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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Marcus Heald (´óÏó´«Ã½ Guide) on behalf of Mr. Bunton and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

February 1940

It is Wednesday the 14th and we are nearing the end of one of the worst winters known. I am about to leave the wife and kiddies to go into the army, the Coy has been formed by R.G. Tarran builders of Hull, and the name of it is 694. Tarran Artisan Works Coy R.E. Not unlike the rest of the men I am feeling sad at heart and sorry to leave my loved ones, but the deed has been done and I have no option. I leave home with seven pence in my pocket having been out of work for six weeks through the frost and snow.

Arriving at Paragon Station we are greeted there by Mr R.G. Tarragan and Hull Daily Mail Press Photographer, we leave Hull at 10.30 am full of spirits for Clacton on Sea playing my piano accordion, to the boys singing, arriving at Clacton at 6 pm we march up to Butlin’s Camp and have our drill in civilian clothes for three days, then we are fitted with our khaki and given more drills including gas drill, on the 24th we leave at 4 am for Margate and arriving at 5 pm after passing through London, we are billeted in private house. I am with Harry Diller at number 94 Grovener Place and the landlady is a Scotch woman who is very nice to us two. After a few parades on the sands I am given a job in the Mess Room at the casino. Not a bad job either, as I finish at 4 pm, and have the evenings spent at the ‘Cirque Port Public House’ where I play the Accordion for a week for £1. Out of this I send ten shillings home to the wife god bless her. In out last few days here we are given rifles and inoculations and taken for route marches with full pack to get used to the weight. On the 11th March we entrain for Southampton waters. At 2.30 am the 12th we are off in a convoy to ‘Le Harve’ France and arrive at 9 am on the 13th. We stay in an old cattle station until 7 pm and from there we march down to the main station and board the train for Epernay, and what a journey, 48 hours packed like herrings in the French trains, I believe they have square wheels.

Then to the crown things we are billeted in an old barn, overrun with rats. On the 21st we leave the god forsaken place and take lorries to Reims which is only two hours and a better billet in an old Catholic Chapel. I do miss the wife, in fact I am lovesick. We are in a little suburb of Reims called St Brice and everybody is put to work at their own trades. I am placed at the Champagne Pommery down in the Vaults amongst the Champagne. One day some of the boys decide to break into a 500 Gallon drum of the real stuff, and I do get drunk and I am drunk for three days. I get some to take home for the wife but seeing leave is far off I share it amongst the boys.

After 8 weeks at St Brice we get the orders to move as things are getting too hot. It is Saturday and we are to move at 9 pm, but the Jerrys have a raid on and what a sight. For the last week we have been pestered by parachutists and dive bombers, but not as bad as this. 24 Hienkles are at it with earnest and there is only one French fighter to cope with them. I see him get three of them down in a few minutes and anti aircraft guns account for one direct hit, exploding him to smithereens. We move overnight to Augerville and stay there for a peaceful week before being transferred to C.R.E. East Headquarters dispatch riding to the front line and back riding up to 300 miles a day. One day my back tire burst not far from the Jerrys, I am picked up and taken to a place called Aunglane a R.A.S.C. dept. But they can do nothing for me. So after trying to sleep overnight through real air raids I go to a place 30 miles away in a staff car to pick the best tyre and inner tube I can find from an old dump at Bargon, anyway luck stays with me, for I leave a partly ruined town at 2pm and arrive safely back. I have to continue the same run and by god it is hot fighting up there at Troyus on the 31st May I am relieved to hear that we have to be ready to move at 3 am 1st June for Cloyes and that I have to deliver a special at St. Helai this means that I have to leave the convoy and find my own way back to their destination, luck still holds out and I get to Cloyes in time for tea. The place is alive with refugees just like the rest of the roads. Some walking, some cycling, some on farm carts, and some in cars. They are dying on the road side in dozens, what with not getting a letter from the wife and seeing sights like this and riding night and day without sleep I am feeling sick and worried.

694 Coy are at Morree and they have an air raid that is not comfortable. Two men at the R.A.F. Aerodrome are injured, one fatally and the other serious. I get an evening off first in three weeks and met two weary and worn men. They are the only two left out of an E. Yorks Battalion that was coming over a bridge that was blown up, the rest were killed and taken prisoner.

Paris is falling fast to the Jerrys and we are not to far away, all of the convoys move off with a minutes notice and leave us till the last being the Head Quarters including the R.A.F., the telephone is forever buzzing and we are itching to be off. One wonders what is to happen to us all.

On the 14th June we got orders to move off in the morning. I have got to be ready at 5 am, the first off to be a body guard to Major Hill and Captain Phillips, we cover 200 miles non stop to Nates and the place swarmed with troops all expecting to go to Blighty, 676 Coy have sent a dispatch rider and he is 48 hours overdue so I have to go for it. When I arrive they found him dead by the roadside message missing but cycle is left with him.

Arriving back I get orders to join my own Coy. No one knows exactly where they are so I have to find them myself. Finding them we are rushed into a wood where everything has to be dumped. Thousands of pounds worth, it is a shame. I never was so well off for food so I pick the best out as it is dumped. This is the 15th June and all being well we are going to the docks at St NaZaire, but we have to lay out in the fields all night as Jerry is giving us hell. There are thousands of troops laid all about but for all this there is only one casualty. One of the A.M.P.C. boys is hit with shrapnel. At 5 pm we move off down the road to our destination. We board a destroyer which proves to be a success, but Jerry attacks us upon the sea just as we were about to board a troop ship called Oronsay of Glasgow and a bomb blows up on top of the bridge killing the wireless operator. The destroyer fires a shot and gets him down but there aew others and we have to move quickly. A few minutes after boarding we are attacked again, one of the planes scores a direct hit on the Lancastrian five hundred yards away. One bomb down the funnel and one amidships and in ten minutes she is gone.

There are 6,000 troops aboard her and we only save 1,300 of them. It is a sad sight seeing so many men struggling in the sea, and the worst of it is that the water is thick with oil andJerry is Machine gunning them, one thing that will stick in my mind forever is seeing 6 men clinging to barrel singing ‘roll out the barrel’ under fire from machine guns. Another is a sailor clinging to the forward deck firing a Bren Gun at Nazis, going down with the ship. ‘what a hero’ game to the last. We are far from safe for he is continuously bombing us for 3 hours, the nearest is 10 foot from us causing us to spring our plates and taking in water. After our gunner has fires his last shot, Jerry clears.

God must be looking after us and we all hand in our ammunition to feed two Lewis guns up forward. It is peaceful now and we are moving along nicely. 6 men die from wounds and are buried at sea, there is a general role call to see how many men are missing. All our Coy are present and we hand over all our spare cloths to survivors, some of whom are naked. I learn that C.R.E. East was on the doomed ship and that only 5 of them are saved. It is fate that Lieutenant Morris sent for me, or else I would have no doubt been one of the unlucky ones.

I have only God to thank. There were some women and children aboard also. Only a woman, husband and a child were saved.

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