One Soldier's Dunkirk

30th May 1940
S/150384 Pte W.S. Bailey R.A.S.C.
Room 10
Victoria House
Francis Street
London SW1

Dear mum,
I hope that my telegram of last Sunday did not frighten you when it arrived. Just after I had sent it off I realised it was rather silly to send a telegram. However, I was so delighted to have landed in England that I rushed off to the Post Office as soon as I possibly could. I had come out of Dunkirk the night before, after a series of adventures which made me, more than once, say a quiet goodbye in my mind to everybody and offer up a last short prayer.
When the war started becoming fierce, about three weeks ago, I was in Arras. On Friday morning, May 17th, after a series of air raids on previous nights when incendiary bombs lit up the town and high explosives were wrecking a lot of houses off the main street, suddenly we had the order to move off. Everything was quiet at the time. As a matter of fact I had the morning off and was fast asleep. They gave me five minutes to pack all my kit, which was spread about in several billets all over the town. I collected as much as I could and Stood By with all the others, lined up alongside a column of army lorries which were to take us to our next destination. However, as I think I’ve said before, the Army moves very slowly, and after all the rush packing we did not move off until nightfall. By that time thousands of refugees were pouring into the city from Belgium and Holland, mostly the advance guard, those who had cars — we were to meet with those on foot later.
After travelling all night — a beautiful moonlit night ripe for air raids — we arrived at Boulogne. I imagined our stay there would be fairly permanent, for our big bugs began to get out all their apparatus and dig themselves in as if for a lengthy stay. We were right up on the hill overlooking the city and the sea. Some of the fellows were bathing. On the second day I wrote a letter home in the cool of the evening asking for my bathing trunks — I think some Germans must be chuckling over that letter by now. For we were there only few hours more when we abandoned absolutely everything and made off again. On our first night in Boulogne we had had a small air raid, nothing to speak of — a few explosives were dropped on the airport and the anti-aircraft guns were going. On the morning after that night, however, a very crafty-looking German reconnaissance plane appeared overhead and was fired on. They did not succeed in bringing him down and he made off quite leisurely with an air of having something up his sleeve. A few hours later twenty three big bombers came swinging in from the Channel. We thought they must be British. They circled round and everyone got on with his dinner (we were having dinner out in an open field). Suddenly down came the Fuehrer’s regards on all sides. It was terrible, the first really serious attack I had experienced. They dropped dozens of high explosive bombs, backwards and forwards, up and down, back and across again, as if trying to destroy absolutely everything in a certain marked area below them. Everyone has to lie absolutely flat and still and everyone must chance completely to luck as to whether anything hits him or not. The most terrifying thing is listening to the whine of the bomb (if it is near enough) as it leaves the aeroplane and falls through the air. You know, as you listen breathlessly to the sound, that it must land somewhere fairly near you, but how near you cannot tell until the thing finally lands and bursts. I heard that sound only six time altogether after that, but each time I almost certain it was for me. And just to lie down and wait to be killed is not nice at all.
After that raid several of the officers decided to move their stuff father on, but a few of us were left behind. We knew the bombers would be back again. They came that night. Then the whole outfit decided to move. (The R.A.S.C. is armed only with rifles and this is no defence against bombing planes — we are what is called a “non-fighting” regiment, and as the Germans began to swing round towards the coast after taking Arras, the bulk of the regiments were ordered to retire slowly.)
From Boulogne (which by that time was absolutely stuffed full with refugees) we travelled all night along the coast again to a small place just beyond Calais. Calais itself was burning when we passed through it. Any kind of regular work was now impossible and main business of the day for us was scrounging rations and finding places to sleep, all the while wondering what was going to happen next and hearing the wildest rumours from the refugees who crowded on the road in thousands. We moved into a farm by the side of a canal near Gravelines. I was dished out with fifty extra rounds of ammunition and told to patrol the road leading into Calais, to direct the refugee and Belgian military traffic and to deal with parachutists, who by this time were dropping about all over the place, like “blacks” from a big fire. However, none of them dropped my way.
