大象传媒

My regiment, The 27th Field regiment R.A. as part of the BEF embarked from Avonmouth docks on or about the 9th September 1940. Guessing was the order of the day, but I don鈥檛 think any of us guessed that we would land at St Nazaire on the French Atlantic Coast. From there we travelled across Northern France cheered and clapped on our way by the French populace 鈥� little did they, or us know what was to come.

We were billeted for a while in the barn of a farmhouse, which had a concrete floor and a tiled roof, which sparkled with frost on the inside 鈥� in that cold winter of 1939/1940. It was difficult to keep warm even with a coke brazier.

One evening we heard the sound of a wheelbarrow being pushed over the cobblestones that led to the billet 鈥� in it was one of our lads who had been sampling most of the wines and liqueurs in the local caf茅. Pushing it was a Polish miner who worked in one of the local mines, after a good laugh, we were grateful to get one of our own back safely.

We were wakened one morning by the thump, thump, of the BOFORS in the next field. The sky was full of German planes flying at low level and waggling their wings without firing a shot. We could only guess later that they were part of the invasion of the Low Countries. Before long we received orders to proceed to the area of the French 鈥� Belgium border. We travelled through the outskirts of Brussels and prepared ready for action at AUTENBERG.

We had a wireless transmitter in the cellar of a farmhouse, and two of us were digging a slit trench in the garden when I heard the whistle of a shell. I pushed my mate into the trench, he put his fists up to me, and then realised that if he hadn鈥檛 recognised the sound of a shell, very close, I had. Upon further examination we found that two German shells had gone through the roof of the greenhouse, the craters were about 8 feet apart. This was the first enemy fire that we had encountered.

Our forward observation posts (FOPs) reported seeing concentrations of German troops.

On that day we were given orders to retire at about 9.30pm. Our limbers, gun towing vehicles, and some ammunition had been left back closer to Brussels. By the time they had got to us, it was 1 in the morning. The infantry was already going back through our lines, and we had to go back through the village, already well alight from German incendiary shelling.

A machine gun battalion of the DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY was deployed in an orchard to cover our retirement, that鈥檚 the last we saw of them.

We moved back towards the channel coast about 25 miles a day, eventually firing off all the shells we had. We were then ordered to destroy any equipment that might be useful to the Germans, guns, wireless sets, and various vehicles left with their radiators empty and engines running.

Eventually we arrived at the beaches and sand dunes east of Dunkirk. A lot of slit trenches had already been dug, and we more or less became separated.

The crack of shells with nothing to hit back with, the cry of stretcher-bearers, particularly at night, asked the question, 鈥淲ill I be next?鈥�

Fairly close to us was a wooden mole, damaged by either bombs or shells. A destroyer (handled like a taxi!) came alongside the mole and started to take us on board. When I was about 10 yards from the gangplank a naval officer with drawn revolver, stopped us from boarding, so back we had to go to the shelter of a low wall. Once more we were called up and the same thing happened. The naval officer at the gangplank stopping any more boarding the ship.
This was not for me! I jumped from the mole on to the deck of the ship which seemed a long way down, considering I was carrying equipment including a rifle minus bolt. As I hit the deck the destroyers ACK ACK guns opened up for a moment, I thought a bomb had hit us. A sailor came across the deck and said, 鈥渃ome back here soldier you鈥檝e seen enough of that.鈥�

They gave us a jug with some tea and a lot of tea leaves in it, and a ship鈥檚 biscuit with sardines. I hated sardines, but neither they nor the tea tasted sweeter.

The destroyer went astern and turned for Dover and home. The sea was like a Mill Pond.
H.M.S.VENOMOUS was the destroyer so superbly handled.

I wonder who the Captain was?

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