大象传媒

My husband was in Dunkirk and before that he had been fighting in France. He was with the Royal Artillery, he was a gunner. When he came out, we got married; we got married during the war. We moved out of our house and he was going on leave. My mother took this house on the Limestone Road, because of a neighbour of hers, and he came home that weekend and we were married just like that! He stayed for 2 days 鈥� it was arranged beforehand that when he got leave we would be married. My mother had just moved into this house and word came to say that he would be arriving on the Sunday so you should have seen us trying to get the carpets down in the house and the rest of it!

When he came out of Dunkirk, they sent him home for a wee bit of a rest and then he went back again. He had lost all of his company at Dunkirk. There was only him and he was with 4 other English people and they got into this cellar and were there for 4 days without any water or food. They were on their own, the machine guns were all around them and they had only rifles so they couldn鈥檛 go out. He said on the fourth day, they had a peep out and didn鈥檛 this officer spot them and he came and said 鈥渨ho鈥檚 down there?鈥� So they identified themselves, and he said 鈥渃ome on and follow me, there鈥檚 a boat in鈥� So they got up and walked over all the dead soldiers, and he said it was packed. They got onto the boat and the bombs were going on this side and the other side and the wee boat just went straight out, and arrived in England to his surprise. They thought they would never get out of there. The other 4 men with him escaped as well.

Well then he took appendicitis and had to be transferred into hospital and when he got out they put him in an English regiment and he went to Norway. Peace had come then, so he was just on guard there. War had stopped but everything had to be quietened down. After we were married, it was about six or seven months before I saw him again.

Then he got demobbed. Although he never talked much about what he went through in the army. Some fellow who was doing something in Queens University came and asked him would he talk about the army. He was looking for somebody who had been in the forces before the war started, and that鈥檚 why I heard all that. The only thing he always said was 鈥淚 got through Dunkirk and never even got my feet wet!鈥� That was true 鈥� They got out of that cellar and walked onto the boat!

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