50 (N) Division Commemoration Certificate
- Contributed by听
- Bridport Museum
- People in story:听
- Kenneth Armitage
- Location of story:听
- Dunkirk
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A3289160
- Contributed on:听
- 17 November 2004
Before the Dunkirk evacuation, we had captured a lot of German soldiers, and imprisoned them in a school ground. The school ground had high walls 鈥 perfect so they couldn鈥檛 escape. However, a German plane, a stuka bomber, flew over, saw a crowd of soldiers, and bombed them. The bomber had killed many of his own soldiers.
I was in La Panne, Northern France, with the British Expeditionary Force. We were trying to find Dunkirk. We were guarding 2 lorries at the time. There was no 鈥楩ront line鈥 鈥 everywhere was totally disorganised and in chaos. In the distance we saw several people dressed in 鈥榮trange鈥 uniform. The word ran out 鈥淟et鈥檚 get out of here!鈥 I was driving one lorry and I had seven mates on board. We took off heading off God knows in what direction when we finally came to a road junction. Which way was the coast road? I decided to turn south. Down the road we can across a military policeman in the middle of the road 鈥 he seemed to be directing non-existent traffic. He wasn鈥檛 very happy. We asked him, a Geordie, what he was doing there? He replied, 鈥淲aiting to be picked up by a United Bus!鈥
We finally made it to Dunkirk and it seemed like everyone else did as well. Just outside Dunkirk we set ourselves up on a beach. We spent a day on that beach waiting to get off. The story was going around that the best place to stand was on the sand, because unless you took a direct hit, all you got was a shower of sand. Troops were being ferried to the bigger boats by rowing boats, and volunteers were requested to do the rowing. I volunteered, but before I got in the first boat, it was riddled with bullet holes and sank. We soon found another. While I was rowing people to the boats, one of our destroyers, I think it was called the Gracie Fields, took a direct hit and sank with many lives lost.
I made 4 trips on that rowing boat. I eventually got on a paddle steamer 鈥 The Sandown 鈥 which took me to Folkestone.
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