My Dads' War - his memories up to the evacuation of Dunkirk

I was called forward to take a medical in May 1939 at the library in Stafford; I came through that with flying colours. I then just had to wait until the call-up papers arrived, which the duly did in July. I was instructed to join the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) at Aldershot on the 15th July 1939 initially to do six months training; however after six weeks we were to be transferred to other units to take part in other work, which the army did. But, the day of passing out the 3rd of September when we where on the parade ground war was declared. The next day we where all split up and everyone went too different units. I went to the First Corps of Ammunition P??. On the Tuesday I was given a lorry, this was because I had been driving virtually since I left school and had passed my driving test in September 1935. On the Wednesday 5th September we set off in convoy we did not know where we were going, we had no clues as the road signs had been taken down. I did have a small advantage as I had some knowledge of the countryside. I was trying to guess our destination as we passed through different towns it became obvious when I recognised Bristol that we where destined for Avonmouth. Here we were to catch a ship to be taken to France. There were so many of us we had to park along side the Avon and only moved forward a short distance at a time. Eventually we got along side of the ships that were to take us to France, the lorries were slung onto the ships with ropes. We then were told to go to another ship that was further down the dockside; all this happed in the dark. Finally all the ships where loaded; and we set sail, at this time we did not know where we were going.

Eventually we ended up in France at Saint Nazaire where we had to disembark and taken to a fleet of waiting lorries. We all climbed onto them and were then driven inland. We where taken to the city of Nantes, where we encamped on the racecourse; here we where issued with one blanket and a ground sheet. After that we then where told to get a meal from the cookhouse, by this time it was getting late so we tried to get some sleep as best we could. Two days later our vehicles where unloaded from the ships, we were taken back to the docks at St Nazaire to pick them up. We then went back to Nantes racecourse for one more night. Next day we set off in convoy my lorry being a six wheeler I had a towrope in case one of the six lorries in our section broke down for me to take in tow, on our way we called in places where a cook house was set up for our company to get a meal then, onto another place to stay the night off the road. As we travelled along the road we missed a lot of towns someone said we could see the Eiffel Tower Paris. Eventually we arrived at a small village where we parked our lorries, all of ‘A’ section where given a big room where we laid our kit side by side this is where we lived from September 1939 to the beginning of May 1940. After we settled down in the village of Cacnisty we settled into a daily routine of keeping the lorries clean, some went to a railway depot where the ammunition arrived by train, which we unloaded and took to an ammunition dump, this was in a small town called Bapaume. It was a long hard winter but we made a lot of friends while we were in the village, it was very quiet so the allowed one lorry a day to take twenty of us to Arras and Douchy me having one of the Army six wheelers with a sheet on I was called on every week to take one of the trips this lorry in the end was called the ‘passion wagon’. We had a very good Christmas in 1939 my pal, his name was T. Rowden mine being J. Ramsell (TR and JR) we got that drunk our corporal (who was a regular soldier in the Army but who was trained as a barber) convinced us to have a hair cut this was done and very short it was too. However, the back of our heads he shaved our initials, to the amusement of the rest of our troop. We carried on having as much fun as possible, in the New Year we started to get leave to come and see our families. I had the luck to get eight days at the end of March to have a very good time with my girlfriend Joan Alcock, going back was awful; having to leave everyone at home again, but back in France we soon settled down to our old routine.

