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During 1940 I was 21 year old Signalman E Timmons with 2 Line of Communications Signals, BEF in France. The majority of the members were from Mason Street Barracks, Liverpool. During the ‘phoney war’ the signal office was in a town called Vitre, but after the Germans broke through we retreated to Redon.

On Sunday June 16th 1940, the rest of the unit departed for England, leaving 20 of us to run a signal office until the last of the BEF had left France. This was a fortnight after the evacuation of Dunkirk. The general public back in Britain were under the impression that after the evacuation of Dunkirk there were no more British troops in France. In fact there were thousands of us, hoping that we too could be evacuated.

Before the CO left, he wished us luck, saying that we would hear about our action when we arrived in England. Our instructions were to man six teleprinters and a switchboard until all other signal offices in France had closed, then we were to destroy the equipment and proceed to any port which may be open, by means of the last remaining truck which was left for us. During Sunday we kept communications open, assisting the evacuation of troops from the remaining ports.

One by one, the ports closed: Cherbourg, St Malo, and Brest etc. , until on Monday afternoon we had only one port available-St. Nazaire.

About 3 p.m. we decided it was time to destroy the teleprinters and switchboard. Often during the previous months we would have taken a fiendish delight in doing just exactly that, but when the time came we had no heart for the deed.

After discussion we decided the teleprinters were coming with us.
We boarded the lorry and made our way to St. Nazaire. We were among hundreds of French refugees fleeing the Germans. Each time we heard a plane we would stop the truck and jump into the hedge. All planes seemed to be German so we took no chances.

On our way we seemed to be the last troops left but 5 miles from St Nazaire we found we were not, for here we met the rear of the troops who were moving towards the docks. We jumped out of our lorry and set it on fire. As far as one could see the countryside was enveloped in smoke from burning vehicles. This was a sight that will live with me for ever.

Then began our ’hike’ to the docks, all assisting to carry the teleprinters. At 2am on a glorious moonlit Tuesday we reached the dockside after numerous air raids on the way.

We then boarded the SS Clan Ferguson. The gangplank was a single one, angled at 45 degrees. Still we struggled with the teleprinters. With us on the ship we had survivors from the SS Lancastria which had been bombed and sunk in St Nazaire bay during the Monday afternoon. 4000 troops had lost their lives on the ship. This was one of the worst maritime disasters of the war. It was so bad an incident and coming so soon after the evacuation of Dunkirk that Churchill suppressed the news until the end of July.

Eventually we reached Plymouth, then by train to Deepcut and next day to Blandford, Dorset, where the unit was reforming, the teleprinters still with us. We felt pretty proud we had managed to bring them all that way.

The following morning a parade was held to discover who was missing. The RSM stopped at one of our twenty and gave him a dressing down for leaving his gaiters behind.

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