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My Experience at Dunkirk

We were dug in a wood in Belgium a few miles below the Albert Canal, when we got the order to move down to the coast. The narrow roads were jammed up with many “civvies”, horses and cattle so we could not go any further. We had to abandon the Recovery Leyland we were travelling in, after demobilising and destroying it. At that point a little old French lorry came along driven by a soldier who said we could get aboard, there were four or five of us. The floor of the lorry was all sand bags and we set off until we came to a road alongside a canal at which German guns in a wood were shelling the road. The driver stopped and said we would “run the gauntlet” and try and time the shells landing. We set off and got down the straight road when there was a loud explosion. We carried on until we could go no further and climbed out over the short wooden sides of the lorry. All our lads got off with the exception of “Snakey Wells” a member of the L A D (Light Aid Detachment). He was laid next to a dead soldier whose head had been badly wounded and whose “blood, snot and brains” had covered “Snakey’s” legs and trousers. He was never the same after that.

We walked a few miles into Dunkirk Harbour Square and took refuge in a cellar, but it was getting bombed so we got out and walked a fair distance to the beach. The beach was full of service men from all countries. We tried to scoop out the sand to lie in and from there on we prayed and prayed hard. I remember two or three of us getting to the badly damaged “mole”, but we eventually got on a destroyer H.M.S. Jaguar as I remember it. It was then bombed and we had to get aboard H.M.S. Express, another destroyer but we had also to get off that and finished up in a fishing boat “Riga”, as I recall it. The vessels were being “Straffed” and “shelled” at, but we got to Ramsgate eventually. They would not let us in the harbour the Boom was across.

We were in a temporary camp in Oxford and everyone got 24 hours leave. When I was due to go the next morning, I heard over the grapevine that all leave was cancelled. So I sneaked out of the camp to Oxford Station and locked myself in a toilet until the train was due. I got away with it until I reached Nelson station, where my Dad was waiting on the platform with a telegram telling me to return at once. I didn’t and went down “The Imp” (Imperial Ballroom) that night. I re-met Marjorie and took her home, eventually I married her and thank God I re-met her. We were married for 55 years.
I returned to camp the next day.

MR J. WARD.
7, Appleby Drive, Barrowford, Lancs. BB9 6EX Tel: 01282 612110

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