大象传媒

My friend John Davis has asked me to add his story to this site. He originally wrote it for a Church Magazine. His story starts.
I was fortunate enough to have survived Alamein, Tobruk, Monte-Casino and Anzio etc., but Dunkirk has impressed upon me a memory that I will carry for the rest of my days.
My pals and I seeing that war looked a certainty joined up at Tennal Grange, Harborne (Birmingham) on the 3rd.May 1939, coming upto the age of 19. I signed as an ammunition driver in the R.A.S.C.
After 3 weekend camps with the territorials(the regulars joked and called us weekend soldiers) we came back from our two weeks annual camp at Salisbury Plain on 27th.August. We were warned not to go out of Birmingham as we might be called up, which we were on Friday 1st.September. After more training driving 6 tonners, stacking ammunition, gun cotton etc. we arrived in France at a remore village near Arras. More training followed and also digging duties on the Maginot Line(which when the push came proved worthless). The American press were now calling the B.E.F. a phoney war until "Th Balloon went up".
We went as far as the French/Belgium border awaiting permission to go into Belgium, which lost us precious days in which time Jerry had overcome Holland and was part way into Belgium. Meanwhile we had problems with 5th.column agents-as they were in civilian clothes we found it hard to prove, but all our positions seemed to be found, hardly before we had settled there would be a dozen Stukas swooping out of the sky. Some of the Fench seemed to like is but quite a few hated us, and the genuine ones hampered us unwittingly by congesting the roads and half the time we had to drive over fields to get to gun sites - a little nerve racking with 25 pounders bouncing about in the back of the lorry!!.
We had 18 days like this until the Belgians finally signed a cease fire with Jerry. We found ourselves cut off on three sides with our only option being to the head for the coast.
We were told to drive to an area about 15 kilometres from the coast and destroy guns, lorries, equipment-the lot. Try to imagine a B road about 5 kilometres long with army stores, staff cars, motor cycles, trucks, vans, dead horses, cows, dogs and both sides of the road on fire - and this was only a small part of the B.E.F.
I reached the coast with a few of my section about a couple of miles from Dunkirk. The Navy fellow in charge gave us our serial number (why I'll never know). We were number 9 and he told us we'd be fetched off by Dutch Lighter(flat bottomed boats. The only trouble was there wasn't any boats and there wasn't any sea - it was worse than Weston-super-Mare. We collected in some sort of oreder when the horrible Stukas began strafing the beaches. When things quietened down I was ordered on stretcher party duties and one of my duties was to lay out chaos wh0 had fallen. I was very thirsty and was told to suck on a pebble, but there was none on that beach.

