Dunkirk May 10th - June 4th 1940

My Dad never did talk much about his part in the the War,however as children he would always play cricket and games on the beach with us but would very rarely paddle in the sea.I dont think we would have ever have found out the situation he was in, along with so many of his pals, during the war if my wife, who is a teacher, had not asked him to give a talk to her children on Remberence Day.
This is the story he wrote and used as notes.

Operation Dynamo

On May 10th 1940 British and French troops forming Army Group 1 were stationed in Northern France.

The Germans launched a large scale attack on Holland, Belgium and France.

The British / French army moved into Belgium to try to halt the Germans. We got just beyond Brussels, the capital of Belgium when German superiority became apparent and we began to retreat to keep our front line unbroken.

The civilian population were getting very frightened and began to leave their homes, farms etc, taking what possessions they could carry on lorries, farm carts, bicycles, wheelbarrows and on their own backs. "Refugees". This worked in the Germans favour as it severely limited the speed we could move our convoys.

On May 22nd twelve days from the start of fighting, British soldiers were being encircled at Bologne,Calais and Dunkirk. From that date all troops were put on half rations.

At Bologne 6 British destroyers took off 400 soldiers under heavy enemy fire. Two French destroyers were sunk.

On 25th May 5000 British and French troops were captured.

On 26th May and through the following week every vessel capable of crossing the Channel was ordered to collect men off the French shore, fishing boats, pleasure boats, tugs, lifeboats etc. 299 Warships and 420 other vessels.
Between May 26th and June 4th 338,226 men had been rescued including 120,000 French and Belgians.

When the Germans entered Dunkirk on June 4th they found 2,472guns, 84,427 vehicles and 657,000 tons of ammunition and stores which were we were forced to abandon, much was rendered unserviceable.

I came to a sandy beach at Bray Dunes with a few colleagues on June 1st, spent the night in the sand and on the next morning we saw a rowing boat drifting empty. I waded into the sea up to my neck and brought the boat to shore. About 10 of us climbed in and using rifle butts as paddles made our way to a small Dutch coaster which took us aboard and, heavily overloaded, took us safely to Ramsgate where we disembarked on the fish quay.

Empty trains were waiting for us, we were given a mug of tea and sandwiches and on our way in record time. The docks and railways were to receive those coming after us.

We were now the fortunate ones, we were back in England and reasonably safe but spare a thought for the crews of all those ships who had returned to Dunkirk time and time again until there were no more men to rescue.

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