- Contributed by听
- dougjennings
- People in story:听
- Douglas Jennings snr
- Location of story:听
- France
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A2291159
- Contributed on:听
- 12 February 2004
Dunkirk Memories
Like many people who fought in the last war, my father, Douglas Jennings, rarely discussed his experiences, except that he was prepared to talk at some length about Dunkirk.
In 1940, as an officer in the Essex Regiment, he was billeted with a family named Venville, in the village of Meurchin, near Lille.
The night before his battalion was due to move out, he and Monsieur Venville sat up into the early hours of the morning, drinking coffee and cognac, with his French host reminiscing about the battles of Verdun, and, doubtless, in the process, giving my father courage.
Shortly afterwards my father was badly wounded in an engagement with Panzer tanks but was rescued and surviving twenty four hours in an ambulance jolting over the cobbled roads, found himself in Dunkirk, where he was lucky enough to be evacuated on the last hospital ship to leave.
I had known much of this story since I was a boy but shortly before his death in 1997 my father further recollected that on arrival in Dover, rather than being sent to London with the other wounded officers, he was mistaken for a German (despite his uniform!) and was sent by train to a hospital in Winwick, in the Midlands.
His life had been saved, originally, by his prismatic compass taking the impact of a bullet, the shrapnel exploding around his chest with minute fragments lodging close to his heart. My father had wanted to save this shrapnel as a wartime souvenir but one night it disappeared from his bedside cupboard, apparently being thrown away on Matron鈥檚 orders!
After recovering his strength and fitness he joined SOE as a supply officer.
There is a codicil to this story. In the summer of 1967, following a holiday in Austria, my parents were motoring in northern France and my father decided to return to Meurchin to see if the Venville family still lived there. They did and they recognised him, celebrating his return with many champagne toasts, taking my parents to the local churchyard to visit the grave of a soldier from the Essex Regiment who had died fighting near the village.
Needless to say, the grave is still cared for, by villagers.
This reunion started an association between our families, which lasts until this day.
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