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DUNQUERQUE CALLING

GILLIAN MCDONALD HOWIE, Antigua, West Indies

Via Barbara Applin, Basingstoke Talking History, 24th January 2006

Dunkirk
My grandmother, Hilda McDonald wrote the following poem which was published, along with photos of some of the rescue craft, in the Antiguan newspaper of that time. She wrote it just after the actual event, which touched her deeply. Both my grandparents, born in Antigua, had a deep love for Britain. My grandfather served with the British forces in both the Boer War and World War 1.

In the 1970s I saw in a Highland newspaper (Scotland) that The Dunkirk Association were due to meet (in Inverness, I think) and I sent it to them and it was consequently printed in a Highland newspaper.

DUNQUERQUE CALLING
A Tribute from Antigua to the Heroes of Dunquerque.

The Little Man鈥檚 Armada
(A Ballad of Dunquerque)

Dunquerque calling! To all who own a boat, 鈥�
And the Navy and the Trawler, and every craft afloat
The Dinghies and the Launches, the Yachtsman and the Clerk
Are steaming, sailing, towing, down the seaway to Dunquerque.

Dinquerque calling! 鈥� through a rain of molten steel,
鈥淔rom sea, and sky, and rampart, Death is loose upon our heel.鈥�
But the Dinghies and the Launches and the Yachtsman and the Clerk,
Through the foam and flame, and cannonade, are racing for Dunquerque.

Dunquerque calling! 鈥� at Hitler鈥檚 boasted might
Our lads upon the beaches hurled defiance through the night.
While the Navy and the Air Force, the Yachtsman and the Clerk
Brought back our men in triumph from the Inferno of Dunquerque.

And for ever and for ever our annals shall recall
How the Little Man鈥檚 Armada took the seas at Danger鈥檚 Call,
How they heard the hail from Dunquerque, and threw their work aside
And took their boats, and took their lives, and ran to catch the tide,
The Soldier and the Sailor, the Yachtsman and the Clerk,
The Airman and the Fisherman 鈥� the Heroes of Dunquerque.

Hilda McDonald

(Sold in aid of the Antigua Aeroplane Fund 鈥� Price 6d.)
Air Marshall Sir Arthur McDonald
Air Marshall Sir Arthur McDonald was my uncle, my father鈥檚 brother, and son of Dr Willie McLachlan McDonald and Hilda McDonald who wrote the Dunquerque poem.

This is an extract from his Obituary, in THE TIMES of July 30th, 1996:

鈥淲hen, on a day in the summer of 1937 the Secretary of State for Air, the Earl of Swinton, paid a visit to Squadron Leader Arthur McDonald at the Biggin Hill Experimental Flight and told him and his two fellow pilots standing by their gauntlet biplanes: 鈥業 hope you young men realise that the whole future of this country depends on the results of what you are doing here鈥�, he was not exaggerating. What was at stake was the future of the air defence of Great Britain. And the experimental programme led by McDonald in 1936-7 proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the principle of radar interception of incoming aircraft, without which the RAF could not have won the Battle of Britain, was possible.鈥�

There was also an interesting Obituary on Uncle Arthur in THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 2nd 1998. The first paragraph reads:

鈥淎ir Marshall Sir Arthur McDonald, a career Royal Air Force Officer who conducted a secret rehearsal of the Battle of Britain three years before the Luftwaffe flew into a well prepared hornet鈥檚 nest that handed Hitler his first defeat and changed the course of World War II, died on July 26th. He was 93.鈥�

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