大象传媒

My father was part of the British Expeditionary Force which was sent over to France in January 1940. He and six other men walked 70 miles from St Omer to Dunkirk; they split up into two groups of four and three men to have more chance of getting through enemy territory. The reason they weren鈥檛 with a unit at that stage was because they had been sent on reconnaissance, and on their return, found their unit had already left for Calais! The main body of the unit of 500 men were ambushed on their way to Calais and most of them were killed, including the leader of his unit, Lt Col. Prestige, who was 鈥榮hot to ribbons鈥�, according to later reports. So he felt he had a pretty lucky escape, and was eventually evacuated from Dunkirk with the other 338,000 men.
After the experience of losing nearly 500 men and equipment, it was decided to make the units much smaller, about 70 men to a unit, to avoid a repeat occurrence.

According to his medical records, he became sick soon after landing in France and was treated first at No. 5 casualty clearing station (13 days) and then at No.1 General hospital (14 days).
Notes from the No. 5 casualty clearing station on his transfer to the hospital:
*Meningitis carrier & Klebe-Loeffler carrier*
Developed headache and temperature rising to 103掳. Swab gives a few Klebe-Loeffler bacilli and meningococci. The attack of temperature etc. was due to a little epidemic we had in our isolation houses affecting patients and orderlies. None of the others showed Klebe-Loeffler bacilli in throat and Private McElholm had no clinical symptoms of diphtheria. We are sending him down because of lack of accommodation here鈥�.

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