大象传媒

My father, George 鈥淢ick鈥� Straughen, who died last year aged 85, was at Dunkirk with the 9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. He said it was absolute chaos. The worst thing were the Stuka dive bombers which, unlike today鈥檚 military jets, flew quite slowly and had the ability to 鈥渢urn on a sixpence鈥� and come back time and time again to bomb the beach. Lots of the little rowing boats being used to ferry the men out to the waiting ships were capsized in the water. Most of the soldiers had no experience of boats and were trying to turn them over by pushing from the side which unfortunately made them fill up with water and many then sank. The officers were seeking out anyone who might know what to do. As the village where Dad lived is on the banks of the River Tweed and the main occupation at that time was salmon net fishing, he and most of his comrades 鈥� some of them fishermen - were familiar with rowing boats. They went forward and showed the others how to push the boats from the end so that when they flipped over most of the water would drain out. Having righted one of these boats, Dad jumped in and was then brought back to England by a vessel called the 鈥楧undalk鈥� - which I think was out of Belfast.

One would have thought that experiencing the horrors of Dunkirk would be the worst that would happen to him, but Dad was later shipped out to Singapore just before it fell to the Japanese. He was captured and spent 3.5 years as a POW. He worked on the infamous Burma-Siam Railway and endured brutally cruel treatment by the Japanese. Despite all this, being an ingenious man, he managed to fashion much-needed surgical equipment and utensils out of any bits of tin he could lay his hands on. Dad said he always believed that he would return home one day. When he did, he weighed just 6 stone. He was a brave and courageous man with a great sense of humour which no doubt sustained him throughout his many ordeals.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.