did the shells, in salvo after salvo. It was all smoke and fumes and dust along that endless beach.

At last we reached a long, sloping causeway. The shells promptly reached it, too. A General standing in the water said 鈥淕o straight on, and the Navy will take over.鈥� It did, with some superb Oxford accents emerging from the dark. We reached a mole; so, of course, did the shells. An Oxford accent came up from an open trawler saying 鈥淗ere is a rope ladder; will someone catch the bloody thing?鈥� There were 200 of us, one rope ladder, and a trawler with a normal personnel of 10. 鈥淚鈥檓 taking you all, if you hurry,鈥� said Oxford. Cambridge came along the mole and said 鈥淭wenty more for S.S. Whippingham.鈥� I was one of the twenty. It was an Isle of Wight paddle-boat, which had strained to take 800 trippers across the Solent. There were 2,500 of us. 鈥淣o one must move an inch,鈥� said Cambridge. We couldn鈥檛, not a millimetre. We left at midnight.

Then Margate, Dulwich, West Brompton, Staffordshire. Now Wigan, Carlisle, Glamis, Forfar, the Highlands, Turriff. A small camp in a green cup. Pines, a stream to bathe in, a clean town filled with divine people who mother us to death. (Not a word against the Scotch.) But we want LEAVE, nothing but LEAVE. We are soldiers, so we have to grumble, even though we鈥檝e been rather vague players in an epic and a miracle.

All this is sober history, my dears. The personal touches, the detail, the humour and the horror are infinite. Supply them with your imagination until we meet, and then, if you wish, you will hear all. It was glorious to hear you last night. But it will be heavenly to see you. I am revoltingly well; my hair is a bush, my face mahogany.

We shall win the war, you know, given a Military Air Arm. Our Air Force is wonderful, but we must have them in the field.

My love to you all,
Peter .

(Peter Bradshaw joined the RAMC as a Territorial stretcher bearer in early 1939. After Dunkirk he transferred to the RASC, became an officer and ended the war in 1946 as a Major responsible for feeding the population after the relief of Singapore.)

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