My grandad gave me a "worms eye view" of the debacle.

My Grandad, Jack Stack, was a regular army soldier in the early 1930s.

At this time he was stationed in Eygpt, and drove a certain Bernard Montgommerys' staff car, well before he became famous.

At the start of WW2 my grandad was called up from the reserves and was sent to france with the BEF.

He drove supply trucks.

He had a poor opinion of the equipment that the BEF was equipped with and believed that the Germans would be a far tougher opponent than people gave them credit for.

When the Germans launched their attack on the low countries, he moved north into Belgium. The locals cheered on the advancing British troops.

A few days later the Germans launched their thrust through the Ardennes.

My Grandad told me that the first inkling that something was wrong was one night when he could see shell flashes coming from the front he knew about (to the North) and to the south of his position (the site of the German Panzer breakthrough heading for the channel).

There should have been no gunfire from that direction!

He realised that the Germans were cutting the BEF from France, and that things were going more badly than they had been told.

The next few days saw the BEF retreat

The crowds that had cheered them a few days on were now looked sullen and terrified.

He felt that they had been been let down by the Allies.

He got dive bombed while sheltering in a house, and covered with plaster.

One night he came to a bridge and was going to cross when he and his mate got the funny feeling that something was wrong.

He turned back.

This was a lucky escape, the Germans were on the other side of the bridge!

He ferried men back to the beaches in his truck.

Apparently he continued to do this voluntarily for some time after the rest of his unit had ceased moving.

While on the last leg of the retreat he watched part of the BEFs rearguard digging in, they had only rifles and Bren guns (a light machine gun).
No anti tank weapons were available.

He saw the BEFs artillery firing in support of the infantry.

He knew that the Germans had plenty of tanks, that the rearguard would be wiped out.

He was totally exhausted when he was finally ordered to render his truck unserviceable.

He slept for the best part of a day.

When he woke up he found out that his unit had left him behind, they could't wake him up.

He observed the Stukas diving vertically in their attack runs, and the Germans shelling of the beaches.

He thought that the BEFs anti aircraft guns were useless, as they did'nt seem to destroy many German aircraft, or deter their attacks.

He heard the cries "stretcher bearer!" whenever someone was wounded, he told me he heard that call many times.

He tried to get on a small boat he found at the edge of the beach.

It had a hole in it and sank, so he got soaked.

Eventually he worked his way onto the mole, at night.

An officer shined a light at him from a torch.

He told the Officer in charge who he was. But they did'nt believe him, because his unit had already gone.

They detained him to one side of the queue.

They thought he was a German fifth columnist!

He decided to make a break for it when the officer in charge turned out the spotlight - he reasoned that he would not be able to see properly in the dark for a few seconds.

Next time the officer turned his light off my grandad jumped into the queue of troops heading onto the mole.

Someone asked him he he was- my grandads reply was "shut up and keep moving".

When he got on board the ship he headed down to the engine room to dry his clothes out.

Again the exhaustion caught up with him, and he fell asleep on his feet in the engine room.

When he arrived back in England he informed the others of his unit what he thought about them not waking him up!

He also had to go through the process of proving who he was.

My Grandad died in 1991.

He was always proud of the part that Britain played in the war, because we were able to turn the defeat at dunkirk into final victory.

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