Then, at the beginning of May 1940 the fighting started. So off we went to load up our Lorries with ammunition. Our unit carried what was known as 25lbers; four shells in one box and eight cartridges in another. The weight in my Lorry was totalled at only 3 Tons. The next night we set of in convoy our destination was unknown, we went north over the boarder into Belgium, it was still a very dark night, Civilian refugees were coming in droves towards us, and many had handcarts while some had horse drawn carts. The German aeroplanes where coming and going overhead, then we heard one or two bombs being dropped around us; all of a sudden; the refugees stopped and jumped into the ditches at the side of the roads as the bombs where getting very near. We stopped and everyone was getting off the Lorries and jumping into the ditches as well all at once we could hear ‘switch’ after ‘switch’ as the bombs were being dropped off the planes above us. Fortunately none of them hit us, after it was all quiet everyone got out of the ditches and off we all went. Eventually we arrived at the place we were to make our headquarters. So after that we were split up into our sections, we had six of us I was last in our lot as I had the towrope I was the safety for anyone breaking down. If there was a breakdown I was to tow them along with us. After a couple of trips of ammunition we got back to the rest of the company, they took our corporal off us and gave us another one. They were in charge of us, they had all the instructions of where to take the ammunition to the gun crews. The first trip we took, was going well, thousands of refugees were coming towards us fleeing the Germans. Then all at once the army were moving back towards us as the Germans were advancing towards us. At last we stopped by an officer, we sat in our lorries for a while then my mate and me decided to go to the corporal and his motorbike to see what was going on, the corporal was still talking to the officer with a map, so we got into the conversation with them and found the corporal could not read a map, we were miles away from where we should have been. This upset the corporal so much we picked up his motorbike and put into my lorry that was where it stayed, as my pal and I took over the map reading and finding where the gun emplacements were. We then continued to supply them with ammunition so they could continue the fight with the Germans. Then on the last Sunday in May we were told we were going back to England I put all our pals and some officers in the lorry I drove and set off, we left a rear party behind to smash up our lorries and equipment that we had to leave behind. I drove on towards the coast passing thousands of troops going the same way on foot, all the fields were flooded this was to stop the Germans coming from the flanks. Finally we could go no further along the road I had to stop, every one got off. An officer approached me and asked if I would like to go back and fetch the party that we left behind, I said I would as two of the were good mates of the last nine months. So off I went after having a lot of trouble turning the lorry around with so many men on the road. I arrived back at the camp just as they had finished the job of smashing lorries up they were very pleased to see me again. They all got into the lorry after I had told them what was happening so, after picking up some rations of food that was being left behind, we set off back up the road to where I left the others. On the way we pick up some solders until the lorry was full. When we got as far as we could go the same officer stopped me, told every one to get off, and told me to drive the lorry off the road. The fields either side of the road where flooded so I put the lorry into low (crawler) gear pointed it in the right direction and jumped off and went back and joined my pals. We then walked down the road towards the sea. Then we found out why we had to dump the lorry all the bridges over the ‘chemin du canal’ had been blown up to stop the Germans from getting onto the beaches. The air was filled with aeroplanes British and German flying about non-stop, the Germans where dropping bombs and strafing the beaches, we didn’t know what to do. There where rows of troops all facing the sea and waiting for the little boats to come to the shore to pick up as many as possible then back out to sea to take them to the ships waiting. We ended up at a place called Bray-Dunes, and not Dunkirk, (everybody thinks that the troops where rescued from Dunkirk but that is not true) we were 7 or 8 miles up the coast from Dunkirk. We arrived at the beaches on the morning of Monday 27th May 1940 we walked along the beach not knowing what to do. Eventually we went to a cottage to see if we could find anything to eat but found very little, we sat on the beach all day and tried to get some sleep that was hard because of the constant bombing. I saw one ship out at sea get hit by bombs killing hundreds of troops a lot where drowned as well while they where standing in the water up to there chests waiting to be rescued. Our little crowed kept on walking down the beach then on the night of the 30th May we heard for some one shouting for stretcher-bearers some one from our group volunteered us. We picked up the stretchers and followed the rest onto a jetty, but all at once there was such a bang, shell had hit the jetty, so we had to wait while they put planks across the hole so we could carry on with the poor men on the stretchers. We got to the hospital ship expecting to go on the same ship but they took the stretchers off us and told us to go to another ship further up the jetty. This ship was a warship ‘HMS Malcolm’ when we got on board we where sent down below when we got there we found a fresh loaf, butter and cheese. Just after we got on board we set sail and arrived back at Dover. We disembarked from the ship and where put onto a train and started on the next part of our journey, we did not know where we where going!

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