I came off that patrol at dusk and as I turned in under a haystack I was told to relieve the guard at midnight. [LINE BLACKED] I never did that guard, however. I had had about half an hour’s sleep when the guard that I had to relieve went round and awoke the Colonel. A despatch rider had arrived with an urgent message. About five minutes later everyone was pulled out of “bed.” We were all lined up (there were fifty three of us), half dazed with sleep, and the Colonel came out and told us quietly that he had just received reliable information that five kilometres (about three miles) down the road, there were four 70-ton enemy tanks approaching. We had alternatives — either to try to cross the canal and await them with a part of our main forces from the opposite bank, or organise the farm ourselves for our own defence. It was decided much to my personal relief, to cross the canal. Once we were across, we loaded our rifles and deployed along the roadside to await the tanks. All that night, half asleep and wet and cold, we lay down in the grass and watched. But nothing happened. The tank rumours must have originated from a scared refugee, for we saw nothing at all, except that Calais was still burning in the far distance and bombs were dropping from the air all around, but well out of range.
In the morning, however, we were told that the advanced Germans were well on the way beyond Calais, and another move was decided on. We moved right up beyond Gravelines to a small place a few miles from Dunkirk. The sun was blazing down and we had not been there ten minutes before the German bombers were on top of us and we were all flat on our tummies again. We stayed there a few breathless hours and then moved on into Dunkirk itself.
Dunkirk was the real hot spot. We were there one whole day, and it seemed like six months. The air raid alarm sounded at six in the morning and the “all clear” went at half past eight at dusk. All that time, without a pause, the Germans were dropping tons of high explosive bombs upon us, and our only shelter was trees. The town was in ruins. Houses that were left standing were deeply pitted all over the walls with machine-gun bullets, where the raiders swooped low and opened fire on the streets. It was the docks mainly that they were aiming for, and towards the end of the afternoon we were ordered to “proceed” into the docks in small parties in single lorries. As our party wheeled round into the main dock a load of bombs came falling all around us. We tumbled out of the lorry into a nearby shed with ruined walls and a scrap-iron yard at the back. As we flung ourselves down a bomb landed right in this yard, blew out the door leading from our shed and brought down a shower of glass from the part of the glass roof overhead that was still standing. I escaped with nothing but a bad shock and a cut across the back of the head. I am solemnly thankful that that bomb was not five yards nearer. Between that raid and the next (about two minutes later) we dodged quickly into the main sheds of the docks, and there we were fairly safe, for there was a good shelter right on the quayside. There we had to wait for the boat that was to evacuate us. The worst part of the day was still to come — getting on board the ship while they were bombing it. Luckily there was an extraordinary lull in the raids about dusk and our little party were able to charter a special little coal steamer and give them the slip before they came back. The sky was still clear, the moon was coming up, and from somewhere up in the town on the slope of the hill the “all clear” siren sounded. It seemed impossible to believe. It was dark before we slipped out of the harbour, for we had to wait for the tide, and by that time a few of the bombers had come back, but the bombing was not so violent as it had been during the day, and everything fell quite wide of us. Dunkirk itself was on fire in many places. At last, at about eleven o’clock, we sailed right out of the harbour. But they had not yet finished with us. As we got out to sea a solitary plane began to drop bombs at us, all around, but we were so small that he must have found us a poor target, and he soon went away. Farther out to sea we had another shock. The Germans were in possession of the Calais shore batteries and they trained their searchlights full on to us and began to shell us. Things were bursting all around; but we seemed to have a charmed life and slowly chugged away out of range. I managed to fall asleep, in the coal bunkers.
When we landed in Dover, we all looked horrible. I had not had a shave for three days and was black from head to foot with the coal. My nerves were all on edge and every little noise was an enemy bomber to me. I am getting over it pretty quickly, however, and hope to have a few days’ leave soon. It all seems so peaceful here, but I have an idea that it will not be for long. They have followed us about wherever we have gone and they will follow us here.

Yours,
Walt

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