After finishing my duty I followed the crowd along the beach, hoping for a ship,a boat, a raft or anything and saw a Hospital Ship being loaded. At high tide she got under way. We waved her off thinking to ourselves, lucky beggars, they might be wounded but they'll be back in Blighty before any of us.
Suddenly, out of the bright sunlight came the screaming of Stukas and other German Bombers. The ship was well marked with a massive red cross and we just couldn't beieve it when they made this their primary target. Although our rifles were choked with sand and were like pea shooters against such odds we had a go, but all in vain. When the raid was over the Hospital Ship was a blazing inferno. The cries of the wounded trapped in the fire I can still hear today - we couldn't rescue them, military police came round asking for volunteers to put them out of their misery.
I was next asked to helppush old wagons to the sea edge to form a platform for the boats to tie up to, which I did until nighfall. An officer told us to form up and follow himfurther down the beach. After resting and marching for a very long time, a few of the NCO's reckoned he must be a fifth columnist, questioned him and led him off. We hardly saw any officers, but the next morning someone had a very old battery radio and we were at long last finding out how precarious was our position, when up came this officer, grabs one of the soldier's rifles and smashed the radio up saying " You don't want to hear that BBc rubbish". He was lucky not to be lynched.
Towards the close of the second day and again on the third day I was lucky enough
to get on small boats,on both occasions they were attacked and sunk before we could get away. The second time, I threw my soaking wet greatcoat away because it was weighing me down in the water, but the nights were cold on the beaches so you had to go where the coats had been piled that had been taken off the dead bodies, which wasn't a nice though. This was our third night without food or water and the ships and destroyers seemed to be sunk as fast as they arrrived. Jerry was now shelling at night when the bombers and fighters had packed in - things were indeed looking grim.
In the early evening we were sitting again watching another sunset when something came at terrific speed out of the sea heading straight for us !.Clouds of smoke this thing mingles with the thick pallof smoke from the oil refineries of Dunkirk. Someone shouted "Gas Attack!" and we scrambled for our respirators. After a minute or two we realised that it was a torpedo from one of our destroyers that hadbeen attacked a short time ago, so peace was restored again.
A dozen of us reckoned we'd search our pockets for anything to sustain us and came up with 1/3 of a crumbly cake from me, from home two weeks before, 1 Oxo cube,1 pulverised Cadbury's chocolate bar, a few very dog eared biscuits, a very crushed packet of crisps and a tin of McConochies. These were allmashed together in a mess tin. Allour matches were soaked from standing up to our armpits in seawater for hours on end. A couple of lads tried to get their lighters to work and another was persevering with a magnifying glass and lots of paper and driftwood. Three of us had got some water - not very fresh- and in between raids stirred upthis concoction - it looked revolting, but we all had a spoonful and survived that day!. The motrara and shells pounded the beaches at niht while we were queuing in the water or walking anywhere we thought might be a boat or something to take us back to Blighty.
We aturally used to duck as the shells came screaming over our heads, in spite of some Know it All shouting "It's no good ducking,you never know the one with your name on it" As they finished around dawn the German Air Force took over, so there was no let up. Leaflets were dropped urging us to give up the fight as we and Great Britain were finished. We'd heard rumours of troops being rounded up and shot even though they had shown the white flag, so we didn't trust their promises.
The fourth day was very hazy as i remember with very few Jerry planes worrying us, butalso very few boats getting through, and now we were getting the never to be forgotten stench of hundred of corpses, some nearly a week old. They had been piled up and had makeshift covers to give them some dignity.One lad in our group was a Bing Crosby fan and had around 50 of his records and a HMV gramaphone. He played a few during a lull and then smashed the records with the butt of his rifle saying "So and So Jerrie's not going to have my records". During this time we saw very few NCO's or Officers but with our ages varying from 18 to 30 we were pretty well organised, and kept trying for boats up and down the beach. It was hard to take all the strafing and then see another 50 or so dead and wounded after each attack - with only our rifles to defend us.
Early on the sixth morning two Naval Officers advised us to make for a little wooden jetty which they hoped to use with the next boat. It was to be the last Isle of Man steam ferry Manxman if she mae it. It would be used for wounded, stragglers, and us rearguard (with a lot of if's attached)
IF there weren't too many wrecks to negotiate
IF Jerry didn't attack and sink it
IF the wooden structure held up
IF there was sufficient draught of water
So at 4 a.m. we started climbing on this wreck of a jetty. Nothing, no sign of any ship, our spirits took another nosedive, and then Jerry came out of the blue to have another go at us. Before this long month of May 1940 I had only seen people laid out nicely in coffins, now I was trying to come to terms with headless and limbless torsos, with stomachs ripped open and bodies flung about like rag dolls.
An hour or so after this raid our last big ship came alongside the wooden jetty. We loaded our wounded first, then we were allowd to board and within an hour the sailors had made corned beef sandwiches and a mug of tea, this was our first proper food for six days. Wemust have wolfed it down too fast for we were all sick within minutes.
We lay down wherever we could to be awakened by our Pom Pom's firing at German planes and even though it was midday we were still awaiting stragglers. At last we had enough draught of water and we could sail away to be persued by Jerry. Our last sight of France was an outcrop of land being defended by some loyal French soldiers who'd somehow gpt themselves a crate of drinks and plenty of machine guns. We shouted "Vivela France" and that we'd be back, they in turn saluted us.
Just under four years later, having helped kivk Rommel out of Africa and now serving in Italy, we guessed we'd be landing troops back in France. I had an interview with the C.O. about my chances of going back to Blighty to join them. The C.O. was a nice old boy but he looked at my record of still being around in spite of being called up two days before war was decalred and said "You'd best stay here lad where you're pretty safe, you're pushing your luck a bit if you go back". So I had to stay 'safe' in Italy and within two weeks was in the turmoil of MonteCasino and then Anzio. Ilost a ot of good pals, so much so that I stopped making long term friendships, it seemed so futile.
Anyway we finally struggled through to Dover to find it full up so we went on to Folkestone to be greeted by cheering crowds.
I often wish that this wartime and Dunkirk spirit would return with "Can I Help" instead of the present day theme of "What's in it foe Me".

Driver T/84676 John Davis (R.A.S.C.)

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