大象传媒

My father was 35 and the father of six children when he volunteered in the army because work was hard to find in Yorkshire. Within a few weeks of training he was sent to france with the expeditionary forces who were subsequently forced back to the beaches at Dunkirque. He did not make it back to the beach as he was too far in-land and was ordered to make his way south with a group to try to escape. when they reached Boulogne my father was wounded in the back of the head and was taken prisoner. He was treated in a local hospital then moved to a larger hospital in Brugge where they repaired the damage with a metal plate in the head. He was then moved to a POW camp Stalag V111b on the polish border near Krakow where he stayed untill he was repatriated in 1944. He never spoke of his experiences but I know that he suffered mental trauma for years after that but just had to "get on with it". As a young teenager I did not fully understand my father and had many disagreements but now after seeing the films on tv of those years and with age I now see that I did my father an injustice in what I thought of him. In the same way I do not think that those men and boys who did not make it back to the beaches of Dunkerque have been given the recognition that they deserve over the last 65 years.

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