大象传媒

In 1940 my father, Arthur Gordon Hill, was a 29year old lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and was sent to France as part of the B.E.F.
When the whole front started to collapse he was given orders to start destroying material and stores to stop them being taken by the Germans.
In the chaos that followed they were not told that everybody else was heading for the coast; they eventually realised that they were becoming isolated so with about eight of his men he set out to make there own way back.
The huge numbers of people and vehicles along the roads meant that the journey was getting slower so they had to abandon their vehicle and move away from the roads to make any progress at all. Their aim was to reach the coast near Dunkirk. After a tiring and anxious journey, not knowing where the Germans were, they reached the coast well to the north of Dunkirk about ten days after everybody else had been taken off the beaches. Short of food exhausted and without information or communication, they kept themselves hidden during the daytime and at dusk scanned the sea looking for any ship or boat. On the second day at dusk they saw a small boat cruising off shore, parallel to the beach. My father`s pre-war skills as a Radio Amateur came into good use as he took a torch and signalled in Morse to the boat.After repeated Morse signals a message was flashed back to them on the beach and a Morse conversation took place,eventually establishing indentities and the natural suspicion of the boats captain was overcome.
The craft was an MTB cruising the coast, specifically looking for stray units.
This part of France, fortunately, has very long flat beaches and the MTB was able to get fairly close into the shore. By a mixture of"up to your neck" wading and swimming everybody managed to scramble aboard and all were safely returned to England, twelve days after the Dunkirk evacuation was finished.
Little mention seems to have been made of the efforts and bravery of these MTB and AirSea Rescue craft who continued to patrol after the evacuation and risked a great deal to collect small groups from an enemy held shore.

My father went on to see action in North Africa and the invasion of Italy before returning to the UK.
He did manage to stay in touch with the MTB crew and some of them met up after the war and remained lifelong friends.

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