Escape from Dunkirk

My father, as a soldier in the 9th DLI was part of the rearguard action, after the collapse of the allies in France, trying to hold back the German Army as rescue plans were formulated for the BEF. Unfortunately, after coming out of the line, he was wounded by a mortar explosion which meant he couldn't walk. Colleagues somehow managed to get him down to the beach at Dunkirk but then had to leave him. Fortunately, two passing sailors picked him up and took him aboard their ship, a destroyer and deposited him on the deck as the ship's surgeon tried to get around to the wounded and give, at least, some first aid. My dad counted himself lucky as a hospital ship which he should have been taken on was actually bombed and sunk. He also said that the chaos had to be seen to be believed although there appeared to be little panic.
On arrival in Dover he realised that no one was talking to him and it turned out that somehow everyone thought he was Norwegian.(he had very blonde hair and, by this time, a fairly large beard growth. All this time, we had no idea where he was as we had merely had a telegram saying he was "wounded in action" and, as the news from the BBC went from bad to worse, we feared the worst. Our town was a stronghold of the TA and the telegram boys were much in evidence delivering the bad news. It apweared at the time that the local regiments, the 9th DLI and Tyneside Scottish had been wiped out. Something, as it turned out, which was almost true.
Some time late. we learned that my father had been sent to Shotley Bridge Hosital which, incredibly, was only a few miles from where we lived. I still have a lasting impression of the hospital, when we were allowed to see him. Every inch of space was crammed with military casualties. Such were my father's injuries, he was invalided out of the army.
As a footnote, all through the war, we had people turning up at our front door asking if my father had seen this one or that one. Years later my dad told me he knew what had happened to many, but didn't have the heart to tell their relatives.
The whole story is too long to tell here but the British were, thanks to the fortitude of it's people, incredibly lucky

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