Mayhem in the Dunes, Part II

Well now, having returned to the Beach in some sort of order, it was obvious that there were pockets of men adrift from their units and as we had been together in one cluster of RA men, the Beachmaster prevailed on our CO Col. Hunt to make use of us as Beach Control. This meant supervising columns of men embarking on small ships and craft directly from the beach. Day and night we stayed at our spot, a stretch of phosphorescent, cold and damp sand, standing and lying during daylight hours subject to the continual and regular air attacks.

The lines of soldiers stood as if in a queue at the ticket office before a football match, right down to where the boats could come in and the first man in the line was always up to his neck in the sea before he was hauled into the boat. We fulfilled our duty here for three days when Col.Hunt came stumping up the shore and said, “We’ve done our stuff lads, now we are off, it’s our turn”.

We lined up and marched from Bray Dunes to the town of Dunkirk. The Colonel with drawn revolver allowed no one to pass us and so we reached the Pier. Nothing was silent...the Beano [boy’s comic mag] would have described it as ‘Boom, Splat,Zip’.

There was the clatter of machine guns, the diving Stukas pounding the sand and then the arrival of the shells. These exploded quite near and caused us to take cover wherever. At the entrance to the Pier lay many wounded and dying men. My friend Frank Cheeseman, like me a Benenden man, who was in the RASC and did great work looking after these poor fellows, survived.

As I dashed and dived under a wrecked army truck, I found the Col. also lying flat. He had served in the Great War gaining an MC [Military Cross] and now he addressed me. “O’Donovan”, he said,”this is more than flesh and blood can stand”. What could I do but agree that this week had been enough! “Yes, sir”, I mumbled.

“Listen to that “, he shouted as a salvo of shells passed overhead (thankfully) like high speed trains whining and whistling...Bang, Crash, Thump...as they landed further down the shore. More and more came and the Colonel said, “You know these[meaning shells]?” I had to admit that they were new to me and so he continued “They are 5.9s. We had a dose of them in 1915 and we called them ‘Whistling Dicks’”.

There was a lull, so we both scrambled out, rejoined our comrades and rallying behind the Col. marched on to the Pier. It was a very long pier and stood about twenty feet above sea level. Unfortunately, the enemy had found the range and had battered great holes in it, killing and injuring hundreds. The boarding of the gangway had been smashed away but had been rather clumsily repaired with baulks of timber and tram lines.

The pier CO, a Naval Officer, reported that no ships had been able to berth overnight because of the sinkings in the harbour and so we had to return to the beach to spend yet another day and night huddled in the dodgy dunes! The dawn of next day saw us back on the Pier again which was still under shell fire and bombing. The thick black smoke continued to darken the skies as it had done for the last ten days as the enemy hammered the oil storage tanks.

As I said, the Pier was a good way above the waterline and when we arrived at the point designated by the Pier CO, there far below us lay an old trampship, already full of troops, onto which we were required to drop. This in itself was worthy of a decoration and we landed on unfortunate souls who complained bitterly not only because of the thumping they received, but because the chilly waters were lapping over the gunwales!

We waited and waited until at last the Skipper arrived. He had been seen leaving one of the wrecked cafés along the front. There was drink to be had in the cellars of these bombed shacks, the Mate said. Whilst awaiting to slip lines, a flight of Heinkel 110s came in to attack. Like silver, aerial sharks they glided above us and let loose a clutch of bombs which thankfully missed. And why? Well, this little sailor next to me who was manning an Oerlikon Cannon, insecurely fixed to the deck, sent up a shower of shots around them. He had made me his No.2..loader of the cylindrical canister containing the ammo...a naval action!

The glassy-eyed Skipper started up the engines and off we went out into the open waters of the Channel. A thick fog had come down and through this we steamed to dear old England, that is until the engine broke down! We floated listlessly for a while and there was a buzz of anxious questioning. The Skipper boosted our moral by announcing that the boiler had burst. We were in the Doldrums and an easy target for the enemy as soon as the fog cleared. Bobbing up and down we became aware of a drumming noise ahead and out of the gloom emerged a grey prow, perilously close. It was the destroyer HMS Whitehall.

As the scrambler nets were heaved over the side we were informed to keep clear. As we had dropped twenty feet from the Pier, we now had to climb twenty feet to board the man-of-war which was not as easy.

“Careful as you come and only jump when the ships are closing”, we were advised by the Officer. And so it was, grab the net and climb up fast! The Jolly Tars dragged us aboard and a great job they made of it too. A sailor gave me a tin of corned beef (without the opener!) and a mug of tea. Next came bread and butter, all these comforts so welcome after fasting for so many days. Being aboard a naval vessel gave us a great sense of security. The Whitehall turned and made her way out of the bay steaming across the Channel in fine style. Soon the smoking, black remains of Dunkirk began to recede as we looked forward to the White Cliffs of Dover.

We disembarked at Dover Marine and were funneled along towards a lengthy train into which we gratefully threw ourselves...home at last. The train stopped at Paddock Wood where we were treated to drinks and cakes administered by the WVS and WI. We were also given half a telegram form to notify our next-of-kin that we had arrived.
On we went to Winchester Station and thence to the Guards Depot where we freshened up (and did we need it...no shave or bath for a fortnight) and were fed once again this time by the ATS girls. Billetted in Barracks, we slept exceedingly well!

Next day we were addressed by an Officer of the High Command who said, “You men have just come back from Hell! We are going to give you a good feed, a game of football....and send you back! Then you’ll see the arses of the Bastards!”

He was an optimist...it took nearly five more years! (June 2nd 1940).

Epilogue:

338,226 men were rescued by 222 Naval vessels and 800 civilian craft.

68,000 men were killed, wounded or missing and the equipment of an entire army abandoned.

6 British and 7 French destroyers were sunk.
1 troopship was mined and 171 ‘Little Ships’ damaged.

“The Navy’s here, we will get you back..hold on” Our sincere thanks are due to the late Admiral Sir Bert Ramsey and his men. The Naval Service and the brave civilian rescuers saved the Army, saved the Country and eventually won the war. We do not forget our comrades in the RAF whose defence of us necessarily had to take place some distance from the beaches and whose fuel supplies reduced the time of attack. Airfields in England were about sixty miles away.

377 enemy aircraft were destroyed for the loss of 87 RAF planes.

The most miserable time for me was not as you may think; the dead soldiers, the drowned men, the severely wounded, dead horses and cattle or the destruction of decent towns, but the pitiful plight of the Refugees. Sometimes they were plodding north and the following day they could be seen heading south. Some had old bicycles loaded down with bedding, some had even an old car with some petrol and full with family and friends. Horses and carts slowly dragged along in this dismal cortege. Old cars were being pulled by one old horse and were piled high with furniture. Old people and children wandered as though in a dream yet all of them seemed to be alert to the sound of merciless death from the skies...and the ditches were witness to their murder. We all found this experience most distressing.

“Faithful unto Death” is a famous painting of the Roman sentry at the gate to Pompeii.

Coming through a small hamlet in Belgium, we stopped for a rest. The road through the houses had been barricaded with an overturned farm wagon, a couple of ancient gates and standing at the gap was a young British soldier with a rifle. He told me that he was nineteen years old and was defending this entry.When I asked him how much ammunition he had, he replied, “Five rounds”. What hope had he against an armed motor cyclist or a tank?

I said to him, “Why don’t you get on the truck with us?”, to which he replied that his Officer had told him to stay there...and so we left him.

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